HOLY WEEK: ROOTING OURSELVES IN REALITY

Ecclesiastes 7:2-4
Palm Sunday, St. John Lutheran Church, College Point
April 17, 2011
Dr. Eric J. Moeller

“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than

laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the

house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

This week we follow our Lord and Savior to the cross. We call it Holy Week, the

most import week in the calendar of the Christian church. What is it for? Spring has

burst upon us. Last Thursday the flowers bloomed on the trees in a blaze of glory and

people across the land are getting out to enjoy it. Why spend our days in gloomy

reflection? Some might say, what is it with these Christians? They walk around with

long faces, thinking about the death of Jesus. They deny themselves. So the world

might say.

But even among those who count themselves Christians, many perhaps don´t

really want to face the truth of Calvary. The truth of sin, its ugliness and horror. The

frightening truth of the wrath of God, the truth of death which leers at us from the

corners of our consciousness even on the brightest of days. Holy Week makes us think

about these things. And sometimes perhaps we would rather just live in denial.

Certainly that is a popular way to live. Push all these things out of your mind

and enjoy life. Enjoy the wealth our society provides, its endless entertainment and

distraction. This talk about the cross is foolishness in the eyes of the world. Even Jesus

´ disciples didn´t want to hear about it. Peter said, when Jesus spoke of His death:

“Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

And yet we begin Holy Week and these words of Ecclesiastes apply supremely to what

we are doing. “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of

feasting. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.”

For at the cross of Christ we find the truths we really need for genuine happiness. It is

Jesus´ death that gives us a sure foundation for life. We cannot run away from the

truth of sin and guilt. We cannot hide from the reality of our just and Holy God. We

cannot flee to some place where death cannot get a hold of us.

What we can do is find forgiveness, life and holiness in the midst of sin, death

and guilt in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The foundation for the entire Christian

life rests upon the cross.~

Years ago I was serving as a vicar at a Lutheran church in South Texas, near the

Mexican border. During the season of Lent I was preaching for a mid-week service in

Spanish every week and I was working hard to encourage my Hispanic contacts to

attend worship services. Things had been going quite well. A substantial group was

meeting for Spanish mid-week service. Holy Week came along and on Good Friday a

nice sized group gathered together for Good Friday afternoon service. I was very

pleased with the attendance and looked forward to Easter Sunday morning service.

Our Spanish service was at 8:00 a.m. The big day to celebrate our Lord´s resurrection

and after the big turn out on Good Friday I had high expectations for Easter Sunday.

But Easter Sunday came and only 3 people showed up. What a let down!

Now there were surely a number of reasons why attendance was that low that

Easter morning. But one was a tendency in Mexican culture to dwell on the sufferings

of Christ more than on His resurrection. Catholic churches in Mexico often have
gruesome images of the suffering Christ on the cross and even, at times, images of the

dead Christ in a glass coffin. So quite a few people found the observance of Good

Friday more compelling and meaningful than the celebration of Easter. Oftentimes in

many communities in the U.S. I believe the opposite tendency is true, more people will

attend Easter services than Good Friday or Holy Week observances.

The truth is though we can´t have one without the other. We cannot celebrate

the new life of the resurrection unless we go through the cross. Our new life in Christ

can only be built on the foundation of His suffering and death. That is where the

bedrock of our faith is to be found. On the other hand, the cross without the

resurrection does not give us the hope and power to live a life in expectation of our

own resurrection from the dead.

On that first Palm Sunday there were a lot of people gathered to praise and

welcome Jesus but they like Peter knew nothing of the cross. They wanted Jesus to

improve their lives, to be the King who would bring them hope and justice and a new

and better life. So they shouted out, “Hosanna!” “Save, Son of David”. But Jesus

doesn´t come as a politician with a plan to improve our lives and make our society

better. He comes to get at the root and core of our problem, our sin.

You see, we don´t really want the cross. We would like God to wave a magic

wand, get rid of suffering and give us eternal life but we would rather skip through the

pain of true repentance, suffering and death. We want Easter without Good Friday but

that is not God´s way.

We are saved by grace, it is true. God´s salvation is a free gift to all who believe

on His Son Jesus Christ. But we believe in Christ crucified. The message of Christ

crucified is the power of God unto salvation. We must recognize the terrible cost of
our salvation. It was not free! Jesus paid a terrible price for us. And just as He had to

pass through rejection, suffering and death in order to get to victory and resurrection

so also He saves us in the midst of this world of sin, suffering and death in order to

bring us forgiveness, paradise and life. So God´s Word in Ecclesiastes is true for us in

Holy Week. “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made

glad.”

Christian joy is not some sort of giddy emotion which ignores all the trouble in

the world and in our lives. Christian joy is born out of the cross. Christian joy is a

knowledge of the deep sacrificial love of God that He pours into our hearts through the

gift of His Son. We live by and in the victory of Christ´s resurrection, it is true, but that

resurrection comes to us through the cross, it comes through the recognition of and

confession of our sin and it comes in following our Lord to the cross.

Jesus comes to us in the midst of suffering, sin and death to bring us through it

to life, forgiveness and joy. The gift of His love for us was not paid with the inflated

currency of ignoring our sin. It was paid with the precious price of His blood.

An authentic Christian life is always lived at the foot of the cross. I must

recognize the reality and depth of my sin so that I may come to Jesus. A joy-filled

Christian life does not come by ignoring the reality of evil or of suffering, pain and

death. It comes through facing and overcoming these things through faith in Jesus and

His cross.

We are linked to His death on the cross. This is the truth and the promise we

receive in Baptism. “We were buried with Him through baptism into death in order

that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too

may live a new life.”

of our Lord on the cross. And we do so because we want to have an authentic

Christian life. We do not ignore sin and suffering; we recognize the reality of these

things.

Think of Buddhism, its founder laid out the Four Noble Truths, the first of which

is “Life is suffering.” The second is suffering is caused by desire, and the third is that if

you eliminate desire you can eliminate suffering. In Holy Week, we view suffering in a

radically different way. We do know that life is lived in the face of suffering. But we do

not believe that suffering can be overcome through enlightenment, through giving up

desire. Rather we believe that it is the love of God that overcomes suffering. God

shows His love for us on the cross and there is where His love wins the victory.

So during Holy Week, we fix our eyes on the suffering of our Lord. We learn of

our sin and rebellion and its cost. We learn of Jesus´ love and its power. We dig deep

into our hearts, into the reality of life and death, so that when the trial comes into our

life we can stand firm.

There is so much superficiality in our world, we want well-behaved, hard

working children without discipline, we want romance without the sacrifice of love and

the commitment of until death do us part, we want learning without study, and a

balanced budget without paying taxes. We want forgiveness without repentance.

Holy Week gives us a chance to get real. WE see the dark realities of life in all their

harshness and yet we have hope because at the heart of the darkest moment, at the

cross, we see the love of God revealed.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. He is our King, He is the one who has

come to make everything new, to bring about the new heavens and the new earth.
But it will not be done without facing the rage of evil and the justice of God. It will not

be done with our impure heart and corrupt hands at the levers of power. It was done

by our Lord´s humility and the loving acceptance of our sin and punishment.

“By sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Amen.