UPENDED

Is it possible that this gospel of Jesus’ passion and death is a story that we may have heard too often?  Is it possible that by ingesting these details over and over again throughout the years the events have become a little too domesticated in our ears?  A little too safe?  Even a little too familiar?
After all, from our vantage point, 2000 years after the fact, there’s the chance that we read about the final days of Jesus’ life as little more than a historical drama that is far removed from the safety from which we hear the story again.  And we already know how everything turned out on Easter, so might we not be tempted to skip over these few chapters of the gospel and get right to the happy ending?  Is there any purpose in dwelling on the tedious details of this part of the story?  It makes for a very long reading, doesn’t it?

If any of these sentiments sound familiar to you, then this is exactly why we need to hear it all over again.  Because this is the part of the gospel in which the disciple’s whole world comes unraveled, not just in one simple event, but over and over again.  We all know that Easter is coming soon, but none of the followers of Jesus did- even though he had promised that on several occasions.  Repeatedly we are told that they just didn’t understand.

For the disciples, almost nothing about any of these events unfolds in the way they expected.  Everything was upside down…and frightening and overwhelming.  Today we hear two gospels proclaimed here.  In the first, the Jewish crowds are ecstatic with joy in welcoming the Messiah to Jerusalem.  In the second, they have almost all disappeared in confusion and grief-in just a few days’ time.

And during those few days,

• The mysterious woman anoints Jesus at the table, upsetting the rest of the guests
• Jesus announces at the Passover “love feast”, that he will be betrayed by someone at his very table
• He then announces that the great Peter will deny him
• And then the so-called Messiah of God is beaten and mocked at the hands of the civil authority, and neither Jesus nor God fight back
• And then the murderer Barabbas is swapped for Jesus and let go
• And finally Jesus is shamefully and painfully executed and buried

 None of this was supposed to happen.  Not as the disciples imagined it.  And yet it all happened exactly as it had to.

A good and necessary part of entering into Holy Week, for all of us still, is to open our hearts to the suffering that comes when we are asked to have some of our expectations turned upside down.