Twenty Ninth Sunday in Course 2024
Each week our prayer group spends the better part of an hour reading and praying over the Scripture we hear on the next Sunday. That’s a great idea for a prayer group, particularly if there’s a trained leader present. We share what we have learned in class or individual prayer and clear up any confusion most of the time. But this week, we were all taken aback by the first words from Isaiah: “The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”
That sentence sounds like it’s prophesying about Jesus, sent by God the Father for our redemption. So far, so correct. But it makes Jesus look like the Father’s plaything, and that the Father enjoyed watching His torture and crucifixion. We’d be completely wrong about that.
Read Genesis 3. God gave the first man and woman a beautiful life in a perfect garden. But early in that story, Satan as a talking snake tempts the woman to disobey God, and she ropes the man into doing the same evil act, whatever it was. They were banished from the garden and condemned to die. God then looked once more, over thousands of years, for a human who would freely obey the law written on the human heart, a law of faith and love. Over and over, humans failed the test. So God the Son took on human nature and demonstrated His love for everyone, and went to His death freely, but by divine power rose from death. Then, through the ministry of His Church, He gave all other humans a path to become like Him, and experience forgiveness, a graced life on earth, and their own resurrection after leaving this life. That was the Father’s plan, and Jesus followed it to the letter. God didn’t watch and enjoy the show; God gave everything so that we could participate in that “divine comedy” and experience for ourselves the happy ending.
A better translation of the line in question is “it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” The psalmist responds with gratitude: “the word of the LORD is upright; and all his work is done in faithfulness.”
As the author of the letter to the Hebrews affirms, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Our confession is that Jesus Christ emptied Himself of all His glory, went down to the depths of existence by dying and battling with evil spirits to defeat evil and death and bring us all to our own glory. As one of the Fathers of the Church put it, our great enemy, death, opened his mouth and devoured Christ, not realizing His Divinity. And Jesus gave death an eternal case of indigestion, because of His divine Power.
That reality gives us further insight into the story of James and John in Mark’s Gospel. They had heard Christ’s prediction of His passion, death and resurrection. Maybe they believed Him, but they probably didn’t really “get it” completely. They heard Jesus blessing Peter’s confession that Jesus is Messiah, so they wanted part of the “glory part” of the drama. They pictured Christ on a throne with infinite power and glory and wanted to be His right and left-hand men. Jesus responded to their headstrong request by asking if they could accompany Him in His passion and death. He knew that His throne of glory would be a rude wooden scaffold. The boys answered, “sure we can” so that Jesus could affirm their answer and, maybe looking forward to the two thieves He would be crucified between, told them not to expect that for themselves.
Jesus then gave an answer to all of us who want glory. Glory for worldly rulers is power and absolute rule and everybody giving acclaim and obedience. It’s all kinds of earthly pleasure and ease. But in God’s world, true glory comes at a stiff price: our own suffering and failure. Look at the great saints who followed Jesus. Of the apostles, only John was not murdered for his faith, and tradition tells us he suffered grievously in other ways. The early Church was a collection of martyrdoms, through blood and fire and lion hunts—with the lions hunting the Christians. As with Jesus, leadership for us means service to everyone else, and putting ourselves last.
But yes, the rewards are well worth the price, so we need to keep the story circulating among a world that is starving for the Word of God, for someone to hope in and something to look forward to. That is union with God, forever.
