Are any of you here today Marvel fans? The Marvel movies or Marvel comics? If you are, maybe you are familiar with one of the super-villains in the Marvel franchise. The villain I am referring to is named Thanos. Thanos first appeared in a comic book back in 1973. Thanos is generally a bad guy.
The Service of Darkness centers on a series of lessons, psalms, and liturgical texts that reflect on the Lord’s crucifixion and our repentance. As the service progresses, the candles of a sevenfold candelabrum are extinguished until only one remains. This candle is not extinguished but is removed from the chancel, leaving the church in darkness. The service is closed by a loud noise (known as the strepitus) that foreshadows the rending of Jesus’ tomb on Easter. After the strepitus, the last candle, still burning, is returned to the chancel. It thus anticipates the light of the paschal candle. The service ends without a benediction. We exit in silence to reassemble on the Festival.
At the center of our meditation tonight is one word: “covenant.” “Covenant” is a very important word in the Bible. In fact, the Bible itself is divided into two main divisions, the Old Covenant (or more commonly called the Old Testament) and the New Covenant (or more commonly referred to as the New Testament). A “covenant” (or testament) is a formal, many times legally-binding, agreement between parties.
We begin today at the end. We take up something Jesus says at the end of our text. The Pharisees have watched the events of Palm Sunday very carefully. They have seen the reception Jesus received as he entered Jerusalem. They have observed the royal-treatment given to Jesus. The palm branches being waved, as if a conquering hero is coming to town! They have listened to the crowds as they cheer the arrival of Jesus, using portions of Psalm 118 to welcome Jesus with Messianic overtones. They don’t like it! They don’t like it one bit!
Tonight, as we finish our Lenten series in which we have been meditating on “The Hidden Glory of the Cross,” we come to a most unusual text. Our text tonight contains a dialogue that took place between the three men who were crucified on Good Friday. Does that strike you as at all odd? What would there be to “chat” about? What do you talk about when dying on a cross?
“No way!” This is the standard response when you don’t believe something just happened or will happen. The Bears are lining up for a 40-yard field goal that will beat the Packers on the last play of the game. That’s a pretty routine “make” for the pros. The ball is snapped…and the Packers’ defensive end Dean Lowry gets his hand up and blocks the field goal. Packers win! Packers’ fans yelled, “No way!” Bears fans muttered, “No way!”
Pastor Scott Schwertfeger – Zion, Leeds is leading our Worship Service today.
It is difficult for us to imagine just how different Jesus would have been in the religious culture of his day. Jerusalem was largely dominated by the chief priests of the Temple. As you moved away from Jerusalem, the synagogues in the towns and villages were dominated by the party of the Pharisees, many of whom were rabbis and experts in the law. And for many of the most influential Pharisees, the world was divided into two camps. You either followed them and all their legal requirements, or you were considered a “sinner.” And people in the class of “sinners” were worthy of disdain and contempt. I suspect their expectation of the Messiah was that he would be a Pharisee-on-steroids. Just like them, only more zealous for the laws, and even more zealous about drawing that line between the “righteous” and “sinners.”
The prophet Isaiah foresaw our text tonight. Isaiah famously prophesied about Jesus: He was crushed for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5) He says Jesus was “crushed.” It’s a vivid word. Picture taking a hammer to a Ritz cracker or a piece of glass. That cracker or glass would be smashed into a million pieces. That is the idea of being “crushed.”
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about some tragic death. The news is filled with stories of war-casualties and natural disasters and murder and overdose. There is a human tendency in these moments to speculate. We wonder why it happened to “those” people. There is an underlying assumption beneath much of the speculation. The underlying assumption runs something like this: “Good things happen to good people; conversely, bad things happen to bad people.” The logic is then simple, cold, inescapable: That person met with a bad end so they must have been a bad person.
