Introduction

The name for this blog comes from the Hebrew word merchab. Merchab is a masculine noun that appears most often in the Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures. It means a broad or roomy place, an expansive place, a wide place. Read more...

April 8, 2009

The Holy Week Question

It doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It is such an odd unsettling question. Jesus asks it in the Garden of Gethsemane after one of those with Jesus “struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear.”

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?(Matthew 26:53)

A Roman legion consisted of 6,000 soldiers. Jesus has unlimited power at his disposal. Upon this fact rests the central meaning of this week we call “holy.” No one has taken his life from Jesus. He is not a victim. Jesus surrenders his life. He gives himself into the hands of violence and injustice.

This giving is the power that turns the universe and opens a crack in the opaque density of matter through which resurrection breaks forth. Every week becomes “holy” when we choose to join Jesus in this transaction of surrender.

2 comments:

Rob H said...

When you hear Jesus in those days saying he could summon Legions of Angels, you might wonder is he mad depending on your belief in Him.
On the other side he did not rebuke his follower who acted out of panic.
He quitely waited to go the next step in the plan his Father had for him, to give his life for our sins , to allow us to join him.
Wow... and double wow as we know better for us today.

Sara said...

I have enjoyed reading your blog. I found you because of the similarities in the names of our blogs. Mine is called, "A Spacious Place."