The One who vindicates me is near (April 13, Palm Sunday)

Readings, Isaiah 50:4-9a and Luke 19:28-40
Image, Anslem Kiefer, detail from "Palmsonntag" (Palm Sunday). 2006
 
Let us consider these words from the prophet Isaiah, long associated with the figure and struggle of Christ:
I know that I shall not be put to shame,
he who vindicates me is near.
To hear these words on the brink of Holy Week carries some dissonance. For between the hosannas of today and our hallelujahs a week from now, Christ will undergo a great deal intended to put him to shame. He will be stripped naked in public, assaulted, tormented, mocked. He will be dressed ironically in robes, adorned with a crown of thorns. Even his object of execution – the cross – will bear the inscription King of the Jews, designed to display the discrepancy between Christ’s supposed delusion and grim reality. Christ’s crucifixion and the abuse preceding it is a punishment aimed as much at humiliation as execution – the snuffing out of dignity as the snuffing out of breath. And yet, we hear these words, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.
 
How do we contend with this discrepancy? Let us consider the gospel passage of the day. Let us picture the scene, cloaks and palms strewn about, the hosannas shouted aloud, the donkey and the itinerant preacher the centre of this hubbub. Jesus’ detractors are nervous what such a demonstration might mean for all of them. After all, if this display of the supposed arrival of a new king gets the Romans nervous enough it is going to end bad for all the Jews of the region. ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ can sound a lot like the cry of insurgency in the ears of an occupier. So some Pharisees press in and implore Jesus, Teacher, order your disciples to stop. To which Jesus most memorably replies: I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.
 
It’s a killer line. Naturally we can take it as a kind of poetic effusion, a non-literal turn of phrase that communicates the frenzy of this moment and the impossibility of reeling in such joy. We can take it as a proclamation in line with many a psalm, where rocks, hills, oceans, and stars sing out the glory of God. Creation knows the hands, breath, and voice that formed it and worships in its way… the rocks, Christ alerts us, are just begging for an opportunity to join this triumphal moment as the one with God since the beginning moves amongst them.
 
In the context of today’s question, the discrepancy raised by the question of shame, these words of Christ might teach us something about vindication. Perhaps we might apply the words of Isaiah to the experience of Christ, because in acknowledging the readiness of the rocks, Jesus conveys his belief that the whole force of the cosmos bends toward this moment, the whole weight of creation sings his victory. Perhaps Jesus knows that even if his followers fail (or perhaps better, knows that when his followers fail) something primordial will pick up the slack. The rocks, Christ declares, know the score. They would cry out if the people fall silent, because they know that even if people fail, God will not.
 
For it is not the failure, betrayal, desertion, and abuse of the people that would put Christ to shame. The only thing that could is if he were failed, betrayed, or deserted by the one he calls Father. And the only way he could be failed by the one he calls Father is if Jesus Christ were crucified for his words and ministry, and was not raised again. For if that were the case he would be put to shame, he would not be vindicated. Shame would be heaped on his head like coal and all the mocking reverence of the crown of thorns and entitled cross would prove the last word.
 
The resurrection of Christ is often referred to as God’s great YES. For where the world sought to say no to Christ – to his message, his way, his hope, his challenge – God, in raising Christ from the dead says Yes. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, this is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, this is my Son the beloved, this is the Anointed One. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, the kingdom of God is like seeds and shepherds, it is a place where last are first, and poor are blessed. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, true greatness is known in service, true love in laying down one’s life, true power in peace-making. In the Yes of the resurrection God vindicates the life and ministry of Jesus ensuring that who he was, and what he inaugurated, cannot be put to shame.
 
And so we can say of Christ the words of Isaiah, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near. And we can say this even while acknowledging the humiliating torture, abuse, and mockery Christ will face in his passion. Because the vindication of Christ is not obliterated by the fact that he faces attempts to put him to shame, just as our own vindication as beloved children of God, made in the divine image, is not obliterated or marred by the humiliations, abuses, violence, and mockery which we have and may face on account of the cruelties of the world. Because the vindication of Christ is the act of God which reveals such mockeries and abuses as lies, the act which denies them the last word.
 
The vindication of Christ is the confession that the torturer does not get to define the worth the tortured, the tormentor does not tell the truth about the tormented, the abuser isn’t right about the abused, the judges of the world do not pass final judgment on the worth of a soul. For in the breaking of the tomb, the conquering of death, the resurrection of the body God vindicates Christ, and in Christ vindicates all of those the world has unduly sought to put to shame, all those it has stripped and scorned, pierced and punished, killed and buried. For this is, at least in part, what it means to share in Christ’s resurrection. It means to share in Christ’s vindication, and if we share in this, we can also claim those words of Isaiah for ourselves, we can say for ourselves the words Christ may well have held close in his hour of need: I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.          
 
Stand strong friends, even when the things we have held dearest and fought longest for appear to be shamed, scorned, and abused by the cruelty and ugliness of the world: the author of life is writing the story, God commands the final word. The things of God shall not be put to shame, the one who vindicated Christ will vindicate what is Christ’s, for God is near.