It’s the same old, same old story. Really?

 A Sermon for Passion Sunday

Exodus 1-15, Mark 14-15 

The story I have to tell you today is old—an old, old story. I bet you know it in your bones. Most of us learned it from Mom or Dad, and in Sunday School before we could read.

The trouble with these old stories is, we think we know them. So we stop listening to them.

Oh, we can tell you what happens. But we don’t know them by heart, not really.

And that’s surprising because they’re not only about the Israelites getting free of slavery and not only about Jesus dying on the cross.

If you want to know who these stories are about really? They’re about you and me.

The story of your faith goes back to ancient Egypt, to a group of slaves called the Hebrews.

The gospel of Mark emphasizes again and again that Jesus’ followers just don’t get it. They don’t understand. A lot like me and you. We don’t get why things are so tough. We’re decent, hard working people. But just taking care of business seems like more than you can manage these days.

So, like the disciples, we ask God a lot of questions.

On his last night with them, Jesus’ disciples were still clueless. How could he help them understand what faith is about in the few hours he had left?

In suffering, in hardship, how can you and I get what faith means?

Jesus taught them by wrapping his story, their story, your story and mine, in the ancient story of God’s love, how God saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Arrested on the night of Passover, the night when Israel remembered how God brought them out of the furnace of suffering into the Promised Land (Exodus 1-15), Jesus used that story as a paradigm for his own.

Most people think that in the Old Testament God tried saving people through the Law and failed, and the New Testament is a kind of do over.

Wrong!!

The Old Testament tells how God, who “abounds in steadfast love and mercy,” brought the people out of bondage in Egypt because God heard their cries.

At the Passover the fight between the forces of slavery and God reached a climax. The angel of death passed over the land, killing all the firstborn, human and cattle! But, wherever he saw the blood of a lamb on the door posts and lintel of a house, the houses of the Hebrews, he spared all those inside.

Pharaoh ignored every prior warning, but this he couldn’t ignore. He expelled the people from the land. They left, without time for the bread to rise. That’s why you celebrate Passover with unleavened bread.

God heard the cries of your spiritual ancestors, and delivered them from slavery.

This is the story Jesus wanted you to remember, so you can understand the cross.

The ancient story of God, who loved a people so much he delivered them from slavery, shines a light on the cross. For the cross is the story of how God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.

Sound familiar?

Reading the passion according to St. Mark, chapters 14-15, you and I become part of it. We gather around the table, where the woman with the jar of ointment lavished almost a year’s wages anointing Jesus’ feet. You can smell its fragrance filling the house! See how Jesus sweeps away her self-doubts with a tender look.

You and I go with Judas to the high priest and scribes, and they haggle over the price of betrayal: 30 pieces of silver.

We go with the disciples to arrange for the Passover lamb, the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread. Later, at this table we hear Jesus say, “One of you will betray me”; we can’t help wondering, “Is it I?” Could I stand by Jesus when things really get tough?

But in the garden of Gethsemane, like the rest, we fall asleep. Jesus wakes us when his betrayer comes.  We skitter every which way, like trash in the wind.

And there we stand among the leaders who convict Jesus of blasphemy. Like Peter we say, ” I said I don’t know the damn man.” We hear Pilate ask, “Are you king of the Jews?”

We help the soldiers carry the hammer and the nails.

You say, “No, not me! I’d never do that!” Just like the disciples, all of whom swore that they would die with him. Good intentions. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Except the women: Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, and Mary Jesus’ mother. With them we see where he is laid.

Before darkness falls.

The Christ of the cross wants you to know this story is yours.

At this terrifying moment, we like to skip ahead to the end. But, you see, this actually is our story—and in life you can’t skip the hard part. You have to take it as it comes, from the first line of the first page to the last line of the last.

So I invite you to linger with me on Friday night. On Saturday all day and all night. There’s a Latin word associated with this Saturday, tenebrae. I’m told it means “shadows.” On Saturday, shadows fell like cold rain.

For this extraordinary group of people around Jesus—these fishermen, tax collectors, children of privilege like John, and courageous women like Mary Magdalene and Mary Jesus’ mother—for these extraordinary people, the journey of three breath-taking years had ended in wreckage. Evil consumed them. They hid behind locked doors, startled if a cat scratched at the door.

They hadn’t known what to expect when the Messiah came to Jerusalem, but nobody (except Jesus) expected this.

You can understand, can’t you? How the brightest hopes can die. How dreams and hard work amount to a hill of nothing. You know what it feels like to be at a loss for words, and run dry of tears.

You see, what Jesus wanted these men and women to know, what he wants you and me to know, deep down in our DNA, is that his story is our story.

Sin wrecks the most promising life. Darkness follows the brightest day. Good has to fight, tooth and nail, to survive in this world.

Some of you will say, Wait a minute, preacher. What about the good news? Isn’t this story supposed to be good news?

Of course, it is.

But not glib news.

The gospel says that Christ descended into hell. Now maybe today that doesn’t mean what it used to. But I believe it’s still true:

A lot of people may not be living in hell, but they’re living on its doorstep. Laid off, with just as many mouths to feed. Months behind on the mortgage. Living large, blind and deaf to human needs you could meet, except for your hardness of heart.

Sometimes hell is dry ice cold!

The gospel simply is this: whatever kind of slavery or hell you find yourself in, you’re not alone. God’s there, too, at least, God has been there.

If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there,

the psalmist said (139:8 KJV)

Christ died—so what?

A few hours after the terror of Friday, the dark of Saturday, came morning light and  life, brand spanking new life!

 And, because he lives, you and I will, too.