WHEN YOU KNOW THE ENDING

        We were watching the North Carolina basketball game last Sunday when it came time to leave for a meeting at the church.  “I’m going to record the rest of the game,” I told my wife.  “And if it is an exciting finish I want to watch it when we get home.”  I’m not a Carolina fan, but since I have a daughter who graduated from UNC, a grandson who is a student in Chapel Hill, and another grandson who lives and dies with the Tar Heels, I was pulling for them to win.  They were also representing our state and the ACC.  I wanted Carolina to beat Kansas. 

        I heard the final score before I returned home.  I promptly erased the recording.  It makes a difference when you know the outcome.  It’s hard to be excited when you know the ending is not good. 

        This Sunday at high noon hundreds of people from area churches will gather at the Square in front of the old courthouse for a Community Palm Sunday Celebration.  It will be a festive atmosphere.  You will hear shouts of “Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Trumpets will sound, worshipers dressed in their Sunday finest will wave Palm fronds, different choirs dressed in colorful robes will sing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” and the local clergy dressed in liturgical vestments with purple stoles will pray, read Scripture and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ!

It will be a celebration which raises an interesting question.  How can we celebrate when we know that the ending will not be good?  If we follow Jesus throughout Holy Week, we will find tensions building in Jerusalem as he drives the money changers out of the Temple, the religious authorities will conspire against him, the people will turn against him, and finally one of his own disciples will sell him out for a pocketful of money.  Jesus will be arrested, paraded back and forth between political leaders, victimized by a travesty of a trial, and finally sentenced to die by crucifixion.   His closest followers will go into hiding, he will be severely beaten and ridiculed, and after a humiliating death march through the city forced to carry his instrument of torture and execution, he will be stripped of his garments, nailed to a cross, and lifted up for all to see on a public hill called Golgotha just outside the city walls.  

Just knowing that this will happen tempers our celebration, but yet, we still celebrate.   We know that even though the immediate ending is not good, there is a greater ending that transcends all human expectation and experience—a greater ending that transforms our very existence.  It teaches us that the worst case scenario is never the last word.  There is always hope, always light, and always a reason to lift up our heads and hearts and yes, celebrate, even in the most desperate situations. 

As people of faith we understand that pain, suffering, injustice, and death are all a part of life.  We can erase the recording, but it doesn’t change the reality.  It’s how we view the reality of suffering that makes all the difference.  Left on its own, suffering, pain, affliction, and failure will overwhelm us, driving us into a deep, dark abyss of depression and despair.  Life loses all meaning and purpose and we are plunged into hopelessness.  But if we understand that Jesus not only died for us, but he died to suffer with us, we can allow him to absorb our anguish and despair through his crucifixion.  Fredrick Buechner wrote, “Because of the cross our greatest pain endured in love and faithfulness, becomes the greatest beauty and the greatest hope.”  Therefore we can sing, “In the cross of Christ I glory!”

And so this Sunday, Palm Sunday, we celebrate precisely because we know how it will end.  And next Sunday, Easter Sunday . . . well, nothing can ever erase that ending!

Scheduled to appear in The Dispatch, March 31, 2012