Text: Luke 23:26-32
26 As they led him away, they seized Simon from
Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and
made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed
him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned
and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for
yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you
will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the
breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then "'they will say to the
mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!"' 31
For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when
it is dry?"
The
way in…
Do you ever go
for walks? I usually don’t want to go
for walks but I’m never sorry I did so.
It’s great to be outside, to pay attention to the neighborhood and to
let the kids get out of the house and burn off some energy. Another cool thing about walks are the people
you meet. Walking, as opposed to
driving, puts you in a place of vulnerability which has its risks, but also
creates space to meet people.
Think for a
second about the people you have encountered while walking. Perhaps it is that neighbor who you rarely
talk to. Perhaps it was an elderly lady
sitting on her porch. Maybe it was a
group of teenagers that felt threatening until they picked up the handkerchief
you dropped and gave it back. Who have
you met while walking?
Jesus went for
a walk, it was to be his final one, in a sense.
But he was walking not with New Balance shoes or a fanny pack or a
backpack or binoculars. Nor was he walking
for exercise or to get groceries or to spot birds to add to his list. No, Jesus was walking with a beam of wood
over his shoulder. Jesus' walk was
different from ours, however, like us, Jesus did meet some people along the
way.
Simon
“As they
led him away, they,” we can only assume that the “they” is the Roman
soldiers, “they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was on his way in from the
country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.” Have you spent much time thinking about this
guy Simon? The poor guy travels over a 1000 miles from Cyrene which is in N.
Africa in what is modern day Syria, most likely with his family. The festival of passover has brought them
this far and it was likely a trip like going to Disneyland. Then when he arrives in the Magic Kingdom,
instead of Mickey and Goofy, he meets Roman soldiers and instead of a parade
with Cinderella he encounters a beaten man struggling to carry a slab of
wood. And instead of remaining just one
of the crowd, he is singled out and forced to finish carrying that cross to the
hill. And just like that Simon, who
likely had never heard of Jesus, becomes the first one to do what Jesus had
said was required of those who wished to be his disciples. He picked up the cross and followed Jesus.
I had a whole
parable written about Simon, but for sake of time, I'll save that for another
day. Instead I want to invite you to
consider this prayer I came across yesterday written by Edward Hays.
The
road to life is crowded
with
those carrying crosses -
those
who have been flogged and abused
by
old age, poverty or alcohol,
by
a poor education, drugs or crime
when
I see them pass my way,
do
I hide – playing a spectator -
or
do I freely step forward
adding
it to mine,
as
did Simon of Cyrene?
It is a
challenge to do as missionary John Carden writes, “to insert the reality of the
cross into the tissues of this life,” but Simon of Cyrene gives us help. This encounter of Jesus on the way has the
potential to open our eyes to the way that others, each other are carrying
crosses. We can be like the crowd and
choose only to watch, or like Simon, we can help carry the burden. Scott Dewey, a friend of mine that lives in
Denver has a blessing in which he says something like, “Oh Lord, gives us
eyes to see in all we encounter, but especially those most difficult, the
burdens they bear that we might at a minimum pause before judgment and at best
help carry the load.”
Oh the people
you encounter on walks.
Daughters
of Jerusalem
As Jesus draws
nearer to the hill called Golgotha he encounters some women. We hear a lot about the 12 disciples and tend
to think that this was the full compliment of Jesus' followers. But the gospels remind us that many women
followed Jesus among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha as well as
Joanna and many others. It was likely
some of these women, and not the 11 disciples that were cowering in the upper
room, that met Jesus on the road. They
were weeping and wailing, on their knees crying as this one they followed, they
believed in, they loved was stumbling to his death. They wept for him, yet at that moment he
stops and says to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep
for yourselves and for your children.”
What is he
doing, the women must have thought, telling us to weep for ourselves when he is
the one about to die the most horrific of deaths? As they think this he answers their
question. “For the time will come
when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and
the breasts that never nursed. Then they
will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” These words seem to have even more power in
light of the hills that covered the people in Oso. To wish for a fate such as that would mean
the alternative was horrific. Why would Jesus say so?
These words, which likely would have been
recognized by the women, were from the prophet Hosea who had written some 800
years before Jesus. In that passage
Hosea explains, Because you have
depended on your own strength and on your many warriors, the roar of battle
will rise against your people so that all your fortresses will be devastated –
as Shalam devestated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed
to the ground with their children.”
Do you hear these words? The
people trusted in their warriors and because they did so, were destroyed. This is the passage Jesus is referring
to. Is it possible he is warning that
something similar is about to occur? To
answer that you have to go back to the day when Jesus, instead of the women,
wept.
Jesus weeps
Not long
before this day, after another parade in which Jesus was the center, at that
time riding upon a donkey and surrounded by adoring crowds. He entered Jerusalem, and Luke writes, “when
he saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known
on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your
eyes. The days will come upon you when
your enemas will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you
in on every side. They will dash you to
the ground, you and the children within your walls, they will not leave one
stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of god's coming to
you.” (Luke 19:41-44)
Less than
forty years later Jesus prophecy would come true. The people chose armed rebellion. It even seemed to work for a few years. But Rome did not take rebellion lightly so
they marshaled their troops and led by Tiberius surrounded the city and over
many months laid siege. The Jewish
historian, Josephus recorded what happened.
Eventually the walls were breached and the soldiers set fire to the
temple. Here is what Josephus records
happened:
“As for
the seditious they were in too great distress already to afford their assistance,
[toward quenching the fire]; they were everywhere slain, and everywhere beaten;
and as for a great part of the people, they were weak and without arms, and had
their throats cut wherever they were caught.
Now, round about the altar lay dead bodies heaped one upon another; as
at the steps going up to it ran a great quantity of their blood...” (p.581)
He would later
go on to record that over the seven years of battle 1,337,490 Jewish people
were killed while thousands were carried off into slavery. It was because Jesus saw this that he wept
for Jerusalem. It was because Jesus
saw this that he told the women to weep for themselves, because “they did not
know the things that would bring peace.”
A
riddle with hope
Wow, Ken,
carrying crosses, hills falling, millions dying, where is the hope? I will readily admit the more we place
ourselves in the shoes of the people on that path, the more difficult it is to
see hope. Jesus on the way of the cross
was a dark event during which all of those who followed lost their hope. And yet, in looking back, we can see that the
seeds of hope were being sown in the row created by the corner of the dragging
cross. Some of those seeds come in the
last words Jesus said to those women.
After telling the women they'd rather be barren and have the mountains
fall on them he says, “For if men do these things when the tree is green,
what will happen when it is dry.”
What in the world is Jesus talking about, what kind of riddle is this
and who has the wherewithal to give riddles as they walk to their death?
Jesus as the green tree
Isaiah refers
to the coming Messiah as “the root of Jesse.”
Many claimed this title, but most of them came with swords and spears
rallying the people to a violent overthrow of the Romans. But what happened to these branches? Most of
you have gone camping and built a fire.
Tell me what kind of wood do you use to start that fire? Yes, dry.
If you choose to fight violent oppression with violent rebellion you
may think you are fighting fire with fire, when in reality you are fighting
fire with dry sticks. But Jesus did
not come in such a way did he?
Jesus came
proclaiming good news to the poor.
Jesus came healing the blind, curing the lame and raising the dead. Jesus came making the outcasts such as lepers
and tax collectors, incasts whose houses he entered and bread he shared. And when the moment for armed rebellion
arose, when Peter lifted up his sword, Jesus proclaimed, “No more of this, those
who live by the sword will die by it.”
I, Jesus is saying, will not be a dry branch.
Dry or Green
Which kind of
branch are we? How do we deal with
violence in the world? Proverbs 15:1
lays out a similar riddle, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word
stirs up anger.” Jesus was the soft
answer, are we, or do we add fuel to the fire with inflammatory language?
“You have
heard it said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth...” To do so, Ghandi
would later say, only results in the world going blind and toothless. It is the way of the dry stick. But Jesus says, “If someone strikes you on
the right cheek turn to him the other also.
If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt. If someone forces you to go one mile, go
two...” This is the way of the green
branch.
“You have
heard it said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” We only have to look to Egypt, Syria and
Afghanistan to see how this is working out.
Not to mention our own community where 19 year old Chucky Williams was
shot last week in some dispute. These
are the ways of dry branches. But what
does Jesus say? “Love your enemies and
pray for those that persecute you.” Are
we dry or green branches?
The way out...
“But”, you
say, “they still burned him. Despite
being a green branch the powers that were still tossed Jesus to the
flames. Yes, and this is why Jesus is
warning the women. It is why he wept for
Jerusalem. If the fire is great enough,
even green branches will eventually burn.
But if the fire is that hot, dry branches have no chance. “But Ken,” I can hear you saying, “if it
didn't work for Jesus, why would it work for us?”
I remember
walking through a trail in Olympic National Forrest. There to the side was a great fir tree that
had fallen. It was decomposing to the
point it was hard to tell where the tree ended and the ground began. It remember feeling sad for this great tree
until I noticed a little green, peeking up from the trunk. It was a sapling growing from the rich soil
of that tree. After noticing the first I saw another, and another and another
at least a dozen green shoots were growing from the body of this one tree, all
full of life, all green.
You know one
green branch won't put out a fire, but have you ever seen what happens when you
take an armload and drop it down upon the flames? There is smoke, there is some sizzling of the
leaves and needles, but before too long the fire dies.
Brothers and
sisters Jesus says to us, “I am the vine, you are the branches...” Let us pray.
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