Since it was late in the afternoon on Preparation Day, just before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph from Arimathea dared to approach Pilate and ask for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was a prominent council member who also eagerly anticipated the coming of God’s kingdom.) 44 Pilate wondered if Jesus was already dead. He called the centurion and asked him whether Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that Jesus was dead, Pilate gave the dead body to Joseph. 46 He bought a linen cloth, took Jesus down from the cross, wrapped him in the cloth, and laid him in a tomb that had been carved out of rock. He rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was buried. (Common English Bible)
“Imago Christi: Images
and Titles of the Living Christ,” Week Two
It
is one of those images that hits a particular chord in our humanity and
amplifies across the internet for millions of eyes to see: a photograph of
little preschool-aged girl in her soccer jersey, flanked on either side by her
parents, with jerseys that share her number 37 and that bear the names “Mommy”
and Daddy.” And then on either side of them are two more parents, also with the
number 37 on their backs with the names “Stepmom” and “Stepdad” above the
number.
All
of them alongside the little girl, Maelyn. All of them affirming her. All of
them supporting her.
Naturally,
people became curious to learn more about this uplifting family, and WSB-TV 2
in Atlanta went to do a little digging, and I’ll share from them some of theirinterview with Maelyn’s mother, Clara Cazeau, and Maelyn’s stepmother, Emilee
Player:
They explained that the
amicable relationship between the two couples isn’t anything new: they share
custody and have been co-parenting Maelyn for the last three years. They had no
idea that the photo would touch such a deep chord for people and go viral.
Cazeau said, “I had just
gotten these shirts made. Emilee posted the picture and made it public—but we
had no idea it would go that far.”
On both family’s Facebook
feeds are similar photos of the four smiling “co-parents” and their two
daughters. When asked how they manage their relationship, they say it’s all
about being mature and putting aside your own insecurities.
“You really have each
person 100 percent in it,” Cazeau said. You have to put your differences aside
for the good of your child.”
Maelyn may have no idea that her family’s story has gone viral—but her stepmom says that even at just 4 years old, she does know a lot about what it means to be accepting.
“She’s very sweet, very
loving,” Player says. “She’s not standoffish, she’s accepting of everybody. And
I think that’s because she’s been taught to accept everybody by the people who
love her.”
Parents
and co-parents alike are capable of raising their children with love, and to
teach them to be inclusive and accepting in ways that perhaps we were not.
Maelyn is living, breathing proof of that.
Who
our parents are matters. The genetic lottery can determine so much about our
fates—whether we are raised with love and care, whether we are born rich or
poor and the correlation to remaining rich or poor, all of these can play
factors into the people who we become.
We
tend to talk most about Jesus’s parents during the Advent and Christmas
seasons, and perhaps understandably so. But no discussion of the images of
Jesus would be complete without talking about how Jesus is seen and depicted in
relation to His parents—both earthly and heavenly—in perhaps the most famous
co-parenting arrangement of all time. So while we take in the joyful image of
one co-parenting situation—of Maelyn’s—we can, in so doing, reflect on that
situation for Jesus.
This
is a new sermon series for the church season of Easter, which extends for the
forty-nine days between Easter Sunday last week to Pentecost Sunday, when the
Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples as described in the second chapter of
Acts. Much like Christmas, then, Easter does not actually end on Easter Day,
but rather continues for a number of days afterwards so that we may continue
our celebration of the good news that each of these two holidays represents and
teaches us.
So
for the 2017 Easter season, we’ll be using words to explore something
visual—the images of the living and risen Jesus Christ that have been handed
down from one generation of Christians to another throughout the centuries.
Some of these images of Christ are almost as old as the church (the Way, in its
Biblical incarnation) itself. All of them are rooted in Scriptural accounts of
the Lord. And they each have something different to teach us about how
different Christian communities at different points in time saw Jesus as the
promised Messiah.
We
began this series last week by rewinding to Good Friday to the image of Jesus
the man being hauled out before the chief priests and temple authorities by
Pontius Pilate, and we are going to remain in Good Friday for one sermon longer
as we fast forward several hours to the removal of Christ’s body from the
cross, and the image of Mary holding her dead son’s body that was immortalized
most famously in Michelangelo’s (the Sistine Chapel painter, not the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtle) statue of the two, called the Pieta.
The
other famous image of Jesus with Mary is the Madonna (the image, not the iconic
celebrity), otherwise known as the Mother and Child, and the two images are a
fascinating juxtaposition to make—both are of Mary holding Jesus, but in one,
Jesus is a very much alive infant, while in the other, Jesus is a dead adult
man, having just been executed by the state.
In
this regard, Michelangelo may have taken a bit of liberty with his art, as Mark
states in this passage that while Mary the mother of Joseph and Mary Magdalene were present at the
removal of Christ’s body from the cross, it was Joseph of Arimathea (who is not
Joseph the earthly father of Jesus) who performed the actual removal,
presumably under the supervision of a Roman official or centurion sent by
Pilate, and Mary the mother of Jesus, while present according to John's Gospel, has to have her presence inferred here.
You
can, and should, though, easily and vividly imagine Mary as being given the
chance to hold her dead son’s body one last time before Joseph wrapped Jesus up
in a linen cloth that served as a shroud and placed the body in Joseph’s own
tomb.
It
is a heart-wrenching image that is difficult to truly wipe away from your mind,
so do not try to do so. Do not forget the human pain that comes with a child
predeceasing their parent, even if, in this case, it is inherently necessary
for that child to then resurrect.
That
is why I chose Maelyn’s story to begin this message—because the images we tend
to share, and want to share, of our families, tends to be the images we want to
share, not the ones we do not. I would say that this tendency is extended, as
the nature of the family unit shifts over time, to more and more often include
co-parents and stepparents and their photos (or photos of them). Indeed, as I
noted then, Jesus’s own family unit was one that included a co-parent in
Joseph.
So
much like the joy around Maelyn’s family, or around the image of Mary and the
newborn Jesus, so too is it important to see the images that may not cause us
such joy, but that may challenge us, make us ask questions of ourselves, or
push us outside our comfort zones—images like the Pieta. There are images of our families and friends that we often cannot wait to share with the world. But there are also images that are not quite so joyous and clean-cut either, but that offer a very real window into the depths of our humanity and compassion.
Down
in Arkansas, where the state government is churning through executions at a
historically rapid rate, one of the inmates executed, Kenneth Williams, received
a bit of mercy and help from an unexpected source—the family of a person he
killed (not the person he was put on death row for killing, but someone else)
learned that he had a daughter he had not seen in many years and a
granddaughter whom he had never met.
So,
according to the Associated Press, this family sprung for the plane tickets for
his daughter and granddaughter from here in Washington to Arkansas to see him
one last time (and first time, for the granddaughter) before he was put to
death this past weekend. Asked about this act of mercy by the AP, the daughter,
Kayla Greenwood, of this man’s victim, Michael Greenwood, simply said, “I told
him we forgive him.”
Can
you see difference in gravity between these images—between the joy in Maelyn’s
family and the anguish in Kayla’s? But can you also see how that anguish gave
way to mercy and to forgiveness?
We
do not know if or when Mary forgave the state for crucifying her son. But
knowing Mary from her words and deeds in the Gospels, and knowing that she did
indeed find favor with God, I imagine that she did indeed in time begin to
forgive them, just as, according to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus also did. It may not
have been easy, it may not have been right away, but eventually, perhaps that
forgiveness was there.
For
while Jesus was God-made-flesh, He surely took on some of his mother’s
characteristics as a man. As does Maelyn as her parents and co-parents raise
her. And so too have we, sometimes for worse, but hopefully for the better.
May
we continue to seek to exhibit as many good and great traits from our loved
ones as possible, especially the One who loves us the greatest and deepest from
the throne in heaven with a love so great and so much that, as John says, Jesus
was sent to us as a result…not so that we might die, but so that we might live,
and live eternally.
May
it be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
April
30, 2017
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