First reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm: Ps 22:8-9,17-20,23-24—¨
Epistle: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Luke 22-23—¨
The Lord GOD has given me—¨
a well-trained tongue,
—¨that I might know how to speak to the weary
—¨a word that will rouse them.
Lord for us Your wounds were suffered
Oh Christ Jesus have mercy on us—¨
Christ speaks to us profoundly
At the beginning of our first reading, taken from Isaiah, the Lord tells us that His Word, Jesus Christ, is the Word that will be spoken to us. He tells us that our Savior will speak profound and moving words that cut through the chatter and clutter that infect our lives. He tells us that His beloved Son will rouse us when we are weary. Jesus will change us.
As we know, Isaiah is writing well before Jesus’ coming. He likely ended his ministry of prophesy about 680 years before Jesus’ coming. Yet through Isaiah the coming Savior is clearly prefigured.
God is telling us that the life of Jesus, the life we are to model and imitate, this life of a servant who will be beaten and looked upon as lowly and outcast, is more than just a wasted life. Jesus’ life is the life offered for us. Jesus’ life as the servant, offered up for us, brings real change. That change is for you and me. There is real change, day-to-day renewal and rebirth here in Johnson City, and in Binghamton, Albany, Utica, Scranton, Oneonta, and in cities, towns, and villages around the world. That change in Jesus starts now and ends in glory.
His words and His path are one
Indeed, Jesus cuts through the noise of the world and unifies everything in Himself. Jesus’ life, words, and ministry are not just a series of historical one-off events, but a unity of message and purpose. Jesus’ life is an eternal constant, and the love and salvation He brings has been and will always be there for us.
When we join ourselves to Him in our Holy Polish National Church we become part of that constant, the life and words of Jesus washing away the old, destroying the noise, picking us up, rousing us, and changing us.
This week’s path will weary us
The path we follow this week will weary us. Whether that weary comes from the commitment, time, and sacrifice necessary to be with Jesus through these holiest of days, from Maundy Thursday to Resurrection morning, or the shopping, cooking, and cleaning that need to be done, or the work schedule that cannot wait, or the children, or projects, the weariness will be there. Our eyes will be heavy like the eyes of the disciples’ were in the garden. We will feel like we want to run away, like the disciples did. Our crosses will sit heavy upon our shoulders, as the cross bore down on Jesus.
This week’s path will rouse us
But, Jesus will rouse us. Walking this path will empty us of the old and fill us with new life. St. Paul gives us the greatest hymn of all time in today’s Epistle. This ancient Church hymn tells us what His disciples found from the beginning, that Jesus came emptied of His Godship to serve us, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and these words that rouse us: He reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Spirit.
The weariness gives way to the great and high position of Jesus in which we have a share. Christ lives eternally in glory, and so shall we. This is our assurance, the promised change Jesus brings to us. We know what awaits us. We will be changed into the glory that awaits us in heaven with Jesus forever. This is our great and rousing joy!
This week’s path buries us
This week we are buried with Christ. It is important to recall that during Holy Week we recall and renew our Baptism. As St. Paul tells us (Romans 6:4):
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
In baptism our old nature was buried. We are buried in those waters. That burial of the old self prepares us for the change Jesus has for us. Jesus’ change makes us new men and women.
This week’s path resurrects us.
The new man is our resurrected selves. As we emerged from the waters of Baptism so we emerge changed, into a new and resurrected life with Jesus.
Our rebirth, regeneration in Baptism, is the doorway into Jesus’ resurrected life. The grave is nothing to us because it is but a way station, a brief respite for our bodies before they enter into God’s glory. As we process on Easter Sunday morning we process changed people. The burial is forgotten, God’s glory is before us.
This week’s path surpasses all the glories we can imagine.
This week’s path is a series of steps. If we have walked them once or one hundred times, let us never forget that walking them is a small price to pay for the direction in which they lead. They lead to Jesus, to that moment when we stand as a changed, reborn, regenerated, renewed people before the throne of God. That eternal moment will surpass all the glories we can imagine, and indeed have ever been imagined. Earthly glories are but a thimble sized amount of the glory we will behold as a people changed by Jesus.
This week, my friends, walk the path and allow our Lord and Savior to push out the old, to crush the noise, and to make us a changed people once again. He is ready to do it. Only let Him. Amen.