When Darkness Reigns

Luke 22: 47-53, page 747
While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Everyday I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour – when darkness reigns.”
Sermon
People who ask questions are not always looking for answers.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who you know is not listening to you? They’re nodding their head as you’re talking, but you can tell that they’re not paying any attention at all – when my wife Sara thinks that’s what I might be doing she’ll stop talking, and ask me a question – not because she wants to know the answer, but because she wants to know whether I’m paying attention or not. I’ll have to scramble for something to say and I’ll just hope I’ve said something that’s close enough: “I’m so sorry your boss is acting that way,” or “I just think Lily is doing great.”
Something else that’s sometimes hard to deal with are those questions that aren’t really questions, but an accusation: “Joe, have you had a chance to sweep the floor?” my wife Sara might ask, knowing full well that I haven’t given all the dust and dog hair on Lily’s knees that she’s accumulated crawling all over the house, but wanting to say something more kind than, “Joe, you’ve had all day to sweep the floor so why on earth are my baby girl’s knees so dirty, it looks like she’s been crawling all over a supermarket!”
But worst of all is that question that won’t wait for an answer because the people who ask it have already decided what they’re going to do: “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” If you look closely at this sentence I suppose you do have to call it a question as it ends in a question mark, but verse 49 doesn’t say that the disciples asked Jesus this question. Instead, “they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”
And not waiting for answer, one of them struck the servant of the high priest with his sword, cutting off his right ear.
The disciples’ rashness shouldn’t be surprising. They are defending Christ – and all of us who know the love that he has for us can imagine doing the same thing – wanting to show that same love he has for us by defending him from the arrest and execution that they now know is waiting for him.
They knew what they were going to do before they asked; so they weren’t really asking at all as they weren’t listening for an answer.
The approaching gang armed with swords and clubs isn’t interested in listening to anything either. They had not gone out to find Jesus for a nice conversation, but to silence him before he went and did something that might catch the Roman’s attention.
As he marched into Jerusalem the Pharisees were there and one said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
These religious authorities knew that this crowd celebrating Jesus was going a little too far, that Jesus wasn’t just a teacher, but was one that threatened stability, who was pressing for things to change, and who had captured the imagination of the people to such a degree that they cheered for him in the street, welcoming him into the city with shouts of:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
With those words, most especially that dangerous word “king,” the Pharisees knew what they had to do – they had to stop this man before he tried to take the power that the people seemed to want him to have.
The Pharisees’ concern sounds strange to those of us who know that Jesus wasn’t interested in political power. We know that Jesus could have explained to them how he wasn’t interested in becoming the Prince of Jerusalem; he was the Prince of Peace. That he didn’t care about gaining power, he already had the power of God at his command. But the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders had not gone out to find Jesus to straighten this misunderstanding out or to hear what he had to say, and after some impulsive disciple attacked the very thing used for hearing had been cut off.
What we have in this scripture lesson are two groups bent on facing each other head on – not in a discussion, not to find some compromise, but with minds made up, one group bent on defending Jesus, the other bent on maintaining the order that Christ threatened by arresting him and keeping him quiet, there is no peaceful solution left.
Neither group was interested in hearing anything, but both had already made up their minds.
A situation not too unlike rallies I’ve seen recently outside the White House – two opposing sides, both having already made up their minds, and certainly not interested in hearing what the other side has to say.
Judging from the placards, protestors are shooting to offend their opponents, not dialogue with them:
“If socialized medicine is best then why didn’t Ted Kennedy go to Canada?”
Or “what moron wouldn’t want free health care?”
It would seem as though everyone has already decided what it is that they believe, what they believe the other side believes, and they are no more interested in working together or hearing what the other side has to say than Jesus was in picking which side he would like to be on.
What so captivates me about our scripture lesson for today is that I bet both sides also thought they knew what Jesus would be doing – that the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, the elders, and their servants assumed that Jesus would be putting up a fight, that they had better come armed, poised to defend themselves and to bring down this band of disciples with a strong hand.
The disciples may have assumed the same thing – that Jesus would be ordering them to defend themselves, that he would stand behind them and pray that God would deliver them from their enemies and support them in their triumphant assault on the corrupt religious establishment.
But Jesus defies both groups’ expectations. He doesn’t even side with his disciples, but as the two groups face each other we see that Christ is present to the injured man, touching his wound and healing his ear.
Like a rally outside the white house, no one went out to hear what the other side had to say, those banners and chants aren’t for educating the other side but for rallying supporters, the disciples had decided they would be fighting, the chief priests, guards, servants and elders had already decided that they would be arresting, but Christ is not for or against either of these groups, he is not on one of those two sides, he is serving the wounded man.
I believe this wounded man was the only one who truly heard something that night, that night when people stopped listening and started fighting, that night when darkness reigned. It is so ironic that the man without an ear would be the only one who heard the good news but it is this man who is changed, it is this man who knew in that moment of chaos who Christ truly was and what Christ came to earth to do.
In that moment, that moment when darkness reigned, the light that shown in the darkness was a sign of kindness when all around was hate, a moment of seeing not two sides but two people with a common humanity, it was just a flicker there, but when darkness reigned all around, when the disciples stopped listening, when the religious authorities had already made up their mind, there was one man who saw Christ plainly.
In a world where issues divide us, where the news would keep you worried and threatened, in a world perfectly happy to keep you from listening to anyone who thinks differently – it would seem that we too live in a world where darkness reigns.
Hold fast then to this truth – Christ doesn’t care about your issues – Christ cares about you.
Christ sides, not with the Democrats or the Republicans, but with the hurt, the afflicted, and the lost – and if you follow him you will most certainly never be lost.
Listen then; hear his voice – and trust that when darkness reigns there is a light that will never go out.
Amen.