April 2, 2023
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Matthew 26:14-27:66
From Glory to the Cross
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus’ final week began in glory, but it ended with the cross. The week began on a triumphant note. Jesus rode into Jerusalem amid waving palm branches and shouts of Hosanna. The city was filled with wonder. It was the glorious entry of Israel’s Messiah, the Son of David.
But the glory didn’t last. Jesus’ kingship soured into a farce: the taunting soldiers dressing him up; the crown of thorns; the charge of his kingship nailed above him on the cross. He was a king all right, but not a king of glory. He was a king of passion.
Martin Luther drew a distinction between two brands of theology. One he called a theology of glory. It rides high on optimism and prosperity. God helps the faithful. God’s beneficial touch leads to our blessing. When things are going our way, then we know we’re in God’s favor.
But glory is bound to disappoint us. It’s doomed to fall apart and fail because it’s built on empty promises. Powers will end. Prosperity goes bankrupt. Health and beauty wear away. Glory will always fall short.
But there is another theology, said Luther, and on this one we can depend. It’s not nearly as attractive as glory. It is a theology of the cross. And crosses are anything but attractive.
But unlike a faith built on glory, the cross will not disappoint. Only the cross can deliver promise and life.
The cross isn’t just one theme among many in the Bible. It’s the Bible’s central theme. The cross forms the hinge upon which the entire biblical message pivots.
Everything prior to the cross points to it. The fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, the Paschal Lamb of the Passover, they point to the cross. The messages of the Old Testament prophets foresee the coming of the Christ and his inevitable appointment at Golgotha.
Everything in the Bible prior to the events of Jesus’ fateful passion point to the cross. And then afterwards, all that follows pivots from the cross. Jesus’ crucifixion leads to his victory over sin and death. It launches us into the joy of redemption. It sparks the birth of the church and its mission into the world.
How strange that a gruesome instrument of death should become the pivot point for our faith and hope! Nothing about the cross is intuitive. It makes no sense at all. That an instrument of a gruesome and agonizing, slow death should become the means whereby God would save the world. It makes no sense!
But the paradox of the cross is our promise. By becoming completely powerless, Jesus takes on all of our enemies. Jesus takes on our sin and in return, he gives us his righteousness. In exchange for our mortality, he endows us with everlasting life. He bears our shame and he gives us his glory.
The cross is a promise that sustains us when, in our own lives, glory leaves us high and dry and we’re left broken and forlorn. When everything falls apart, the cross doesn’t run and hide. It will always be there for us.
In Jesus’ death we see the fullness of God’s love. It is a love that won’t let go of us. It follows us to the end. It does everything necessary to redeem us. It doesn’t hold anything back. Only such an amazing love could accomplish such an amazing grace.
During this Holy Week we ponder Jesus’ final week. It began in glory, but the glory soon faded away, and what was left was the one thing we needed the most: the cross.
