Relentless--April 14, 2025

Relentless--April 14, 2025

"The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher,
 that I may know how to sustain
  the weary with a word.
 Morning by morning he wakens—
  wakens my ear
  to listen as those who are taught.
  The Lord God has opened my ear,
  and I was not rebellious,
  I did not turn backward.
 I gave my back to those who struck me,
  and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
 I did not hide my face
  from insult and spitting." (Isaiah 50:4-6)

Jesus knows the costs of being faithful to God's way of mercy and justice in the world--and he doesn't flinch.  Jesus knows the opposition he will run into because his way of being God's anointed (Messiah) doesn't look like anybody else's expectations--and he persists nevertheless.  Jesus knows that his way of saving doesn't look like an armed assault on the empire or a bloody coup to overthrow Herod, but rather looks like a cross--and yet he goes to that cross anyway.

All of this is to say that Jesus doesn't simply embody the way of God when it is easy; he endures precisely when it is difficult, and when the voices that had been shouting "Hosanna!" have curdled into cries of "Crucify him!" That's one more line Jesus crosses, one more boundary that Jesus' love overflows beyond as we have been exploring all this past Lenten season: Jesus doesn't only prove faithful when it is convenient or carries no cost.  He is committed to the way of God even when others bail out or abandon him, and even when his dedication brings him into direct conflict with the Respectable Religious Leaders and the Politically Powerful.  And in the face of that confrontation, Jesus endures their evil and cruelty without returning it.

That's part of why many of us heard these words from Isaiah 50 read in worship this past Sunday.  This poem, written centuries before Jesus' life and teaching, fits with the character of Jesus as someone who doesn't return evil for evil or give up on his mission, even in the face of hostility. Jesus would have surely heard these words read in the synagogue repeatedly over the course of his lifetime from childhood onward, and they would have shaped his own understanding of his identity and calling.  Jesus knew that being God's Anointed wasn't about merely showing up for photo ops or being a dictator. He knew that he had come to embody the presence of God's Reign, even when his message was rejected and his presence was scorned.  And he knew that it would mean the choice not to answer cruelty with more cruelty, violence with violence, or hatred with hatred.  He knew that God was calling him to endure the worst we human beings doing to one another rather than turning it back on us.  And he knew it because it has always been God's way to endure human rejection, hostility, and cruelty and to respond with steadfast love and fierce faithfulness.  Jesus takes that character trait of God as his own calling card, even when he knows it will mean a cross.

As this Holy Week unfolds, I want to ask you to keep that in mind. We'll hear again all the twists and turns of the saga, and how both the crowds and Jesus' own inner circle of friends flake out on him, and how in the face of it all, Jesus doesn't give out on any of them.  Jesus doesn't give up on his calling, not even when the throngs have left their palm branches behind to be collected with the trash, not even when his disciples betray or abandon him.  And when the powers of the day abuse and mock Jesus, we'll see once again that Jesus doesn't abandon his own teaching of not retaliating against evil with more evil, even when it might seem really tempting.  Throughout all of this week's storytelling, pay close attention to how Jesus endures, not merely when it is easy, but when it is difficult, too.  And then know that this is what our hope hangs on--the reliable, courageous, and faithful love of Jesus that doesn't vanish into thin air when the going gets tough.  That is how Jesus faces those who oppose him, and that is how we are loved, too--without fail.

And then as people who are shaped by this same love, we'll be called to ask how we will respond to the rottenness and cruelty of the world with the same relentless and courageous love.  Where might that lead us in the week ahead?

Lord Jesus, we thank you for the unfailing persistence of your love; let your kind of love become our own in this day.