24 March 2013

“Making the Sign of the Cross … in Jesus”
Psalm 31:15 / Philippians 2:5-11 / Luke 23:46
Sunday of the Passion
24 March 2013


You are my God; my times are in your hand.

That verse from today’s Psalm … it started me thinking about hands.
My hands … your hands.
Hands can be good and do good … they can create good times for us.
But hands can create poor times too.
Poor times for ourselves.
And certainly … as we meditate on our text this morning … this portion of the Passion of our Lord according to St. Luke … they create poor times for Jesus.
There are many hands in the times before us this morning.

The assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate ... these same hands which, a few short days before, had waved palm branches before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem … now they are grabby hands, they grab Jesus, and move him along toward trial and judgment.

They began to accuse Jesus … fingers point and wag at him, “He’s the one!”
Pilate says, “I will therefore have Jesus flogged” … and now come hard hands, wielding tools of torture and pain.

The crowd seized a man, Simon of Cyrene; they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. There are those hands again … then, palms in palms, they waved … now, angry … angry hands, they are laid on another innocent one;
and Simon’s frightened hands, shake, pained, as he carries the cross.

Women and men beat their breasts … sad, anguished hands, express pain and sorrow at what is happening.
Soldiers come up and offer Jesus sour wine… still more mocking hands, abusive hands, cruel hands, put to Jesus.

Jesus suffers at the hands … in the hands … of those who would claim these times as their own, our own, and not God’s.
Until , in the end, he trusts himself … trusts himself completely … into his Father’s, our Father’s hands.

Into your hands I commend my spirit.

You are our God; our times are in your hands.

Your hands, O God … they hold all our times … times in which we’re called to examine our own lives, lives into which we’re called to make and live the Sign of the Cross as we have in this Lent just passed … in ashes … when we’re tempted … in defiance … for one more year … in welcoming the lost … when the world can’t and won’t.

Your hands, O God … they guard us and guide us as we hear your call to make the Sign of the Cross into, for the sake of the world, a world dancing into its death bound spiral, a world who doesn’t want to see itself, themselves, ourselves, in the mirror of our reality which the Sign of the Cross holds up before us …

Your hands, O Jesus … despite what our hands do to you, your hands are never lifted against us in anger. Your hands, O Jesus, they are open to us in undeserved kindness, grace, peace, forgiveness, and love … and because of and through your hands, your Father’s are ready, too, to welcome us home.

Because of your hands. Because of your nail-scarred hands, Jesus.
Scarred by us …
… yet in them, we are held by you …
… in your love …
… to and through death itself.

Our times are in your hands, O Lord.
Thanks be to God.