Does Holy Week have any meaning for you and me, other than as a series of days sandwiched between Palm Sunday and the day a lot of people give Easter baskets? This week I return to the excellent collection of sermons N.T. Wright preached in Easington Colliery during Holy Week 2007. He takes it day by day and begins today’s meditation with the reading of Isaiah 42:1-9 and John 12:1-11. Go ahead, take the time to read these Scriptures, which place us in the story.
Now read a few of Wright’s comments, excerpted from this great little book Christians at the Cross:
“…the Servant Songs are like a job description in an advertisement: ‘Wanted! A Servant for the Lord!’ But the prophet wrote a job description for which there could, eventually, be only one appropriate applicant. And here is: Jesus, not raising his voice, not joining Judas in telling Mary off, but with his eyes fixed on his strange work of setting the world right, and doing so, as we see, through his own death.”
“The response of the church, to cut a long story short, is that if Jesus is the True Servant of the Lord, we, his people, are called here, in this community and every community, to carry on his work of setting things right — not in big, loud, campaigns, or pretending that we know the answers to complicated questions, but in the quiet, steady work of coming alongside people in need or sorrow or pain, of praying for and with people in trouble or difficulty, of quietly bringing light into dark places and hope into sad lives. There is more to being the church than that, but not less. As the song puts it, ‘This is our God, the Servant King; he calls us now to follow him.”
“…who do you identifiy with in the story of Jesus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas?
Many of us, I suspect, identify with Martha. Here we are, getting on with the work; and here’s someone else, my sister, making a fuss, putting on a display, attention-seeking as usual. Well, try living within the story — pause and watch as Jesus says what he says — and see what he might have to say to you. Or maybe you are more like Mary herself, ready to go and show how much you love Jesus. Fine, but don’t be surprised if some people grumble. Maybe some of us are like Judas, always so worried about counting pennies — that we’ll get cross when anyone takes Jesus deeply seriously and personally. Maybe there’s a bit of these, and more, in most of us.”
“For now, let’s be clear…that Jesus is calling us to go forward with him into the rest of this week. He is calling us to see him as the Servant who has put things right by his death…this is our God, our Servant King; he calls us now to follow him.”
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