Hope From Ashes

Read: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 36:5-11; Hebrews 9:11-15; John 12:1-11

Yesterday’s palms are lying on sanctuary floors and are conspicuously placed in pew racks by children who could not see over the height of so many adults. The palms have begun drawing, cut off from their life source. Only a stalked stump remains where the palms once thrived. Shouts of “Hosanna” wither as quickly as the dying palms. Few will trek from Palm Sunday to Easter by stepping on the stones of Holy Week, but those who do find an honesty about humanity’s relationship with God, especially in the seasons we feel cut off, withered, exiled from God, others, and self.

Isaiah accompanies the totality of Jesus’ life, like his own heartbeat. Like a tonic note to which we return to find our pitch. In Second Isaiah, we hear an anonymous voice singing from the Babylonian exile. Jewish interpretation and most Christian scholarship understand this Servant of the Songs to be Israel personified. Christians ascribe the Servant of the Lord to Jesus, the man of sorrows, God’s beloved. However, to listen carefully to this ancient hymn from Isaiah reveals colorful nuance for us all. When entering Holy Week, Passover week, or any collective season in which God’s people find themselves, one must prepare to enter deeper waters relying on the buoyancy of grace to rescue us from life’s ambiguities, chaos, and exile. This text, for the Judeo-Christian experience, invites and dares one/us to step into an unknown future. Isaiah’s words are a threshold. Between past and future, pain and healing, exile and freedom, darkness and light, “Hosanna” and “Crucify him,” from the edge of uncertainty to the glimmer of hope. 

Whether you read this Servant of the Lord as Jesus, Israel, or as yourself the import remains: when God’s people stand in the ambiguous and liminal space of our humanity, albeit stumbling home as exiles or prodigals, from celebration to lament, and back, God’s Spirit will rest up us. The togetherness of life, like Holy Week, is where the glory of God will be found, rising anew in the lives of God’s people who are the intersection of revelation and commitment.

Prayer:

Holy One, from life’s ashes, we rise together by your grace alone, but together with one another, and into the promised hope of becoming a people of justice, righteousness, and servants within our spheres of influence. Thank you for your faithfulness, for never giving up on us, and for the song of hope we sing together from generations past. We stand on the shoulders of many and, together, strengthen our own shoulders for your dream of a brighter, more hope-filled, future. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour as we enter this Holy Week. To you alone we rise and give our praise. Amen.