Singing Until There’s Resurrection!
John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Sermon
Here we are, on the precipice of Holy Week. This is the last service before we travel with Jesus into Jerusalem, and find ourselves thrust into an epic. We’re about to cross into an old, old story that death tries to conclude, but thanks to the resurrection of Christ, continues to be written through the church each and every week. The gospel gets real this week.
We’ll start with Palm Sunday, of course, that day when Jesus enters into Jerusalem and is met by a jubilant throng of people. Those people cry out “Hosanna! Hosanna!” at the sight of Jesus, offering him a plea to be saved. We wind our way to Maundy Thursday, the last supper Jesus shares with his disciples, and then throughout the night, all the way to Good Friday, he endures his Passion: violence, humiliation, and a crucible that ends in death. In this week, we essentially walk through the essentials of our Christian faith — a small microcosm of what we believe.
It’s also fair to say that Holy Week is a microcosm of our lives, too. We celebrate deliverance, only to realize we didn’t quite get it right. We joyfully welcome pastors, coworkers, bosses, and politicians on every side of the aisle, only to be disappointed when they inevitably don’t meet our expectations. We find ourselves falling asleep when Jesus tells us to pray. We find intimacy with one another at shared meals. We do somewhat foolish things, because we believe and hope so much in God’s transforming power. As we read scripture next week on Palm Sunday, and throughout the following days on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, it’s certain that there is something you can identify with.
When we embarked on this Lenten season, I asked two questions: “When it feels as if everyone and everything is out of whack, and when it feels like the world is unfixable, what do we do?” “What do we do when holding hands and singing ‘Kum ba yah’ isn’t enough?”
Those are questions not only for our lives, but questions for Holy Week. During Holy Week, the community that followed Jesus Christ started to splinter into fragments. One of Jesus’ beloved disciples—who he loved, and called, and taught—sold his life. Another publicly denies him again and again and again. Some remained steadfast, chiefly the women who followed Jesus, and some were simply quietly written out of the biblical text.
There is joy and jubilation, sorrow and sadness, hopefulness and hopelessness, every thought and feeling under the sun. There are followers of Jesus like Martha, who anoint Jesus in faith. There are followers like the one Jesus calls his “beloved disciple,” who takes Jesus’ mother as his own and cares for the family of God. There are followers of Jesus like Judas, who betray him. There are followers of Jesus like Peter, who caves under pressure.
What were they supposed to do when the world was unfixable? What do we do when it’s unfixable, and when holding hands and singing “Kum ba yah” isn’t enough?
…
You all have submitted a wide range of hymns for this Lenten season. Though I did my best, not every hymn made it into our orders of worship. We’ve compiled all of those hymns, and all the reasons they were submitted, and created a playlist that you can find in your bulletin.
In listening to those hymns, and reading each other’s reasons for submitting them, we see how and why singing matters to our faith. I’ve done my best to impress that upon you all. But the proof is in the pudding: there are seventeen songs with seventeen stories that witness to God’s presence in music and singing.
When the world feels unfixable, singing brings us into the presence of God, where we are changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. On this side of heaven, we will never be able to articulate the mystery of our faith, or even the mystery of Jesus Christ and our Creator. There is simply a part of our faith that remains transcendent, seen only through a mirror dimly, as Paul says. But though it is transcendent, it is still knowable and perceptible. The mystery and transcendence of our faith is found tangibly in the sacraments; found in the groanings of the Holy Spirit; and found in music.
You all wrote about this. Not only writing why you like a song, but how it changes us.
As we enter into Holy Week starting next Sunday, we are encountering those mysteries and truths that are expressed in music and song. It’s a messy week, a complicated week, and a week wherein every character has a radically different perspective. It’s steeped in humanity; the very same humanity that is full of joy, and beauty, and complexity, and pain, and uncertainty, and everything else under the sun; the very same humanity within us that sings.
So this is our last train stop in Lent. Everyone disembarks here, before we gather next week to start the great drama. I promise this is the last time we’ll sing Kumbaya for a long, long time.
As we disembark, you all have written the end of the sermon through your hymn submissions. You all have been practicing the spiritual discipline of singing, and witnessed to the mysteries of our faith, before this Lent ever began.
Here’s what you all shared in your submissions:
When we are grieving loved ones, we sing, which reminds us of those who have died.
When we are with our parents who are in hospice care, we sing and form precious memories.
When we feel isolated, we sing, and are comforted by God’s love and companionship.
When we long for the simplicity and joy of our childhoods, we sing, and find ourselves returning to our childhood faith and childhood churches.
When we are aging, we sing, and are assured of God’s presence along that journey.
When we need to pray, and we don’t know where to begin, we sing.
When we don’t know what to do in the world, we sing. And we sing. And we sing. And we hear God calling us to discipleship; this day forward, until there is surely a resurrection, indeed.
