Lectionary readings:
- Psalms 99, 100, 101
- 1 Macc 1:1-15, 20-25, 41-64
- Matt 26:31-75
Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Adonai Ts’vaot asher haya v’hove v’yavo
Holy Holy Holy is the LORD of Hosts, who was and is and is to come.
Friends. What a semester. We’re half-way through Fall 2020. We’ve made it this far. We’ve made it to reading week… a time to catch our breath, catch up on work, catch up on sleep.
A respite before the election, before we have to start working on final papers, maybe a break from wearing these masks all day long.
In the middle of what has been and will probably continue to be a chaotic year, Psalm 99 has us cry out, “ADONAI is king!”
What does it look like for us to live like the LORD is King? How do we acknowledge his kingship? How do we show we are subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven?
Let us consider the reading from I Maccabees. It’s a bit early for Hanukkah but we’ll oblige the lectionary.
Chapter 1 quickly sketches the historical context of the book. Long after Alexander the Great divided the kingdom among four generals and died, a king named Antiochus Epiphanes comes against Israel and Jerusalem. Antiochus steals Temple treasures. He has an altar built in the Temple so he can worship his pagan gods. He made possessing a Torah a capital crime. Mothers were killed for circumcising their sons. Not just the mothers were murdered, but their sons and families and whoever circumcised the boys.
Earlier in the chapter, we read of those Jews who decided that assimilating to the culture was the wise choice. Living like the Greeks was the way to avert disaster. Making covenant with the surrounding culture would assure security and maybe even prosperity. The narrator in Maccabees says: “They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.”
This chapter is pretty dark. It gets darker and darker until we see mothers and children murdered for obeying and honoring God. When it seems darkest, I see a flicker of light.
This chapter of 1 Maccabees ends:
“62 But many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts not to eat unclean food. 63 They chose to die rather than to be defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die.”
Light, Cariño? Where’s the light? Listen again: “Many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts” not to profane the holy covenant with God. They refused to make covenant with the pagan world and chose to keep covenant with God. Remember that the kosher laws and circumcision were there to show that Israel had been saved and claimed by God. Keeping the Torah is how Jews show the nations that the LORD is their King. The light in this dark passage is that these Israelites resolved that reflecting God’s kingship in their lives was more important than saving their lives.
In 1940s occupied Krakow, Poland, the Nazis rounded up Jews into ghettos and – among other things – tried to keep the Jewish people from marking the sabbath and other holidays. Rabbi Menasze Lewertow comments how his countrymen faced their oppressors. He writes:
“Confident that the offering of blood was not futile, they would daily stare death in the face, walk presumptuously in their long [sabbath coats]…[and] put up passive resistance by ignoring the German orders…”
These Polish Jews honored the LORD their king by openly celebrating the sabbath in how they dressed knowing it might cost them their lives. In that moment, ignoring Nazi orders was obeying and honoring the king.
Their actions shouted: ADONAI is King!
In the Gospel portion, we’re suddenly at another holiday, Passover. It is the Passover when Jesus is sacrificed as our Passover lamb.
The verse right before today’s Gospel portion began says – from the Complete Jewish Bible translation – “After singing the Hallel, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
The Hallel is Psalm 118, traditionally sung at Passover. Here’s how the psalm ends. I’m reading the Coverdale translation:
27 God is the Lord, who has shown us light; *
bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will thank you; *
you are my God, and I will exalt you.
29 O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious; *
his mercy endures for ever.
Bind the sacrifice to the altar. We know the Binding of Isaac. Abraham binds his only begotten son to the altar on Mount Moriah. Here in our Gospel portion we see Jesus climbing Moriah, ascending the mount for his binding, for the Binding of Yeshua, of Jesus.
Jesus and his disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray… and Jesus, knowing his torturous death is coming, asks the Father to relieve him of this calling. “But not my will but yours be done.”
Like those martyrs in I Maccabees, Jesus is about to be shamed and killed for obeying God. Like the Jews of the Krakow ghetto, Jesus will be mocked and scorned and beaten for doing the will of his Father. This is Jesus submitting to the Father’s Kingship.
At the end of our gospel reading, Jesus is asked if he is the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus answers with a rabbinical sandwich, splicing verses from Psalm 110 and Daniel 7 together. He says he is the Son of Man who sits at the right hand of the Ancient of Days. He will come in power on the clouds. This will happen, but not on this day. Jesus does not grasp, as Philippians 2 tells us, at his divinity nor at his power. He, Word of God made flesh, submits to the Kingship of the Father.
As the last verse of Psalm 118 says, the LORD is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!
This truth sustains Jesus through every injustice he suffers all the way to the cross. He and the Father agreed to Jesus’ calling before the foundation of the world. Before they said “Let there be light,” the Lamb of God was slain for the redemption of the world in the mind and heart of God. Now Jesus the God-man is living it out… and it hurts mind, body, and soul!
ADONAI is king and his steadfast love endures forever.
What does it look like for us to live like the LORD is King? How do we acknowledge his kingship? How do we show we are subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven?
We live like Jesus. We are peacemakers in a divided land. We stand with the oppressed until justice rolls like a river. We tend to the sick in this time of pestilence. Maybe we even die doing these things, knowing that ADONAI is king and his steadfast love endures forever.
Let us cry out to our king for our broken and hurting land. Please pray with me:
O High King of Heaven,
have mercy on our Land.
Revive your Church,
Send the Holy Spirit
for the sake of the children.
May your Kingdom come to our nation.
In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen. (Caleb prayer)
Given at Trinity School for Ministry at Oct. 9, 2020