• Jeremiah 23: 1-6

Jeremiah has expressed his contempt for the last king to rule in Jerusalem just before the Babylonians captured the city and exiled the leaders, and now turns his derision on the “shepherds,” who have failed their duties to the people.  They have scattered the Lord’s flock and have driven them away, and they have “not attended to them.”  The Lord, Jeremiah writes, will gather the Lord’s people home.  New “shepherds” will be raised up who will not exploit fear or dismay.  The day will come when the Lord will raise up a new “Branch” in the Davidic lineage who will reign with wisdom, with justice and with righteousness.  His name will be, “the Lord is our righteousness.'”

• The Song of Zechariah (Luke 1: 68-79)

Zechariah’s mute condition is broken with a song.  He blesses the Lord because the announcement of the birth of Jesus means the Lord will fulfill the promises made by the “holy prophets” for the renewal of the Davidic line and the original covenant “to our forefather Abraham.”  This “child” will be known as “the prophet of the Highest.”  He will give knowledge of salvation and “light to them that sit in darkness.”  He will “guide our feet into the way of peace.”

• OR Psalm 46

When everything else seems to be collapsing around us, “God is a shelter and a strength forever,” the psalmist asserts.  In contrast to the “roar and roil” of threatening waters, God’s reliability is like a “stream” that “gladdens” God’s people.  The international scene might be chaotic and threatening, but God is our “fortress.”  God has shattered the weapons of war;  “let go and know that I am God/I loom among nations, I loom upon the earth.”  Jacob’s God is our “fortress.”

• Colossians 1: 11-20

In a “Letter to the Colossians,” filled with many hymns, the writer first tells his readers why they should sing: because “the Father… has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”  And, because he “rescued us from  the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved Son…” whom this hymn venerates.  “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation….”  He is “the head of the body, the church,” the first raised from the dead– the “first place in everything.”  In  Christ, “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things… by making peace through the blood of the cross.”

• Luke 23: 33-43

Only Luke’s narrative says that the first words from Jesus when he arrives at the place of his execution and is crucified are: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”  The narrative tells of two groups and one individual who taunt and mock Jesus for his fate– “the leaders” and the Roman soldiers and one  of the two criminals executed with him.  One other individual stands out; the other criminal on the other side of Jesus admonishes the first criminal, saying “do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?”  We are getting what we deserve, he continues, “but this man has done nothing wrong.”  He then turns to Jesus and asks, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus promptly responds, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The testimony of the Hebrew scriptures excels at bearing witness to the hard-won trust in God’s promises.  The story begins with a promise to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 22: 16-18), and continues between God and God’s people over periods of dismay on both sides of the relationship, but interrupted occasionally with brilliant, bold declarations of promised renewal of the original promises.  Walter Brueggemann writes:

“Israel’s testimony to Yahweh as a promise-maker presents Yahweh as both powerful and reliable enough to turn life in the world for Israel and for all people beyond present circumstances to new life– giving possibility.  Yahweh’s promises keep the world open toward well-being even in the face of deadly circumstances to new life– giving possibility.”  (Theology of the Old Testament, p. 164)  

God’s motive for being a reliable “promise-maker” is just as clear, according to Brueggemann: “Yahweh is the one who loves Israel, who loves what is not-yet-Israel, and who, by the full commitment of Yahweh’s self causes Israel to be” (p. 145)  “It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors….” (Deuteronomy 7: 8a)

Jeremiah’s announcement, (which is beautifully echoed in the song Luke gives to Zechariah), that the Lord will raise up a new “branch” in the Davidic line comes at one of the bleakest hours in Israel’s long history, providing hope in a hopeless crisis.  The psalmist (46) has learned whom to trust when everything else has collapsed– “Jacob’s God is our fortress.” 

It is the testimony of the Christian scriptures that God’s promises were renewed, yet once again, in Jesus and for God’s exact same motive– love.  The writer of the “letter” to Christians in Colossae includes a hymn, (either original or extant), for believers to sing: “He is the image of the invisible God….”  So how does God renew the ancient promises again in Jesus and display once more God’s love?   In a public spectacle, “through the blood of the cross,” the hymn concludes.

In Luke’s narrative, just as Jesus approaches, lays down onto, and moves his body into place and is nailed to the cross, he pronounces a full, complete and universal absolution: “Father, forgive them….”  The near unanimous response from all who hear him is ridicule; except one.  Only one sees what is happening more clearly than all the others.  He alone sees the outrageous absurdity of this situation–“this man has done nothing wrong”– and he alone hears Jesus’ total compassion and forgiveness for his hapless persecutors.  This is the only one who gets the hint of what Jesus has meant by a new definition of God’s kingdom/reign. This one man alone recognizes and accepts this generous offer and receives immediate assurance– “today you will be in Paradise.”

Jesus is, for Christians, the continuation and full renewal by God of the most ancient promises for same old reason– love.  (In Luke’s post resurrection appearance of Jesus, he writes that Jesus told the disciple who did not yet recognize him: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  And Luke continues, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” [Luke 24: 26-27])  So Christians sing: “the fullness of God was pleased to  dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things in making peace through the blood of the cross.”

The last published writing of Friedrich Nietzsche was The Anti-Christ, written in 1888 and published in 1895.  It includes this amazing passage, based on Luke’s description of Christ approaching his death.  Nietzsche wrote:

“This ‘bringer of glad tiding’ dies as he lived, as he taught— not to ‘redeem mankind’ but to demonstrate how one ought to live.  What he bequeathed to mankind is his practice: his bearing before the judges, before the guards, before the accusers and every kind of calumny and mockery– his bearings on the Cross.  He does not resist, he does not defend his rights, he takes no steps to avert the worst that can happen to him– more, he provokes it…  And he entreats, he suffers, he loves with those, in those who are doing evil to him.  His words to the thief on the cross contain the whole Evangel. ‘That was verily a divine man, a child of God’– says the thief.  ‘If thou feelest this’– answers the redeemer– ‘thou art in Paradise, thou art a child of God.’  Not to defend oneself, not to grow angry, not to make [someone] responsible…  But not to resist even the evil man– to love him…”  (A Nietzsche Reader, p. 191)

 

Jean-Luc Marion has written that” the death of Christ offers the apex of his visibility.”  (Being Given” Toward a Phenomenology of Giveness, p. 239)   Being nailed to a cross on that gruesome Friday in Jerusalem, Jesus is exposed, alone, abandoned, lifted up to public scrutiny and spectacle for all to see, and, at the same time,  everything he had ever said and done becomes most visible!   In this spectacle, Marion sees what he calls “the paradox of paradoxes,” which reveals Christ’s “royal” status, that is, as one who is being executed is also the one with the authority to announce and inaugurate God’s “Kingdom.”  This “paradox of all paradoxes” is in the total absurdity of the situation.  God’s love is now a flesh and blood person, whose life and dying presents us with the absolute irony: the criminal is the innocent; the victim is the victor; the humiliated one is a “king.”

Marion insists that this “paradox of all paradoxes,” because of its absurdity, its audacity, “transforms the I into a witness, into its witness.” (p 241)  Luke carefully explains that all but one of the witnesses that day laughed at and mocked Jesus; but there was one witness that day who saw, heard and believed.  Wherever and whenever this story of the culmination of Jesus’ efforts on the cross to renew God’s promises on our behalf and to expose God’s love again to humankind is read and explicated, there are fresh witnesses.  Each responds in his or her own unique way on any given day.  Each is always a witness to the “one who is being executed is also the one with the authority to announce and inaugurate God’s ‘Kingdom.'”