Hope and Bitterness
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 28, 2010–Palm Sunday
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Luke 23:13-25
Luke 23:13-25 · Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”
Then they all shouted out together, “Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!” (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.
I. BEGINNING
One of the worst things about getting your hopes up is when your hopes are dashed. Come to think of it, it’s why people warn you not to get your hopes up in the first place.
Think about a time when your hopes were dashed. Personally, I have a hard time not thinking about the Red Sox in 1978, when Bucky Dent hit that improbable home run over the Green Monster. Or in 1991 when Bills kicker Scott Norwood was just a little wide right, causing the Bills to lose the Superbowl. Perhaps a number of you are contemplating your NCAA brackets at the mention of dashed expectations.
But, we all know that disappointment and dashed hopes are far more common in our lives than simply our hopes for our favorite teams. Perhaps it’s the hope that wells up when a new study or career opportunity comes up, followed by the pain of learning that we won’t get that opportunity. Perhaps it’s the hope for a new relationship–one that seems full of promise and excitement–only to be followed by heartbreak. Perhaps it’s in the hope for change or progress in society, only to be disappointed by the resurgence of the status quo. Or the hopes for reconciliation with a member of the family or an estranged friend, and to find the other party unwilling to bend.
Our lives are full of experiences wherein our hopes find themselves in a reversal of fortune, leaving us disappointed and hurting.
II. THE TEXT
We see that kind of stunning reversal in the scripture lesson we read tonight. The disciples must have been on top of the world as they came into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday. Imagine, you have given up your careers, left behind family and friends, to follow Jesus on his ministry around Galilee and Judea. It has been a challenging time. But the payoff seems right around the corner. Here you are, following Jesus in to Jerusalem–Jerusalem!–and he is welcomed by throngs of people waving leafy branches cut in the fields and shouting “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” Wow! This is going to be great! All your hard work, all that sacrifice, paying off at long last. Real change is going to happen. Jesus will be proclaimed king and messiah. The Romans driven out. Israel will be free once again. And then…
And then.
And then controversy in the temple. Religious leaders seem to be challenging Jesus. Suspicions run high. And there was that whole thing where Jesus turned over the tables in the courtyard. More arguments. More disagreements. And then, after the Passover supper, Temple guards come to arrest him–and there with them is one of your fellow disciples. Betrayal! Oh, how everyone ran after that. Fled and hid. Cowering. As they brought him before the Sanhedrin. Then they brought Jesus before the Roman governor and he was flogged, beaten, and then crucified.
This is not what you were expecting at all. Everything you had hoped for now lay in ruins. A devastating turn of events. All that hope. Gone.
III. DASHED HOPES
I have often reflected on the nature of disappointment. Imagine that someone tells you that they might be able to get you something you really would like to have. Like a rare CD or a vintage Pez dispenser. Now imagine that that same person tells you they’re not going to be able to get you that thing after all. You’re disappointed. Why? You didn’t have that Pez dispenser; you still don’t have it. What has changed? Why are we disappointed?
Contrary to popular belief, we don’t think in words, we think in a combination of mental concepts and images. In fact, much of our mental computations are really manipulations of images. I just got you to imagine a Pez dispenser and undoubtedly that mental image flashed into your mind at the very mention of it.
But the images of our imagining are powerful. It’s been said that our brains can’t tell the difference between the images we see in real life and the ones we see in our dreams. That’s why dreams can cause our hearts to race, our blood pressure to rise. It’s why dreams have the power to frighten, arouse, comfort, confuse, and trouble us. I am sure you’ve had the experience of having had a bad or disturbing dream and despite being well aware that the dream was not real, still dealing with the emotional effects of that dream for hours.
And so it is with our hopes. When we encounter something and it gives us hope for the future, we imagine what that future will look like. The images that we fashion become real to us. They start to form patterns in our minds. We can imagine entire narratives, filled with images and expectations. And so, when those expectations do not come to pass, we are disappointed. We experience loss. We hurt. Because while in reality we have not lost anything, in our hearts and in our minds we have. We have lost everything that we had constructed.
IV. BITTERNESS
What kind of loss must the disciples have felt once their expectations on Palm Sunday lay in ruins at the foot of the cross on Good Friday? They had placed a lot of faith in Jesus. They’d given up a lot. They’d hoped for a lot. It would be hard to imagine that they would not be disappointed by what had happened. It’s easy to imagine that they might even have been made bitter.
Indeed, the greater the hope, the greater the anguish, the greater the bitterness when those hopes are dashed. The Roman poet Lucretius wrote that “From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.” A recognition that the very heights of expectation and beauty can lead to the bitterness of loss and dashed hope.
Might bitterness not explain the behavior of the crowds? The behavior of the crowds is one of the more perplexing things about the story. These same crowds had been shouting “Hosanna” a mere five days before. Now they’re shouting “Crucify him!” What can explain that?
Could it be perhaps that they were excited about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. They were expecting Jesus to liberate them from oppression. Looking to him as the one who would bring about the kingdom–that is, the Kingdom of Israel, restored to its former glory like under David and Solomon. Freed from its enemies–the Romans. But Jesus doesn’t seem to be doing anything about that. He didn’t seem to be preaching insurrection. And by the end of the week, he had so angered the religious leadership that they had him arrested and handed him over to the Romans. Some messiah he turned out to be. I could see that hope for liberation transformed into the bitterness of disappointment. Bitterness deep enough to cry out “Crucify him!”.
The world is full of brokenness. Of dashed expectations and the grief of lost hope. The world is full of heartbreak and pain. The world is full of Good Friday experiences that leave us waiting, waiting for our redemption. And so I understand the existence of bitterness. After waiting so long, having our hearts broken so many times, is not bitterness the logical result?
But bitterness can be paralyzing, even if expected and understandable. How are we to avoid bitterness in the face of seemingly unrelenting reality?
In 1968, a Harvard sophomore named Kent Keith wrote a pamphlet for high school student leaders. In it were what were styled the “Paradoxical Commandments” as a frank reminder and challenge about the nature of service and leadership. They have been quoted and paraphrased many times over, most famously by Mother Teresa. Among these commandments are the following:
- People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
- If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
- If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
- The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
- Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
- The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
- People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
- What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
- People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
- Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
I am reminded of these commandments, because when I think about dashed hopes and bitterness, I don’t know that it is we, or the disciples, or the crowds, who have the greatest cause to be disappointed. To be bitter. What about Jesus’ bitterness?
Certainly he would have good cause, wouldn’t he? Can we not imagine the following thoughts: What more do you want from me? I brought you a proclamation of the arrival of God’s kingdom. I healed you. I taught you. I preached to you words of hope and comfort. Words that set the world on end. I ate with you who were outcast, marginalized. I shared God’s love with all of you. And I came to Jerusalem at the Passover that we might celebrate God’s liberating and redemptive love. Oh, but you were threatened by that. You were either afraid that I was going to lead a rebellion, or you were angry that I wouldn’t. It was not enough for you that I should give you everything I already have. You turned me in. You handed me over. And when the time came, you shouted just as loudly for my death as you had when I came into Jerusalem a few days before. Why should I do anything for you?
Of course, we Christians understand Jesus’ story as part of God’s story. Jesus as the Son is God present with us. And this disappointment felt by the Son cannot have been anything new. Had God not led the Israelites out of Egypt only to have been abandoned by them forty days later when they constructed a Golden Calf? Had God not led the people into the Promised Land only to have had them repeatedly abandon their commitments to righteousness and justice in favor of materialism and idolatry? Had God not sent the prophets to bring the people back to justice and righteousness, only to see those prophets rejected and abused? Had God not restored the people back to their land after the Exile, only to see them once again fall into their old ways? No, my friends, what happened to Jesus was nothing new. We had been turning our backs on God for a long time. And we would continue to.
So, we must face the unpleasant fact that the crowds turned on Jesus not only out of their bitterness at dashed expectations, but primarily because we have been turning on God for a very long time. This is what we do.
And so, it is inconceivable that Jesus, upon entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, could not have known that the very Hosannas he was hearing that day would be shouts of “Crucify him!” on Friday. As one who was living out God’s story, it is hard to imagine that he would not have expected this kind of betrayal. The betrayal we are so very, very good at.
And he came into Jerusalem anyway.
Jesus knew that we would greet him with praise and acclamation on Sunday and that we would betray him, hand him over, and shout for his crucifixion only a few days later… and he loved us anyway.
Jesus had been predicting this end ever since Simon Peter had declared that he was the Messiah. Of course, Peter and the others rejected this prediction. I wonder, if the reason the disciples had such a hard time believing or understanding Jesus’ predictions about his own betrayal was because of their inability to believe that anyone who actually believed that would continue to love and serve the way he was doing.
And yet, it is almost as if Jesus said, “I will do good, I will serve, I will preach God’s love; and I will be rejected, despised, I will be handed over. But I will love them anyway.”
V. END
In the midst of the bitterness of our dashed expectations, we often struggle to see the deeper hope that lies beyond. We see our lives as full of things hoped for and of expectations ruined. We are tempted toward bitterness and cynicism. Pulled toward giving up.
But in the middle of it all, we encounter a God who does not give up on us. A God who, in spite of our brokenness, in spite of our fickleness, in spite of the way we ourselves succumb to our bitterness, in spite of all the wrong choices we will make, loves us anyway.
And there, in the midst of all our dashed expectations, all of our brokenheartedness, we find cause not for bitterness, but for hope.
