By Scott Herr
Palm Sunday, this year April 13th, begins the Passion week recalling the events leading up to the climax of the Christian celebration of Easter. Unlike Christmas, it is what is referred to as a “moveable feast,” based on the lunar calendar. This year, the Jewish celebration of Passover begins before sundown on Saturday, April 12, 2025, and ends after nightfall on April 20. The Passover recalls the central liberating act of God in setting free the Hebrew slaves from their captivity in Egypt. Easter, for Christians, recalls the central liberating act of God in raising Jesus from the dead.
One essential part of both stories is the unsavory fact of the shedding of innocent blood. As the history of both events go, there is not religious symbolic transfer of guilt in order to realize liberation. Innocent blood is poured out. I have often wondered why foundational freedom, goodness, truth and beauty, requires such costly sacrifice?
Philip Yancey, in his book, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, tells the story how during a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods’ appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
Christians believe the God of the Exodus is the same God embodied in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the events of “Holy Week” and Easter are the ultimate expression of God’s taking upon God’s self the sins of the world to bring forgiveness and open the way for reconciliation. The Apostle Paul, in one of the most astonishing statements of the New Testament asserts, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…” and even more shockingly, claims, “For us God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that we might become the righteousness (or justice) of God” (II Corinthians 5:21).
The events of both the Passover and Holy Week also remind us how stubborn, duplicitous, selfish and hard-hearted humans can be, even in the face of suffering. It was Pharoah who would not relent but insisted on maintaining a system of injustice and oppression. Only when judgment was meted out on the firstborn did he relent and let the Hebrew slaves go, but even then, he sought revenge and his soldiers faced a watery death in pursuit. In the events remembered in “Holy week,” the crowds of Palm Sunday yelling “Hosannah, Hosannah, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” soon were yelling, “Crucify, crucify!” Yes, both stories remind us of human brokenness and evil, yet of God’s desire for wholeness and shalom, best defined as “the way it’s supposed to be.”
In this coming week, we remember God’s grace at work even in the midst of the dark forces of death and destruction. The good news is, as real as they may be, the forces of death and destruction will not have the last word. C.S. Lewis retells the story of the resurrection in one of my favorite scenes of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”:
Edmund, one of the children central to the Chronicles of Narnia, betrays his friends to the wicked White Witch. Aslan, the Lion King, sacrifices himself for Edmund because, according to the Deep Magic of Narnia, a traitor must forfeit their life to the White Witch. Aslan is sacrificed on the Stone Table by the Witch, and all seems lost…
Immediately after the sacrifice of Aslan, the White Witch and her minions leave for battle, leaving Aslan’s dead body on the Stone Table. Susan and Lucy, two of the children who watched, came out from hiding and wept over Aslan.
Greatly saddened, the girls tried to untie the lion, but mainly cried until they were horrified to see mice scampering all over the dead lion. But then Lucy is surprised to realize the mice had come to nibble away the cords that bound Aslan.
The mice left as dawn arrived, and as Susan and Lucy walked around aimlessly, the first rays of sunrise broke the sky and they heard a deafening crack. As they turned around, the Stone Table had been broken in half, and Aslan was gone!
Lucy asked if this was more magic, and a voice behind her answered her, telling her that it was, indeed, more magic. It was Aslan, alive and well! They rushed to him, with Susan asking him if he was a ghost. He relieved their fears with his warm breath, and explained, “It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” The story goes on to tell of the eventual victory over the death-dealing forces of the White Witch.
Whatever story you’re living by, consider the different incantation of self-giving love. Self-giving love is the deeper magic that makes death work backwards! That’s from where true freedom and new life comes! Even through all the ambiguities and perplexities, the death and destruction of our lives and world, remember there is a deeper magic and we are invited by God to receive it and live into it. Chag Pesach sameach! Happy Easter!
The Rev. Dr. Scott Herr is one of the pastors serving the First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan.
