What is Knowledge without action?

By The Rev’d Dawn M. Frankfurt

Glory to the Holy and Undivided Trinity; God who is Three in One and One in Three; Who is beyond us, among us, within us; Who was, and is, and is to come, world without end. Amen.

Only two weeks ago I walked the very route Jesus walked from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. It was the same stone walkway, with stone walls on either side, upon which Jesus once triumphantly came into Jerusalem. It is a lot longer road than I ever imagined. For some reason I’d always pictured a fairly short entry – about as long as a block or two of downtown Staunton. I sure had that one wrong. In reality, it was a long walk from the top of one tall hillside, down into the valley, and then back up onto the top of the next hillside. I wish I had timed it when we walked it. I imagine it took us about 15 to 20 minutes to travel the route.

When we were in Jerusalem, it wasn’t the time of year when the city is crowded with tourists. We didn’t get the sense of the crowds on the road to give us a feel for what it might have been like for Jesus. The stone-paved roadway we walked on was a marvel in itself – such a long road, paved the entire way with stones, from the top of one hill all of the way to the top of the other. Our group of 51 generally tried to stay pretty close together as nobody wanted to get lost in Jerusalem, but this roadway was so steep and somewhat curvy that it was quite easy for part of our group to get well ahead of where we could see them.

The interesting thing was, that though we couldn’t see from one end of the road to the other, we did have a very clear view of the old city of Jerusalem and the temple with every single step we took. From the moment one stands at the top of the Mount of Olives and looks toward Jerusalem, you can see exactly where you’re headed – and you can see it the entire way there.

Among some people, there is a debate about “what Jesus knew and when he knew it.” In some gospels it is hard to make a determination about whether Jesus knew who he was, the Son of God, from the beginning of his life. Some think he always knew and understood who he was and what his purpose was. Others think that as Jesus grew and matured, his understanding of himself and his mission became more and more clear to him. They think he sort of figured it out along the way.

Today, in the passion narrative from the Gospel of Matthew, it is very easy to make the case that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing – and that he knew exactly what was going to happen. This morning, the first thing we heard Jesus do was tell his disciples that one of them was going to betray him. He tells the disciples that they all will desert him, which they do in short order, by sleeping when he asked them to stay awake and pray. When Peter insists that he won’t desert the Lord, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times that very night – and we know that Peter does. Then Judas betrays Christ into the hands of the chief priests and elders of the people. It is all exactly as Jesus said it would be. There is no doubt that Jesus knew who he was and what he was there to do.

Why did he say, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” or why did he say, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want”? Jesus knew what awaited him at Golgotha. He knew the agony ahead. We are told he prayed three different times asking God if there was any other way possible that his mission could be completed. Nobody wants to go through what he was going to go through. He was in anguish. It was a battle between his spirit and his flesh to go on, to take the next step.

Somebody said something to me on my trip to the Holy Land which made me think again about the struggle that was going on inside of Jesus. When you travel in a group and do absolutely everything every day with the same set of people, you get to know some folks very quickly. The person I most clicked with on the trip was a Southern Baptist pastor from South Carolina. It was only a few days into the trip when he saw me taking some pills at the breakfast table. I thought he was kind of brazen – he asked me what I was taking and what they were for. I was sort of taken aback by the bluntness of his inquiry, but thought, “oh well,” and told him that one was for high blood pressure. He said, “Girl, you have high blood pressure?! What’s the matter with you?! You gotta relax!! Relax!!” He cracked me up and his comfort talking about normally pretty personal stuff kind of fascinated me.

I think it was later that day – either at lunch or dinner – when we ordered some French fries. We were always eating French fries in Israel. When the plate of hot ones was placed on the table between us, I picked up the salt shaker and started to salt the fries. He said, “Girl, what are you doing?! That can’t be good for your high blood pressure!!” I said, “I know, I know.” I didn’t stop salting the fries. He said, “Dawn, you said you know – what good is knowledge without action?” I set the salt shaker down. He was absolutely right. What good is it to know something and yet not act on it? You might as well not know. That really got under my skin because he hit the nail on the head.

So, it was a day or two later when we were standing at the top of the Mount of Olives. One of the things we did on our trip was stop at every place we went. There our guide would ask us to open our Bibles and he would tell us where to turn. That day at the Mount of Olives, we read about Palm Sunday in the Gospels. The setting is something like this: Jesus’ work as a healer and a teacher was more and more widely known. He was something like a first century rock star. His name was becoming a household word. Lots of people had heard about him and the things he was doing. And everywhere he went, he drew larger and larger crowds of people. People were more and more excited about seeing this celebrity. When he began to walk from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem, people lined the streets. They threw their garments on the road in front of him – as they would to cushion the way for a king. They held branches and waved them in they air. They called out his name.

On this day, which later became known to us as Palm Sunday because of the branches people waved in his honor, Jesus was on the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem. The Gospel of Luke says, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” You know how it is when you’ve seen someone who is really focused on doing something. They set their face on doing it. Did you ever watch an Olympic athlete and see the look of concentration come across their face as they stepped up to the competition? Have you ever seen criminals being brought to the courtroom for a trial? They look straight at the table and the chair where they will sit. Most of the time, they don’t look around to see who is in attendance in hopes of striking up a conversation. They don’t look at the members of the jury. They don’t look at the judge. They stare straight ahead knowing what they have to do.

I think that’s what Luke meant when he said, “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.” It took focus, concentration, determination for him to keep going toward Jerusalem. “He set his face” and kept going. You see, it’s just like we were saying a few minutes ago. Jesus knew exactly what was getting ready to happen. Don’t you know the human part of him struggled and fought against what he knew was his fate? Can’t you imagine the spiritual warfare that was going on inside of him – the spirit being willing and wrestling to overcome the will of the flesh.

We can relate to this because we know about struggles we face when we are tempted to do something instead of what would be the right thing to do. We’ve never faced such a test as Jesus did, but we have little tests all of the time. Will you exercise? You know it will be good for you. Will you tell a good friend you think they are about to make a big mistake? Will you quit finding every excuse in the book and start getting more involved at church? Will you tell the truth when it would be much easier not to? Will you share and be generous with your resources instead of buying something to please yourself? Will you really start talking to God – and listening to what is said in return? We know what we are supposed to do. We know what’s good and right. But it doesn’t make one bit of difference if you know the best thing to do if you don’t do it. In fact, it might even be worse.

Jesus knew that coming into Jerusalem would lead to his arrest. He knew that his arrest would lead to imprisonment and persecution. After being imprisoned, Jesus knew he would be crucified. These are the most horrible of things – and he chose them. He chose to do them for us. He also knew what would be accomplished when he did those things. That death would be defeated. That he would give us victory over sin. Jesus, better than anyone else, took his knowledge, his terrible knowledge, and turned it into action.

This Holy Week, think on the things you know you should do, on the things you ought to stop doing, on doing the right thing. You know these answers. You know what to do. If you go through the agony of Holy Week and celebrate Easter on the other side of it, then you understand the best story ever told about putting knowledge into action. Christ, having done this for us, calls us to do the same. We must set our face toward doing things for the glory of God. We must concentrate completely on God’s will. We must put it into action in our lives. Otherwise, what’s the use of knowing any of this?

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).

AMEN!