What I Preached on the Sunday of the Passion: St. James Lutheran Church, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI

“The system is not sustainable.” How weary I am of hearing these words. “The system is not sustainable.” Whether it’s preparing pastors for our church, producing cars for our country, providing health care for our people, or preserving a future for our planet, the system, we are told, is not sustainable. An end, the end, is coming. The end is near. This news catches us off guard; it surprises us. But the news that the system isn’t sustainable isn’t anything new. The system, all of our death-dealing systems, ended on the cross of Jesus Christ.

So many of the people in the passion, so many of us, expected Jesus to command the system, to take control of the system, to make the system work for us. But Jesus submitted to the system – in the garden, before the religious authorities, on trial at government headquarters, and even – or especially -- on the cross.

Everyone reacted as though the system was winning. The young man who ran away in the garden certainly did. “All of them deserted him and fled. A certain young man was following [Jesus], wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.” This young man represents all of us when we get caught up in death-dealing systems. We feel naked, ashamed, vulnerable, and deserted. We offer the alabaster jar of our love and it is a scandal. We prayerfully discern what we think we are to do, and the result is betrayal. Embarrassed, ashamed, vulnerable and scared, we run away. We play it safe. We swallow truth. We put up defenses. We erect boundaries. We end up isolated from others and dying inside. Yet, Jesus does not leave us there. We, like that yong man, are saved from error, evil, and past poor performance by the One who wears a linen (burial) cloth and by the news announced by another “young man” we will meet at a tomb. Jesus ends the system of death. But not today.

The women who looked on from a distance surely knew that everything was ending -- “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.” These women, who will go to the tomb, testify to both Jesus’ death and resurrection. They make crystal clear that, even for God, there is no new beginning without an end. There is no new life without real death. Jesus does not end our death-dealing systems without dying. Joseph of Arimathea makes clear that Jesus is dead. Joseph wraps Jesus in a burial cloth, lays Jesus in a tomb, and seals the tomb from grave robbers. Jesus’ end is real. Our systems of death must die. And they are dying today. And Jesus dies with them.

Even Jesus seemed to know that our systems are not sustainable, that our systems are dying, that the end is coming. How could a sustainable system leave the Son of God to cry out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" That is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The death of our systems is painful, forsaking, isolating. Even for God. Yet, God stays with us. God dies with us. The One who felt forsaken does not forsake us. And so we do not die alone.
“The system is not sustainable,” we are told. As our systems are ending, and God knows they are. As our systems die, God in Christ is with us. God in Christ ends with us. The One who once felt forsaken does not forsake us. And, more than this, in Christ, God’s power is at work even when we cannot see it. In Christ, all ends are new beginnings, though not necessarily the beginning we want, the beginning we hope for, the beginning we expect. In Christ, all ends are new beginnings, though not necessarily today. As we wait, as we end, Jesus waits and ends with us. Even as our systems die, Jesus does not forsake us. Jesus does not leave us to die alone. Jesus brings us to new life, though not necessarily today.