Sermons by Vicar Bethany Ulrich (Page 5)

Today, Maundy Thursday, is the first part of a three day service. On this first day, we are in limbo. We are in between the long Lenten season and on the threshold of what’s to come. We have engaged in self-examination, fasting and prayer. As we said in our confession moments ago, in this Lenten season we have “heard our Lord’s call to struggle against sin, death, and all that keeps us from loving God and each other.”

If the gospel of John were a movie, today we get just a snapshot of what would be a longer scene. The snippet of Jesus’ words we catch today is part of a larger conversation with a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus…

We’ve all heard it a million times: “Oh, it’s just my cross to bear.” This phrase repeated often and used to express a kind of powerlessness in our suffering completely misses the point of the original context, which comes in our gospel text today. Yes, Jesus urges his followers to take up their cross, but the complete phrase spoken by Jesus in Mark is: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” When we look at the whole phrase, we remember that Jesus offers an invitation to not just an action, but to a whole way of life, to a path to follow…