I heard about a man who was on vacation, traveling in Israel, with his wife and mother-in-law.  And they were in the middle of their trip, in Jerusalem, when the mother-in-law suddenly dies, she just drops over dead with a heart attack.  And so they go to a local funeral director, right there in Jerusalem, and ask him what they should do, what are their options?  And the funeral director says they basically have two options.  You can either ship the body home with you, he says, and this will cost about $20,000.  Or, you can have the burial right here in Jerusalem, and it will cost about $1,000.  Well, the wife, the daughter of this woman, is uncertain what to do, but the husband is emphatic, he says that they should ship the body home, which surprises his wife because this man is something of a miser, so she thinks he must have loved his mother-in-law very much to be willing to spend this kind of money on her.  But the funeral director pulls the husband aside and says, “Are you sure you want to spend that kind of money to ship her home?  We do a very nice funeral right here, and it’s much cheaper.”  But the husband says, “No, I want to ship her home.  I heard about this other person, this man, who died in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and they buried his body here, and three days later he rose from the dead.  And I don’t know whether it really happened or not, but you didn’t know my mother-in-law, and I just can’t take that chance.” 

I thought this story was kind of cute, not because I don’t like my mother-in-law, but because there’s something appealing about this man.  He doesn’t know for sure whether it’s true or false, but this claim that Jesus rose from the dead all those years ago might just have happened, it might just be possible, it might just have an effect on his life right here and now, the very idea of resurrection just might affect the decisions he will make today.

Holy Week is right here upon us.  It starts today, the most meaningful week of the year for the Christian, so they say.  Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey in triumph.  He continues to preach and teach.  But then he is betrayed, and denied, one of his best friends denies ever having known him, and he’s convicted, and tortured, and crucified.  And you’ll just have to come back next Sunday to see how it all turns out.  But there is enough pathos and evil, and enough goodness too and transcendence, in one week, to last a lifetime, to last multiple lifetimes.  And so the question becomes for us, what are we going to do with this week ahead?  How are we going to live with it?  How are we going to let it live in us?   

At my former church, I was talking with one of the children there, at about this time of the year, and we got to talking about Holy Week, and this little boy thought about that term for a minute, it was kind of a new term for him, but then he asked me, “What if I don’t want to be holy all week?”  I didn’t want to lead him astray, but I told him that the chances were that I wouldn’t be holy all week either.  I think the point of Holy Week is not for us to try and make it holy, God will make it holy, the point of Holy Week is to kind of immerse ourselves in it, and then emerge out of it and see what it does for us, see what it does to us, see how it might change us.  How are we going to live with this week?  How is this week going to be different for you and me?  How is this week going to make you different? 

I have to say that I admire those who are willing to take some risks with their lives.  You don’t usually think of Charlie Brown as one of those who is willing to take risks, but there was this one wonderful Peanuts cartoon.  Lucy and another girl are sitting on the bench at a baseball game, and Lucy says, “I can’t look!”  And the other little girl says, “The score is three to two in the bottom of the ninth!”  “But we have two outs!” Lucy says.  “But Charlie Brown is on third!  And our best hitter is coming up!” the other girl says.  “Say,” Lucy says, “you don’t think Charlie Brown will try to steal home, do you?”  And the other little girl says, “Never!  Not even Charlie Brown would do anything that stupid!”  And in the next frame, Charlie Brown is standing on third base, and he’s thinking to himself, “I wonder if I should steal home?” 

I love those who are willing to take a risk with their lives, who might be willing to take a risk with this week ahead of you, and see where it might lead, see what it might yield.  It was a famous French Catholic theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, who said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  We are transcendent beings, in other words, earthbound for these few moments only, but not earthbound forever, not earthbound for eternity.  We are spiritual beings, and we must set our spirits free.

I came across a wonderful quote, the only problem is that I have no idea what it means.  Here’s the quote: “A wild person with a calm mind can create almost anything.”  A wild person with a calm mind can create almost anything.  I have no idea what that means, do you?  But since I brought it up, I’m going to try and give it some meaning.  A wild person, meaning maybe in our context for today a person who is willing to follow God anywhere, no matter how wild that may seem, no matter how risky.  A wild person with a calm mind, calm mind meaning maybe a willingness to see clearly where you are going, to look clearly, to try and understand clearly, what God has in store for you, what God might do in your life.  A wild person with a calm mind can create almost anything.  Are you a wild person with a calm mind?  Some of you are pretty wild. 

Actually when I think of a wild person with a calm mind I think of Jesus, I think of this Palm Sunday passage we read.  And the most fascinating part of this, I think, is not the part where Jesus rides in on the donkey in triumph, the most fascinating part is where Jesus drives out the money changers, and those who were buying and selling.  Those who were buying and selling these doves and other animals to be sacrificed in the temple, and those who were changing money for those from distant lands, they were probably doing one of two things.  They were probably dishonest and cheating their customers and price gouging.  Or, the most recent scholarship suggests that these merchants in the temple had been given a privileged place there by Caiaphas himself, the High Priest, so that they had a competitive advantage over the enemies of Caiaphas who were buying and selling outside the temple grounds, like you were supposed to. And no doubt Caiaphas was probably receiving a bit of a kickback for this.  Either way, we can begin to understand why God would want to have his message shouted out to all who were there, shouted out to all the world, quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are turning it into a den of thieves.” 

Jesus, I have to say, is a bit out of control here.  Jesus is out of control.  And I have to say that I like that in a person.  Jesus is a model for us.  But the model is not a model that says that it’s okay for us to get angry.  Jesus is angry here at something that is wrong and unfair and unjust, and perhaps it’s okay for us occasionally and reluctantly to be angry, not in a self-righteous way, but to be angry at injustice.  But the model Jesus portrays is a model of being out of control, a model of giving up control over a situation, so that someone else might be in control, so that God might be in control.  As Jesus draws closer and closer to the cross, it is clear that God the Father is in control, that God the Father is directing where events these will lead. 

I love the story of the son who is walking along with his father, and they come across a large stone.  And the boy asks his father, “Do you think if I use all my strength, that I can move this stone?”  And the father answers, “If you use all your strength, I’m sure you can do it.”  Well the boy begins to push and push on the stone, exerting himself as much as he can, but the stone simply will not move.  So, discouraged, he says to his father, “You were wrong.  I can’t move this stone.”  But his father places his arm around the boy’s shoulder and says, “No son, you didn’t use all your strength.  You didn’t ask me to help.”  When we recognize that we cannot do it all, then we allow God to begin to do it in our lives.  When we understand that we are not the ones in control, we make room for God to be in control. 

John Ortberg, a preacher and author, in his latest book, tells the story of a man named David Rabin who was a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University.  When he was 46, David was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.  And from his medical background, he knew what was going to happen to him: stiffness in the legs, then weakness, then paralysis of the whole lower body and then of the upper body.  Eventually he would become trapped in a body that would no longer respond to his commands.  His tongue lost its ability to function; he could form words only with the greatest of difficulty, and eventually not at all.  He lost his ability to treat patients.  He could no longer go to the hospital to work.  He had been in the middle of a promising career; now he could no longer turn the pages of a book.  And David remembered when he was in medical school that ALS had been the most frightening disease he had studied.  He remembered one of his professors saying about a patient with ALS, “Hopeless!  He will be demeaned, isolated, unable to communicate, and probably dead in six months.”  And now here he was with this. 

But there was one thing this man David determined that he would not surrender, and that was his spirit.  He heard about a computer that could be operated by a single switch, and that switch could be operated by anyone, however handicapped, who retained the function of one muscle group.  David had enough strength in only one part of his body: his eyebrow muscle.  And so he used his eyebrow.  With his eyebrow somehow he operated this computer.  With his eyebrow he spoke to his family, he told jokes to his friends, he wrote papers, he reviewed manuscripts, he carried on a medical consulting practice, he taught med students, he published a comprehensive textbook on endocrinology and received a prestigious award for his work.  And he did all this when the only thing he could control was a single eyebrow.  He said, “Sickness may challenge your body.  But are you merely your body?  Lameness may impede your legs.  But are you merely your legs?  Your will is bigger than your legs or your body.” 

It was Albert Einstein, of all people, I understand, who once said that there are only two ways in life to live, only two ways: as if nothing were a miracle, or as if everything were a miracle.  There are only two ways: as if nothing were a miracle, or as if everything were a miracle.  The choice is ours, for this week, and for the whole rest of our lives.