Psalm 2:1-12 (links validated 1/25/23)

Lewis Smedes once told a story about Siauliai, a village in Lithuania. Just outside the village is the Hill of Crosses: a cemetery commemorating a host of loved ones and so a hill so thick with crosses you can hardly see the ground because of them. When the Russians came in 1940, the Soviet Army made sure to mow down those crosses the way a farmer mows a wheat field. They later passed a law against any further cross-planting as an offense against the atheist state. But the Lithuanian villagers paid the law no mind and kept sneaking back in the night to replace the crosses the Russians took. For over 40 years a tug-o-war between the Soviets and the villagers continued until finally, by 1988, the Soviet Empire had enough other problems and so they left the Hill of Crosses in peace. And then the Soviet Empire died (and nobody put up a cross to mark that particular death!). Now those crosses have new meaning for the people of Siauliai. Now the people gather there to remember not only their loved ones but the wonderful way by which the cross of Jesus beat back the hammer and sickle emblazoned on those Russian bulldozers. For them, the Hill of Crosses has become a Hill of Hope–hope in God’s Anointed One who alone will emerge the Victor in and through and over history’s every conflict. Or as Psalm 2 puts it in conclusion, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” Indeed.

Lewis Smedes once told a story about Siauliai, a village in Lithuania. Just outside the village is the Hill of Crosses: a cemetery commemorating a host of loved ones and so a hill so thick with crosses you can hardly see the ground because of them. When the Russians came in 1940, the Soviet Army made sure to mow down those crosses the way a farmer mows a wheat field. They later passed a law against any further cross-planting as an offense against the atheist state. But the Lithuanian villagers paid the law no mind and kept sneaking back in the night to replace the crosses the Russians took. For over 40 years a tug of war between the Soviets and the villagers continued until finally, by 1988, the Soviet Empire had enough other problems and so they left the Hill of Crosses in peace. And then the Soviet Empire died. Now those crosses have new meaning for the people of Siauliai. Now the people gather there to remember not only their loved ones but the wonderful way by which the cross of Jesus beat back the hammer and sickle emblazoned on those Russian bulldozers. For them, the Hill of Crosses has become a Hill of Hope–hope in God’s Anointed One who alone will emerge the Victor in and through and over history’s every conflict. Or as Psalm 2 puts it in conclusion, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” Indeed.

The view of history presented in Psalm 2 is presented graphically in the movies based on Tolkien’s Trilogy of the Ring, where a battle between good and evil shakes the earth. Or think of the whole “Stars Wars” saga, except that in those movies the rebels are the good guys and the Emperor is evil. And the deciding factor is the Force, not the Son. But as a foil, those movies might help contemporary and younger audiences live into a story of global, even cosmic battle.

(Lectionary Cartoons by Michael Halpin)