As a Pharisee, I was steeped in Jewish tradition and law. I have to admit, I’m pretty bright and energetic and I know how to work the system. Eventually I was elevated to membership within the Sanhedrin. This council of seventy key Jewish rulers has significant power, commands unqualified respect and is considered to be the pinnacle of success for a religious professional. But the more I fill my life with work, the emptier I feel. I start to dream about what life might be like if only I’d made different choices. Of course it’s only dreaming, because the choices have already been made and I’m so far down one path that there is now no other road to travel.

Some time ago I met this teacher named Jesus, who without any apparent training or credentialing, speaks with both spiritual passion and scriptural authority. Just listening…just being in his presence… seems to open new doors that release people from ruts of poor health, sinful living, social oppression and common boredom. Yet last night it seems the door closed on him. Caiaphas, the high priest, called a special session of the Sanhedrin in the middle of the night and my friend Nicodemus and I, Joseph of Arimathea, were not even notified! An oversight? Hardly, it had all the indications of omission by intent. From what I heard Jesus faced their unfounded accusations without defense and now following a mock trial has paid the ultimate price.

Most of the crowd has left. The two thieves gasp and groan as they hang near death. The soldiers, glad that the day’s work is nearing completion, share the heavy chore of taking down the center cross, wrenching the spikes loose to free the limp hands and feet and then rolling the body of Jesus onto the ground. “He’s all yours” the sentry says to me and Nicodemus. What have we gotten ourselves into? Relatives normally have the right to conduct a burial, but certainly not relative strangers! We’ve already stuck our necks out with Pontius Pilate, requesting the body of one crucified for treasonous activity. Now, here we are dignified Pharisees, touching and tending and anointing a dead body!

In this moment of tenderness, for one completely incapable of responding in kind, I sense a stirring of God’s spirit that I’ve never before encountered. Now we’re going to lay him in my very own tomb. Will there still be room for me in there when I need it in the distant future? Somehow, that doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. All that matters is doing this thing…in this place…for this person…because if it’s not me, I don’t know who it will be. Perhaps deep inside my outer shell of societal status and financial success, what I’ve been missing all along is this compassion that connects me so intimately with others...

Maybe it’s not just Joseph of Arimathea, but all of us who inwardly long to give and receive compassionate care: the kind of empathetic kindness that allows us to see the world through another’s eyes; the kind of considerate actions that make us walk in the shoes of another person if only for a few strides. When we take a risk like Joseph of Arimathea did to exercise compassionate care it becomes a lot more difficult to be judgmental of another; walls are broken down, and through that compassionate care we actually encounter and connect with the divine in one another.

Marilee Stevens from our congregation is participating in an on-line spirituality course. In anticipation of the sermon theme for today she forwarded me one of her assigned readings by Thomas Merton entitled, Extend the Circle of Your Compassion. I edit for gender inclusivity as Merton writes, “I cannot treat other [people] as [people] unless I have compassion for them. I must have at least enough compassion to realize that when they suffer they feel somewhat as I do when I suffer. And if for some reason I do not spontaneously feel this kind of sympathy for others, then it is God’s will that I do what I can to learn how. I must learn to share with others their joys, their sufferings, their ideas, their needs, their desires. I must learn to do this not only in the cases of those who are of the same class, the same profession, the same race, the same nation as myself, but when [people] who suffer belong to other groups, even to groups that are regarded as hostile. If I do this, I obey God. If I refuse to do it, I disobey [God].”

Well, nice words, but can they possibly be lived out in real life? I turn to a true story from the military career of Senator John McCain. It’s fairly common knowledge that McCain served as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War. In October of 1967, his plane was shot down by North Vietnamese forces, and McCain was captured. He spent 5 ½ years as a POW primarily at Hua Lo prison also known facetiously as the Hanoi Hilton. There he was frequently beaten and subjected to torture. Brad Charan from our church brought to my attention John McCain’s latest book, Character Is Destiny, released in October 2005. In this book he describes moments of compassion that offered him glimpses of heaven amidst his hell on earth.

“There was one other occasion during my imprisonment that moved me greatly as evidence of God’s transcending love. During the time I was held in solitary, I was caught, not for the first time, communicating with my dear friend in the cell next to mine. For my transgression, I was kept overnight in a punishment cell tied very tightly in ropes... On this particular night as I sat on the stool cursing my bad luck, and straining against the painfully tightened ropes, the door suddenly opened and a young gun guard I had occasionally seen wandering around the camp entered the room. He motioned to me to remain silent by placing his finger to his lips, and then, without smiling or even looking me in the eyes, proceeded to loosen the ropes that bound me. His kind action completed, he left without uttering a word to me. As dawn approached, he returned to tighten the ropes before he finished his watch and another guard might have discovered what he had done.

“In the months that followed, I occasionally saw my Good Samaritan when I was moved from one part of the prison to another. He never allowed himself a glance in my direction, much less spoke to me, until one Christmas morning, when I was briefly allowed out of my cell to stand alone in the outdoors and look up at the clear, blue sky. As I was looking at the heavens, I became aware of him as he walked near me and then, for a moment, stood very close to me. He did not speak or smile or look at me. He just stared at the ground in front of us, and then, very casually, he used his foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We both stood looking at his work for a minute until he rubbed it out and walked away.

“For just that moment I forgot all my hatred for my enemies, and all the hatred most of them felt for me. I forgot about the Jerk, and the interrogators who persecuted my friends and me. I forgot about the war, and the terrible things that war does to you. I was just one Christian venerating the cross with a fellow Christian on Christmas morning.

“I saw him again occasionally. But he never looked at me or attempted to speak to me. We never worshiped together again. But I have never forgotten him or the kindness he showed me as a testament to the faith we shared. That experience helped to form my lasting appreciation for my own religious faith, and it took the faith of an enemy to reveal it to me, the faith that unites and never divides, the faith that bridges unbridgeable divisions in humanity, the faith that we are all, sinners and saints alike, children of God. I became a better man, a stronger man, a more faithful man, who, for at least a moment, could love his enemies.” Imprisoned in a foreign land, in the throes of war, with death threatening every single day, a single act of compassionate care offered a connection with divine love!

He was center stage in the parade – heralded as a savior for a struggling people. Throngs came out to meet him, casting signs of honor and praise at his feet. Yet even before that celebrative day there were those among his most trusted followers who sought his demise. Now with the parade underway, the dreams were public, the expectations were set and the waving would have to turn to winning or fickle crowds could soon turn against him…

It sounds like the story of Jesus on Palm Sunday, but it also describes the press conference a week ago with basketball coach Tubby Smith coming from the University of Kentucky to the University of Minnesota! Yes, we still long for Messiahs – heroes who will lead us to victory. But the real Messiah came not as some conquering hero, but rather as a model of compassion so deep, so authentic, that he saves us from perhaps our greatest enemy: the fears, the failures, the hurts the heartaches, the longings, the loneliness that we harbor within ourselves.

Palm Sunday marks the end of our View from the cross sermon series and the beginning of the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. We know some, but not all, of the details: he was “thirty-something”, everything he owned could be divided up and carried home in the hands of a few executioners, his friends were not particularly loyal and were limited to 12 men of limited resources and loyalty and a few women cast off by society.

While his followers didn’t want to believe that he could really die, we know that he could and he did. It was as senseless to his disciples then, as on the face of it, it is senseless to us today. The one detail we know for certain is that this story didn’t end. It did not end with a parade in Jerusalem. It did not end on a cross. It did not end in a tomb on the property of Joseph of Arimathea. And every time compassionate care is extended among members of God’s family, another chapter in the story continues!