Peter Espeut | The saga of salvation

In two days the vast majority of the Christian world will celebrate Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, the beginning of a week-long commemoration of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Christians will take to the streets this Sunday carrying palm branches, recalling how the same crowds who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem with Hosannas, then shouted “Crucify Him” five days later. How fickle we are – even today!

My good friend, the late Mutty Perkins, would often declare that surely the all-powerful God could have found a less bloody and messy way to save the human race than by sending His Son to undergo torture, humiliation and death. Surely, speaking an appropriate, powerful divine word could have achieved the same end, thereby foregoing lashes from whips, macca-bush pressed on the head, falling to the ground under the weight of a heavy, wooden cross, having nails being driven into hands and feet, being speared in the side with a lance, and having to shed gallons of blood.

But then we might not appreciate it as much!

For those who study theology, the events of Holy Week – indeed, the events of the whole saga of salvation – hang together remarkably! It all starts with an appreciation of sin and its impact on the world: sickness, suffering and death. For millennia, humanity sought to relieve itself of the burden of sin, and its effects, by sacrificing lambs and bullocks: life for life! Blood was recognised as the sacred life force in man and beast. Life begets life!

The (old) covenant between God and His people was signed in the blood of bullocks. Half the blood was poured on the altar (God’s signature) and the other half was thrown on the people (read the story in Exodus 24). Blood is an important symbol of life! And commitment! Messy? Yes! Powerful symbol? Decidedly yes!

Every year, the high priest of the Jews made a blood sacrifice to expiate his sins and the sins of his people, but then he would have to do it all over again the following year; the blood of a lamb or a ram could go only so far [read the Letter to the Hebrews].

PASSOVER LAMB

And then there was the matter of the blood of the Passover lamb painted on the doors and lintels of the homes of the Hebrews; it saved them from the angel of death, and ultimately from slavery in Egypt. Every year (until today), Jews repeat the ritual sacrificial meal of the Passover (which includes unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and cups of wine), remembering how the Lord saved them from slavery and death by the blood of the lamb.

And then along comes Jesus; His mission: to free humanity from sin and its effects once and for all! Worthy is this lamb, such that no further blood sacrifice is needed to expiate sin. During his last Passover meal with his disciples, he takes the unleavened bread and wine (of the Passover meal) and invites them to eat and drink his very body and blood “which will be shed for you”. He prepared himself to personally become the Passover lamb.

In John’s account of the saga, as Jesus dies on the cross, the Passover lambs are being slain in the temple on Preparation Day (see John 19:31). Again, humanity would be saved from slavery and death by the blood of the lamb – this time by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

The slavery from which we are saved is slavery to sin.

He told his followers: from now on, when you do this (eat the ritual sacrificial meal of bread and wine become his body and blood ) you will not do it to remember what happened in Egypt; you will “do it in remembrance of me” and what I have done to save you from slavery to sin and death.

Since then, Christians gather on the Lord’s Day to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and thereby sign the new covenant in His blood – no longer on the outside of our bodies, but taken inside, to become a part of us.

MUST NOT FORGET IT

Every year during Holy Week, we stand and listen to the whole long story of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus twice: once on Palm (Passion) Sunday and again on Good Friday. We must not forget it!

On Palm Sunday we wave palms and sing Hosannas! And every Good Friday we shout “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” to remind ourselves that it was our sins – yours and mine – that put Him on the cross.

The saga of salvation is a bloody affair, and we can’t avoid it. We humans cannot communicate with each other except through symbols (words, actions); and we cannot communicate with God other than through human words and actions, which embody deep meaning.

Many of us have spent these 40 days of Lent preparing for Holy Week; we have fasted and deprived ourselves of various things, and we have given away our possessions (almsgiving); and we have prayed so that our lives might be conformed to Jesus, our model. We remember what Jesus has done for us, and what we are called to do: to work to complete his mission of establishing his kingdom of justice and peace.

And so we Christians advocate for justice and peace by providing food for the poor, and homes for the homeless; we advocate for the protection of human life from conception to natural death; we operate schools to provide top-class, values-based education; we fight against corruption in high places; and we work to protect the natural environment God has created and given to us as our common home.

It is my prayer that during the coming Holy Week, you might come to appreciate your immense value as someone worth dying for; and that you might choose to live your life for others.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.