526. 1) Holy Friday morning “Royal Hours”. 2) Some Lessons from Holy Week

1. The danger of blind zealotry for the nation

Let’s dig more deeply into the story from Palm Sunday’s Post.

Why did the scribes, pharisees and priests arrange the execution of Jesus of Nazareth? Try to look at it sympathetically from their point of view.

They didn’t intend to kill their Messiah. Of course not. They were not  wicked. * They were blind. They were sure Jesus was not the Messiah. Why? Because He did not fulfill the Old Testament prophecies that spoke of His coming in glory to save the nation of Israel. The nation  was oppressed, occupied by the Romans. They wanted the Messiah to kick the enemy out and “redeem Israel”. The prophets had spoken clearly about this. And Jesus wasn’t doing it.

• Matthew (27:18) mentions that they delivered Him up to Pilate “out of envy”. Wrong thing to do, but understandable. This untrained young upstart from the “provinces” had made them look stupid in the sight of the people. However, that wasn’t their chief motivation.

To put it in modern terms, they were focused on politics, on political issues. They were interested in religion as a tool to attain political ends. Because of that, they ignored the rest of the prophecies. One example: the “Suffering Servant” in Isaiah 57.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

They were blind also to all the prophecies that He would come not only to Israel but for the world – beginning with God’s promise to Abraham that he would be “father of many nations” Genesis 17 . Even old Simeon understood that: When the Baby Jesus was brought to the Temple he called Him “a Light to lighten the Gentiles” and then secondarily “the glory of Your people, Israel.”

So in their blind zeal for their nation, they could not see the One who was “in their midst” and His mission to save all mankind. They believed they had a moral obligation to stop this “false messiah”, lest He (or “he”, as they believed) start an uprising and the Romans move in and destroy their nation. “Better one man die than the nation be lost.”

It is dangerous, brothers and sisters, to believe only the parts of the Scriptures that we like, or only parts of the Faith, and ignore the rest.

And so, as we’ve said, in the end it was not He but rather they who caused the nation they loved so much to be lost.

2. The great danger of religious zealotry which has political power

Note carefully: It was the religious leaders who plotted Jesus’ death. Pontius Pilate the governor didn’t want to do it. “Why, what evil has He done?” he asked on Holy Friday. But the Jewish religious leaders pushed, manipulated Pilate into executing Him.

Dr Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” No, it is not. Patriotism is next to last. Religion is the last refuge of scoundrels. True religion is, of course, the source of enormous good: hope and holiness, joy and consolation, meaning for life and great charitable work and more. But we have seen for centuries, we see today what horrible things can be done in the name of religion.

For you younger people: This is Nazi Germany.

Because religion, the quest for the Ultimate, is the highest of all things on earth, it can do the greatest good. But when it goes bad it becomes demonic and can do the greatest evil.

Religious leaders of many kinds have either done great evil or ignored great evil or compromised with great evil – for the sake of what? the religious institution? its position? its power? preserving their own position? their own power? Like the Jewish authorities of our Lord’s time, rarely do they  intend to do evil. The problem is that religious leaders are often so sure, so sincerely certain they are right  – that their will is God’s will, their ideas are His truth – that they can be blind to anything else. Give them power to enforce their errors – you see what it can lead to, both 2000 years ago and today, when religious leaders lose their way.

4. The much greater danger of religion enmeshed with government

Now, of course religion should influence politics. This can lead to great social good: Byzantium the greatest of empires, the abolition of slavery, Martin Luther King and racial justice, social programs without which great numbers of people would suffer from disease or hunger.

However, if religious authority and political power become enmeshed so they cannot be distinguished from each other – be afraid, be very afraid. 

Religion combined with politics can lead to Christian emperors destroying icons, to the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to the 100 Years War, to Isis, to the Jewish Holocaust, and what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

We Orthodox should give special note to our very Orthodox Vladimir Putin who in Holy Week *  2018 threatened the West with a new ICBM nicknamed “Satan 2”! * Here are some Russian Orthodox clergy blessing some dreadful weapon of destruction. *

• Κύριε, ἐλέησον.

And now Russia has invaded Ukraine for reasons they invented, waging war with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who has formally turned this war against Ukraine into a holy war. Only this past Palm Sunday, Russians began their worst recent attacks on Ukraine, killing at least 35 civilians on Palm Sunday alone. This is an unholy war, endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church. Religion enmeshed with and indistinguishable from politics.

Did you know: Because religion combined with political power is so dangerous, the Orthodox Church forbids clergy to hold political office, and even to hold “partisan membership”.  Our chief work is not to compel and enforce, but to convince, convert, win people to Christ and His way of love.

However, now “the governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church has allowed clerics to run for elected office ‘in the event of ecclesiastical necessity'” – without defining what that means.            (from “Radio Free Europe”)  *

• Radio Free Europe, which for many decades brought hope to suppressed peoples, both under Communism and the Putin dictatorship, has just been shut down by the US government.

Last summer, in three Posts, I tried to analyze the contemporary phenomenon called “American Christian Nationalism”. Their intent seems to be to enmesh Christianity (a very narrow version of Christianity, which appears to have little or no social conscience) with the American government, and I became afraid. More recent events are causing me to be very afraid.

Do we see Jesus Christ leading an army? taking over the government? He said specifically “My Kingdom is not of this world.”

Our US Government, under the influence of Christian Nationalism, is presently cutting off aid in a multitude of ways to the needy, the sick, the hungry, both at home and abroad. What does that have to do with Jesus Christ? Once again, read Matthew 25:31-46.

I heard only this morning of another American congregation rising up against their pastor, because he said we should love our enemies: The people demanded “Where does it say that in the Bible?”

If I had their ear, I’d advise Mr Putin and Patriarch Kirill and also Mr Trump and the leaders of American Christian Nationalism to spend Holy Week taking a closer look at Jesus, the real Jesus. So should we all.

4. Therefore “Question Authority”.

That slogan from the wild 1960s is one of my favorite pieces of advice. “Question authority”, not with blind doubt, of course. Authorities, of whatever sort, are often right. But if the Jews 2000 years ago had questioned what their authorities said about Jesus…  what might the world be like today if they had opened their eyes and believed in Him?

Question political authorities, of course – please! it’s urgent! – but also question religious authorities. Not only the rich preachers on television, not only today’s dangerous self-appointed “apostles” and “prophets” who are the source of Christian Nationalism, not only the priests who use their position to do horrible things to youth and their duplicitous superiors who cover up for them.

But also, if necessary, question your own priest and your bishop and your archbishop. Gently, very gently, please, not in a nasty way. In my experience, almost all our Orthodox priests and bishops are devout, well intentioned, wise and kind, who live to serve Jesus Christ and to serve you. Remember that you might be wrong.

However, even dedicated clergy can be mistaken about things, and humility requires that they accept questioning. Furthermore, definitely question the author of this Blog and what I write. I might be wrong, and if you think I am, please let me know it before I go spreading falsehood and foolishness.

Orthodox Christians, this is your obligation, for we are not an authoritarian “top-down” Church. The Orthodox Church does not expect blind obedience of her members. All Orthodox people are guardians of the Faith and of the Church. So if you ever think any of us in positions of leadership in the Church are out of line, misusing our authority or influence, or even worse are being dishonest, do not let us get away with it.

The great moral lesson of Holy Week 

Here lay out the sequence of how people can go wrong.

Having first ignored their own Prophets’ teaching regarding the Messiah, the Jewish authorities decided the only way to get rid of this Man was to violate their own God-given Law: “Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.” Exodus 23:7  

When Pilate wanted to release Him, they decided they should take the next step: bear false witness, thereby violating the Ninth of the Ten Great Commandments: “If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.”

And when Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your king?”, they were trapped. Now they had to break the First Commandment and blaspheme their God, lest the nation be lost. It was the clergy, I’m sorry to say, who cried “We have no king but Caesar”. 

A case history: When people first begin to compromise their moral integrity, this easily leads to further and further compromise, and soon they are caught in the maze. Unless they can find a way to escape, it ends in moral disaster. They lose their souls, and often the cause they gave their souls for is lost as well. We see it happening today. It happened 2000 years ago.

The people trusted their religious leaders (as people usually do, often without stopping to think for themselves), and they rejected their Messiah, without knowing what they were doing. And so it was because of them – the Jewish authorities who so dearly and sincerely loved their nation – that their nation was lost.

Jesus had foreseen it all: “The Kingdom will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will bear the fruits of it” – to us, the Church.

Years later Saint Paul would warn: “For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either [who have been grafted on].” Romans 11:21  If God did not spare the Jews when they were unfaithful, what do you think will happen to us late-comers if we are blind? unfaithful? if we misuse the Church and twist our holy religion to our own ends?

Later this afternoon: Back to the Holy Week sequence: Holy Friday afternoon Vespers: “The Taking Down from the Cross”.