By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

History has many examples of people pulling down life’s destructive powers. On April 9, a crowd of Iraqis and U.S. Marines pulled down a 40-foot statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The statue broke in half on its way down. Coincidentally, the U.S. Marine who draped the head of the statue with an American flag was Marine Cpl. Edward Chin. The head of the statue was then covered with the red-black-and-white Iraqi flag. Hundreds of people swarmed the hollow metal torso after it fell to the ground. Like the promises of destructive powers, the statue was hollow.

Nearly sixteen years ago, President Ronald Reagan sought to pull down another destructive power-The Berlin Wall. At the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany. Reagan said, “As long as the gate in closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.” After recalling the Marshall Plan of the late 1940s, President Reagan said dramatically, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Again and again, the forces of freedom have sought to pull down the destructive powers.

Palm Sunday and Holy Week are about pulling down destructive powers. Tom Wright, the Anglican Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, envisions Jesus of Nazareth in this way: “The temple [Jesus] redefined in terms of himself and his followers. And so it became unnecessary to obtain forgiveness through offering a sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem, to observe Mosaic restrictions on diet, or to observe other practices demarcating Jews from Gentiles” (Robert H. Gundry, “Reconstructing Jesus,” Christianity Today, April 27, 1998). It was on Palm Sunday that Jesus said, “The Scriptures declare. ‘My Temple is a place of prayer; but you have turned it into a den of thieves” (Luke 19:46). Grundy says that Jesus physically assaulted the sacrificial system of worship that took place in the temple . . . It was an acted-out prophecy of judgment, of coming destruction. Religion, whether in Judaism or Christianity or Islam is always in danger of being hijacked by persons who are seeking the power of money or power or position.

Likewise, Holy Week is about the pulling down of destructive powers-the powers of sin, suffering, and death. The earliest Christians saw the events at the cross of Jesus and Easter Day in terms of a war that had been won. An old Easter hymn casts the drama of Easter in these words: “Love’s redeeming work is done, fought the fight, the battle won. Death in vain forbids him rise; Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia, alleluia.”