Mark 14:17-73; March 24, 2024; Palm/Passion Sunday
How quickly it turns.
What began with Jesus at the Table, at the Last Supper, breaking bread and pouring wine, and then singing a hymn, ends with a prediction that the disciples, indeed his best friends with whom he just dined, will both betray him and desert him.
Because, how quickly it turns.
What began with Jesus in a garden praying to God, asking for his friends to stay awake for just a little while longer, ends with them immediately falling asleep leaving him entirely alone, grieved, even to what he calls the point of death.
Because, how quickly it turns.
What began with a movement that crowned Christ as the Prince of Peace (!), ends with one of his own taking out a sword and cutting off the ear of someone who dare opposed them (just think on that metaphor…).
Because, how quickly it turns.
What began with pomp and singing and the waving of palms, upon his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the city which literally means peace, ends with Jesus blindfolded, mocked, and spat upon, before being beaten and taken off into custody.
Because, how quickly it turns.
And what began with loud cries for “Hosanna!” ends with angry demands to “Prophesy!” – on a day where even the Rock, Peter himself, becomes a pebble as he denies his friend and savior three different times.
Because, how quickly, and how sadly, it all turns.
Mark uses the word “immediately” (εὐθὺς in Greek) around 40 times. Compared to the rest of the New Testament where it only appears 10 or so times. 40 times here in Mark alone. This abruptness then, this quickness and immediacy in which all events, and sentiments, and tables can be turned with the snap of a finger is a major Markan theme, because Mark knows it’s also a major life theme.
That all of this can turn ever so quickly. And we know this ourselves, don’t we?
With a friend or a loved one who has betrayed us. With children who for whatever reason have forgotten and deserted us. With companies and employers who suddenly deny and fire us no matter the thirty years we have already put in.
It can all turn so quickly, can’t it?
And not just here, privately in our own lives, but also out there around the world publicly in places like Jerusalem (the city that no longer resembles peace), and in Ukraine, and Russia, and Haiti too…and isn’t it just horrible what’s happening there?
There was a member in my previous church who went down there to start fisheries to help locals become more self-sufficient and better fed; and yet, today there are images of machetes and corpses right there in the middle of the streets. “Hosanna” has quickly turned into shouts of “crucify.”
How did we get here? How has it all seemingly turned so dark so quickly?
Sure, maybe locally we can point to an election, to campaign rhetoric, to tribalism, to news stations, to social media… all of which that would have us cut off our own ears so not to hear our other… yes, we could point to all of those, but there also must be something more, something deeper rotting inside, both here and out there. A deep-rooted lust and thirst for hatred and division. A sin that coerces us to draw swords rather than listen.
How quickly and how sadly it can all turn when we let sin have its way…
Princess Catherine of Wales, the beautiful Kate Middleton, was everyone’s favorite darling not so long ago, wasn’t she? Photographed for her smile, her dresses, her style, her aura, her humanitarianism. And then, some weeks ago, it turned into something different, a perverse witch hunt with CNN and other networks circling fabrics and hand-placements looking for doctored minutiae in her own photos, in some weird quest to drum up conspiracies about her whereabouts and health, leading to spiritually unwell people to say horrible things online and on podcasts about her and her family.
Sin through and through.
And because of that sin, the good graces of society all turned pretty quickly against her…but then, worse, it turned over again…. for a day ago, she announced to the world in a moving speech, on a bench in a garden, with a background of flowers and dancing light, that she had cancer. A disease harder than the insults and conspiracies, and one that all too often has turned our own lives harder, 40 times over, and immediately at that.
How quickly it can all turn, my friends. We know this. We know this…And now I’ve said it enough.
But do you know what else we know that I can’t say enough?
That Jesus, who felt this very turning of sin and darkness against him, turned all of it upside down.
When he turned the wheel of life and triumphed over hatred, division, and death; and three days quickly at that. Such that even we who despair, such that even we who have lost hope, can yet believe that even when life has turned quickly against us it will just as soon turn quickly for us; for nothing in this sinful, forsaken life can ever fully separate us from the love and grace of Christ who ensured and enshrined that each of us would one day experience goodness, joy, and life.
So, thanks be to him, my friends, on this Palm/Passion Sunday.
Who turned in everything for us.
All for our sake.
Amen.
