Among the Scoffers...

Evangelical Christianity has a pretty popular song that they sing in worship services and, if I remember correctly, it was introduced to me by my high school youth pastor, Scott Priest. It is called "How Deep the Father's Love for Us." It sponsors a standard conservative Evangelical doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement and, that disagreement aside, I was reminded of the song and a line today in mass:

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.

Central to any discussion of the Passion, Holy Week, and Atonement, is the recognition that - whatever we mean by it - I am complicit in and guilty for the suffering of Christ on the Cross. The Lenten journey is a time of repentance and penance. We join Christ in his sufferings so that we might be glorified with him and share in a resurrection like his (Romans 8:17).



Today's Gospel reading from the BCP was Matthew 27:11-54 Instead of reading the Gospel of Christ from the center of the Sanctuary as is our custom, today it was performed from the front, just in front of the Altar. There were three individuals: A Narrator, Pilate, and Jesus. The reciters chanted/sung the Scripture instead of just reading it, and the choir lent the voice of "the crowds."

First of all, the beauty of such a liturgical choice can hardly be overstated. But more importantly, it provided a very interesting dynamic. The choir recited the following things from the mouth of the crowd:

"[give us] Barrabas"
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
"His blood be on us and on our children!"
"Hail King of the Jews!"

Then, the real "scoffing" began...

"You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."
"He saved others, he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said ' I am the Son of God.'"

Then, after Christ's cry of dereliction, death, and the cryptic and awkward reference to Jesus' resurrection within the passion narrative - before the burial itself - have been stated, the choir speaks for the crowd as it stands now - having witnessed the phenomena as well as Christ's death:

"Truly this man was the Son of God."

Did you follow that? The crowds, the people, humanity, us, the choir, the Church, are those who cry "crucify him!" But, in light of his death and resurrection, only in the power of these two events, are sinners and scoffers transformed into those who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God!

Matthew's narrative does not say this in such a way, but the performance offered here recasts this narrative in a way that professes the mystery at work within the text, behind the text, and in the proclamation of the Church - that it is actually the same people who would mock him, who have become those who praise him!

Thanks be to you, Lord Christ.