Done Deal

It's official. I dropped that South Beach Diet today like a sack of potatoes, which aren't allowed on the South Beach Diet. I've determined I'm going to get healthy the old fashioned way... work out a little and eat less. But I've got to have my Dr. Pepper and occasional Krispy Kreme.

My Sermon

So here's the deal, I'm preaching on Sunday. I have a core of ideas I want to preach on, but I'm not sure where it might go. So I've considered making this a truly innovative sermon, and have internet collaboration on the content. In other words, have you who read my blog write the sermon for me. Or at least help me out a little.

I want to talk about the whole Passion story in the context of the idea of expectations. As I sat with the story a couple of weeks ago I noticed at least two parts of it in which human's expectations were shattered. The first is an idea about Judas that crept back in my mind from my ETBU days. And the idea is this: Perhaps Judas isn't as bad of a guy as we think. All of the disciples had at least a small glimmer of hope that the kingdom Jesus sought to bring to the the earth was a political kingdom, and to most it was more of a certainty than a glimmer of hope. Could it be that Judas, rather than being this evil betrayer that we see him as, was really just trying to get Jesus to act a little quicker in destroying the Roman occupation? After the triumphal entry, he was probably thinking this is it, this is when the revolution starts. He got frustrated that Jesus seemed to be speaking on a more spiritual level than he thought was necessary, so he decided to turn him in to the authorities in order to get the ball rolling. This would help explain why Judas commited suicide. Perhaps at the point Jesus began to be arrested, and it became clear that he wasn't playing the same game Judas was playing, then Judas we so overwhelemed with grief that he had gotten Jesus wrong, that it drove him to suicide.

Another shattered expectation: It also seems (and Mel Gibson's "Passion" would attest to this) that Pilate might have been a more sympathetic figure than we had thought. It seems that Pilate also had shattered expectations, but not from Jesus, but by the Jews. When Pilate gave the choice of Jesus or Barrabas, a murderer, maybe he expected the people to come to their senses and realize that Jesus was not a threat to them, but Barrabas was.

And that's all I got. Not sure where to go from there. Thoughts? Suggestions?