13 April 2014 - home stretch

13 April 2014 - home stretch

The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.

Lent is drawing to a close.  We enter Holy Week.  Many of us feel weary.  Many of us sympathize with the disciples, with Peter, James and John who "could not keep watch" with Jesus.  We feel this failure all the more deeply in light of the magnitude of the events which are about to transpire.

But Jesus knows how to speak a word that will rouse us.  Have we not done much this Lent?  Have we started off well but become complacent?  And even if we have been faithful to know, don't we need him to call us onward?  Listen, then: "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?  Behold, the hour is at hand when the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners."  Let him speak this word to us, "Get up, let us go." 

Jesus rouses us from our complacence by his own example of obedience.

Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.

It isn't just that he sets a good example.  This obedience to the Father is the deepest truth of who he is. 

he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.

We are fickle.  We praise him with "Hosanna" cries when he enters Jerusalem.  We lay our palms before him.  Yet before long we shout "Crucify him!"  Before long we deny him "in front of everyone" like Peter.  Jesus himself has every reason to be weary.  We do plenty to weary him.  When he does not manifest the kingdom in the way we want we taunt him.  We hear our own voices say "come down from the cross" and "let him deliver him now if he wants him."  When God seems silent, when "darkness came over the whole land", we condemn him as loudly as we can.

But in spite of our rebellion Jesus lets the Father open his ears in obedience time and again.  He does not rebel or turn back from the plan.  For Jesus, this turning to the Father is constant.  It is not a one time only thing.  More than once he asks, "let this cup pass from me" but he never insists.  He stays, he listens, and ultimately says "yet not as I will, but as you will."  This reckless abandonment to his will is something which the Father cannot overlook. 

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

His obedience is more than obedience.  It is love, love for his Father and for us.  And because of this love and obedience the name of Jesus itself is the word that can rouse us now to walk fearlessly into Holy Week, to walk fearlessly with Jesus to Jerusalem, and to the Cross.  Roused by the name above every name we too can obey and not turn back.  Buffets and spitting won't stop us this week.  Our faces are set like flint because of the strength we receive from Jesus. 

We are empowered to obedience by the name of Jesus.  Because of this new power within us, this power by which we will live this Holy Week, God can't help but respond to Jesus within us.  He can't help but fill us with life at Easter.  Feelings of abandonment give way to praise.

I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”