Good Friday

This is the transcription of my sermon for Good Friday on April 10, 2020.

Good Friday

Readings:

• Isaiah 52:13-53:12

• Hebrews 10:16-25

• John 19:1-19:42

Good Friday is all about the death of our Lord.  Our Gospel reading is St John’s account of the crucifixion.  Sermons for Good Friday, quite rightly, focus on the Cross.  Normally, here at Christ Church, we have a service of the ‘Last Hour at the Cross’ when we think of the ‘seven last words’ of Jesus from the Cross.
There we tend to stop.  Once our Lord has died, we leave the story, and wait expectantly for Easter Sunday and the good news of his resurrection.  Good Friday, however, didn’t end there.  Our Lord’s body had to be taken down from the Cross and buried.

The Gospels are all agreed that Joseph of Arimathea was the one who stood up to do this.  We are told that he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.  This was rather brave.  Jesus, after all, despite Pilate’s reluctance, had been crucified as a rebel against Rome.  The Jewish authorities had made their views plain.  By asking for the body and taking responsibility for Jesus’ burial, Joseph was putting himself out there.

Interestingly, St John tells us that another person helped bury the body with Joseph.  This was none other than Nicodemus, who has appeared earlier in the Gospel.

It gets more interesting still when we stop to look at the two characters involved.

First of all, Joseph of Arimathea.  Joseph was a common name, and Arimathea, the town from which he came, identifies which Joseph we are talking about.  All four of the Gospels tell us that Joseph was involved in Jesus’ burial, and each of the four Gospels provide us with a bit of information about him. 

St Mark tells us that he was a respected member of the Council ‘who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God’ (Mark 15:43). 

St Luke describes Joseph as a ‘good and righteous man’, who, ‘though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action’ (Luke 23:50-51).  St Luke tells us it was a ‘new tomb where no-one had ever been laid’ that Joseph laid Jesus’ body. 

St Matthew tells us that Joseph was a ‘rich man’ and a ‘disciple of Jesus’ (Matthew 27:57).  St Matthew also tells us that the new tomb that Joseph laid Jesus’ body in was his own, which ‘he had hewn in the rock’.

St John tells us that Joseph was a ‘disciple of Jesus, but a secret one because of his fear’ of others among his people.  St John also tells us that ‘there was a garden in the place where he was crucified’ (John 19:41) and it is here that the tomb is located.

Putting all this together, we learn that Joseph came from a town called Arimathea.  He was a rich man, who was a devout, observant Jew and much respected.  He was a member of the ruling Council and was, therefore, a person of some power and influence.  He had become a disciple of Jesus, although he kept it secret because of his fear of others.  He had not gone along with his fellow Council members in their plan to get rid of Jesus and have him killed.

It was Jesus’ death, however, ironically that changed everything for him.  Although he had kept his faith in Jesus secret while Jesus had been alive, seeing Jesus die, he could do so no longer.  St Mark tells us he went ‘boldly’ to Pilate to ask for the body.  Joseph made his faith known when in many ways there was nothing to be gained from doing so.  Jesus, after all, was dead and no-one expected anything to come of it.  Joseph had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Was this an act of repentance and regret for not having been open about his faith when Jesus was alive?  Is it shame at having been a part of the body responsible for Jesus’ death?  We just don’t know.  Whatever his motivation, it took courage and he backed up his courage by giving Jesus the tomb he had made for himself.

St John, however, adds something that the other Gospel writers don’t tell us.  St John tells us that when Joseph took the body to the tomb, he was not alone. 

The second character involved was another rich man and a fellow member of the ruling Council.  It is someone we have met before: Nicodemus.  Nicodemus, St John tells us, went with Joseph to the tomb (John 19:39).

Nicodemus you may remember from the Broadcast Service for the Second Sunday of Lent was a Pharisee, who came to Jesus by night and who found Jesus’ words about being ‘born again from above’ hard to understand. 

Nicodemus appears three times in St John’s Gospel.  In John 3, when he first approaches Jesus.  Then in John 7, when he argues with his fellow Pharisees, telling them that Jesus should not be condemned without being given a ‘fair hearing’ (John 7:51).

Now, in John 19, he comes with Joseph and brings with him a large quantity of spices to embalm Jesus’ body.  The cost of these spices would have been very great.  Jesus was crucified as the King of the Jews in a way which made a mockery of the very idea.  Jesus was, however, buried in a manner befitting royalty.  Crucified as a criminal, he was buried as a King.  The title on the Cross had been right all along.

But now it was too late.  Or so everyone thought, but that story must wait for Easter Sunday.  For now, it is all over.  What did Joseph and Nicodemus think would happen to them next?  How would they face their fellow Council members?  Their fellow Council members may have taken the attitude that it didn’t much matter.  They had got what they wanted.  It was, nevertheless, brave of Joseph and Nicodemus to come out in the open.  Intriguingly, we are told that after Jesus’ resurrection many Pharisees became believers.  Were Nicodemus and Joseph amongst them.  I think so.

Nicodemus is always described in St John’s Gospel as the ‘one who came to Jesus by night’.  At the beginning, he can’t see what Jesus is trying to show him.  It is he who is in darkness.  We get a sense that he is coming to faith in his argument with his fellow Council members over Jesus in John 7.  Now, after Jesus death, he at last comes out of the darkness.

What does all this say to us this Good Friday? 

1. Jesus really did die for everyone. 

Quite rightly in the Church, we are anxious to reach out to the poor and those in the past whom the Church has either ignored or failed to reach; to those who are excluded and oppressed.  But we need to remember that Jesus loves both rich and poor alike. 

Jesus preached ‘good news to the poor’.  The good news, however, is not that they are poor as if poverty is a state that we should seek.  Nor that the good news is for the poor rather than for others who are not.  The good news to the poor is that God loves them and that while the kingdoms of this world might exclude them because of their poverty, God does not.

Jesus was a friend of the poor.  He was a friend of the rich as well.  This doesn’t mean he didn’t challenge both rich and poor.  He did.  He challenged the rich about their wealth and about putting their trust in riches, but he did not exclude them, any more than he excluded the poor.  Quite the reverse.  The poor too were challenged not to think that their hope lay in gaining riches.  Instead, it lay in trusting God.

The Church too easily can make it sound as if there is virtue in being poor for being poor’s sake.  It is true that often not having this world’s wealth leads people to see what really matters in life and so to put their trust in God.  It is true too that those with money can put their trust in their wealth rather than in God.  The issue, however, is not whether someone is rich or poor, but whether they trust in God and how they regard and use their poverty or wealth to bring glory to God.

All of us rich, poor, and anywhere in between, need to be concerned, first and above all, not with the state of our bank balance, but with the state of our relationship with God.

2. Sometimes it just takes time.

St Luke describes Joseph as a ‘good and righteous man’.  He was ‘waiting expectantly for the Kingdom of God’.  There is no open criticism of him in the Gospels.  The Kingdom of God obviously mattered to him.  He was focused on God and not just on himself.  He had obviously been affected by Jesus and was attracted to him.  It just wasn’t strong enough to get him to come out in the open.  In addition to his fear, what doubts, if any, did he harbour?

Nicodemus ‘came to Jesus by night’ and that description of him has stuck.  It is used as a description of him each time he is mentioned in the Gospel.  He knew that there was something special about Jesus: 

‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ (John 3:2)

But he couldn’t work Jesus out.  He didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about.  ‘How can these things be?’ he replied to what Jesus told him.  His inability to understand provoked from Jesus the question:

‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’ (John 3:10)

There are those of us who feel just like this.  We are attracted to Jesus.  We do think that he has something important to tell us.  But we are confused and can’t quite get there.  It’s difficult and hard to understand.  No matter how much we try, we seem to remain in the dark.

Jesus said:

‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ (John 12:32)

St Luke tells us that as Jesus was being crucified, darkness covered the land from noon to midday (Luke 23:44).  Today, as Jesus is being lifted up, it may be us who are amongst those who are being drawn out of the darkness to Jesus. 

Jesus said:

‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ (John 8:12)

Good Friday is not simply about an event in the past that we remember each year, nor is it something we only think of today and then forget as we move on to think of happier things.  The Cross is where we see God’s light shining in the darkness.  Shining in the figure of the one dying there for us and because of us and who invites us to be drawn from the darkness to himself.

St Paul wrote:

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ (2 Corinthians 4:6)

As we look on the face of Jesus Christ this afternoon, we need God to shine in our hearts to give us too the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

Sometimes it just takes time as it seems to have done for Nicodemus, but at last at the Cross he seems to have got there.

The Cross changes everything.

3. The Cross challenges us to decide.

Both Joseph and Nicodemus kept their faith in Jesus secret.  Both had much to lose.  I am not thinking here of their money.  They were unlikely to lose that.  But they were members of a powerful body.  They were respected; had influence; and exercised authority.  They stood to lose that power.

It would be so interesting to know what part they played in the trial and examination of Jesus.  We simply do not know.  The suspicion is that, even though we are told Joseph did not agree with their plan, being heavily outnumbered they kept quiet.  Feelings were running high, and the Chief Priest had already made his mind up.  Anyone going against the majority would certainly be unpopular at the very least. 

We shouldn’t underestimate how important being popular can be to us as humans.  We see in popular culture how people crave to be celebrities; how they love getting their photos in the media and having everyone looking up to them and wanting to be like them.  Some celebrities are famous simply for being famous.  The rest of us can be a bit smug about this.  We, of course, are not like that. 

Maybe not.  We do, however, rather like being well-connected or well-thought of by those above us in the social hierarchy or at the places where we work.  Some bosses use this as a tool to manipulate their employees.  And we all do rather like being liked, even if it is only getting likes on social media.  And, at the opposite end to being liked, many of those who find themselves not being liked but receiving hate messages, often end up suicidal, even if those hate messages are only anonymous and online.

But in addition to making them unpopular, there would be another price for Joseph and Nicodemus to pay in loss of power and influence.  Who now would trust these two who had been secret disciples of Jesus all along? 

Power is a powerful drug.  Politicians crave it and will bend the rules and abandon their principles to get it.  Being in authority and having control, together with the trappings of power that go with it, are addictive, and not easily given up.

The Cross shows what happens when you refuse to put your trust in riches; when you reject power, position, and prestige; when you speak the truth and reject the values, priorities, and attitudes of this world.

We may want to believe in Christ and yet hang on as well to our place in this world, but ultimately there must come a time of decision.  The Cross challenges us to choose.  ‘We preach Christ crucified’ wrote St Paul.  We cannot hide forever.  We cannot be secret disciples for long. 

It sometimes takes time, but the choice has to be made.

It took the Cross for Joseph and Nicodemus to make it.  Today, however, we only know the names of two people apart from the Chief Priests who were on the Council that sentenced Jesus.  ‘Whoever serves me, the Father will honour,’ Jesus had said (John 12:26).  Today we honour Joseph and Nicodemus.  Now we need to do as they did and end the secrecy.

Whose side are we on? 

The Cross challenges us to decide.

As we spend time at the Cross today, may we come out of the darkness and follow Christ in the days that lie ahead.

Amen.

Maundy Thursday

This is the transcription of my sermon for Maundy Thursday on April 9, 2020.

Maundy Thursday

Readings:

• Exodus 12.1-14

• 1 Corinthians 11.23-26

• John 13.1-17, 31b-35

Today is Maundy Thursday. Lent is now over, and we have come to the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Over the next few days, we will be thinking of our Lord’s suffering, death, and resurrection. Tonight, we begin as we remember the Last Supper of our Lord with his disciples.

What we call the Last Supper was a meal to mark the Passover. The Passover was, and is, when the Jewish people celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt in the events of the Exodus. Famously, St John tells us that this Last Meal with his disciples began with Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, giving them an example of how they should behave towards one another when he was gone.

Then, during the Meal, he told his disciples that the bread was his body, and the wine, his blood. They were to do this, he said, ‘In remembrance of me.’ The disciples took this commandment so seriously that just 20 years or so later, we know that former pagan followers of Jesus in Greece were gathering to eat the ‘Lord’s Supper’ modelled on this Last Supper of our Lord.

That we should do it is something that Christians agree on. What they understand to be happening when they do it is, however, another thing altogether. The words that Jesus used continue to cause many arguments about the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper for believers in the present.

We even use different names for it depending on our Church background. For Roman Catholics, for example, it is the Mass. For others, Holy Communion. A name common among believers is the Eucharist, and that’s the word we use here at Christ Church.

For the first 1500 years of the Church’s history, the Church universally thought there was far much more to what they were doing than simply remembering, although there was that dimension to it. Focusing on Jesus’ words, ‘This is my body’ and, ‘This is my blood’ they believed that something real was happening when they came together to celebrate this Meal.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Church had developed the celebration into something truly mystical. Critics would even say ‘magical’. The bread was believed to become miraculously and actually Christ’s body and the wine, his blood. Indeed, so mystical was what was happening that most believers rarely physically shared in eating the bread or drinking the wine. This was left to the priest to do alone. Most worshippers simply watched the amazing event that was taking place.

The Protestant European reformers of the 16th century rebelled against this, arguing against what they saw as the superstitious practices surrounding the Mass. At the very least, they thought that every believer should receive both the bread and the wine. 

While largely agreeing on what they were against, the Reformers found it impossible to agree on what they were for, and offered their own understanding of what was happening when the Lord’s Supper, or whatever they happened to call it, took place. These various understandings are still with us today. 

Two opposite types of approaches stand out:

First, in many Protestant circles, when Christians meet for the Lord’s Supper nothing is believed to happen as such. We are doing what we do to remember Christ. Christ is present just as he is when we normally meet together. He is not, however, present in a different way, and certainly not in the bread and the wine! The bread and the wine are ‘visual aids’ to help us remember him and what he has done for us. They are valuable as visual aids to remind us of his death, but as that and no more. 

The problem is that in Churches that think like this about the Lord’s Supper, many Christians don’t feel the need to be reminded of Christ’s death. Christ’s death is something very real to them, and not something they are ever likely to forget.

So, given that nothing else is happening, although we should still do it because Christ told us to, it doesn’t really matter how often we do it. What matters far more is something which actually makes a difference for us here and now. That something for many Christians is the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Churches that think like this consequently place a far greater emphasis on the sermon and learning God’s Word than on anything else.

The second approach to the Lord’s Supper sees things very differently. At the other end of the spectrum, Roman Catholics and those in other churches who think like them, still hold to the belief that something really happens to the bread and wine in the Mass. 

Most Roman Catholics have seen the need for the reform of some of the practices that surrounded the Mass in the past. In particular, Roman Catholics now believe that all believers should share in the bread and wine and not just the priest. Nevertheless, for Roman Catholics, something special is happening during the Mass, so that it offers something important that can’t be obtained elsewhere. 

On this approach, the bread and wine are more than symbols, although they are of course also that. They are above all else, Christ’s real body and blood. Through regular participation in the Mass, we receive Christ’s body and blood to enable us to serve Christ in our lives.

These are very different approaches. At the moment, however, both Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches all over the world are shut. Services are cancelled. For many Protestants who take the first approach to the Lord’s Supper, this is sad, but not the end of the world. They miss being able to meet together, but happily, thanks to modern technology, they can still hear the word of God being preached and taught online. It’s an adjustment, but they can still get what they need.

For those such as Roman Catholics who take the second approach, the present situation is more of a challenge. Ironically, many have gone back to pre-Reformation days when believers simply watched the Mass being celebrated. And again, thanks to the wonder of modern technology, this is something that we can do from the comfort of our own home. It is even possible to watch the Pope himself celebrate the Mass every day! 

However, in the present situation there has emerged two other groups of Christians altogether. The first group is of Christians who have been used to going to Churches where the Eucharist is celebrated regularly and who are used to receiving communion on a Sunday.

They are sad that services have been cancelled, but not receiving communion has not made that much of a difference to them. They miss the worship and seeing their friends, but they don’t feel they are being deprived of something vital and essential to their spiritual life.

To be brutally honest, the cancellation of services due to the coronavirus has shown that for many in our churches, the Eucharist itself was simply not that important after all. 

In the UK, for example, churches cannot even open for private prayer. In the present situation, this may seem reasonable and highly responsible. We desperately need to find the way to contain this virus. But then, supermarkets are still open. Off-licences selling beer, wines, and spirits are classed as ‘essential retailers’. So, in the UK, you can break a lockdown more severe than Hong Kong’s to buy wine, but not to receive the sacrament.

Again, you may feel this is entirely right and justified. But what does it say about how important what we are thinking of this Maundy Thursday is to us? I hope we will talk more about this once the present situation is over. For tonight, I just want to ask you to pause and think how important what Jesus gave us the night before he was crucified is to you.

Why did Jesus think it so important that giving it to us was one of the last things he felt he had to do before his death? And if it was so important to him, how important should it be to us?

This brings me to another group that has emerged from the present crisis.

While there are those, on the one hand, who are happy to listen to sermons and, on the other, those who are happy simply to watch, the people who most have a problem in this situation are those who see the Eucharist not as a mystery to watch and marvel at, nor as a visual aid to help us remember. For us, and I am one of them, the Eucharist is above all spiritual food and food to be of any use must by its very nature be consumed.

And so, while COVID-19 is a terrible crisis threatening our physical health, it is also a terrible crisis threatening our spiritual health, depriving us as it does of the body and blood of Christ.

Our Lord told us:

‘Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’ (Matthew 10:28).

I wish we were as concerned for our spiritual health as we are for our physical well-being and that we feared God more than we feared the virus, if I may paraphrase the words of our Lord in this way.

We should, of course, care for our bodily health, but we should care even more for our spiritual health.

St Paul wrote:

‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.’ (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

Whatever St Paul meant by these words - and good, committed believers often disagree with each other over their meaning - they sound as if St Paul thought we are doing more than simply remembering; we are participating, sharing in the body and blood of Christ sacrificed for us on the Cross.

The question we have to answer tonight, we who so willingly allowed our services to be cancelled, is this. Why did we regard so lightly and abandon so willingly, something so precious, that was offered so freely, but came at so great a cost?

Our Lord famously said:

‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’ (John 6:53)

Jesus certainly meant more by this than simply receiving communion, but did he mean less? Surely, the bread and the wine of the Eucharist come into it somewhere or else, to ask the question again, why bother going to so much trouble on the night he knew he was to be betrayed?

And so, our Lord goes now to Gethsemane to pray and where he will be betrayed by one who was at the Meal with him. He will be arrested and taken away to be crucified tomorrow. His precious blood is about to be poured out for the ‘forgiveness of sins’: yours and mine.

May we not only remember it, but also participate in it; always value it and never take it for granted, whatever the circumstances may be that we find ourselves in. 

Amen.

Minutes that Matter: Fridays in April, 2020

This is the transcript of my second talk for RTHK Radio 4 Minutes that Matter on Fridays in April.

Talk Two: Good Friday

This week is Holy Week, the week before Easter.  Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  On Maundy Thursday in Church we remember the last meal that Jesus had with his disciples.  It is a meal that has been depicted by great artists, most notably by Leonardo Da Vinci.  The Meal itself, however, is notable for a number of reasons apart from being the last one Jesus ate before his death. 

Firstly, Jesus wanted to tell them how they were to behave towards one another once he had gone.  He did this in a dramatic way.  Before the Meal began, he washed each of their feet.  This was a task that no self-respecting person would do and Peter, one of his followers, is understandably embarrassed and protests.  But Jesus insists saying to him: ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’  Jesus was trying to tell them that they were to serve one another.  It was a way of reinforcing teaching he had previously given his followers about not promoting themselves and not seeing themselves as more important than others.  It is teaching, sadly, that has not always played out well amongst his followers since.

Secondly, although this was to be his last Meal with them before his death, he wanted it to be a Meal that they would continue to repeat and eat together.  What they were doing was something of extreme importance to him that went beyond enjoying a final meal together.  He told them that the bread they shared together was his body and the wine they drank was his blood.  After his death his followers made this Meal the central act of their worship and just twenty years or so later we know that pagan converts in Greece were meeting regularly to share in it.

It is, however, one thing doing it and another altogether understanding it.  Christians have come to different understanding of what the Meal’s significance is for them today.  This is not the time to discuss the differences.  What is clear, however, is that Jesus’ first followers saw this Meal that Jesus had given them as something that was both important and significant.  St Paul describes the bread that believers eat as a ‘participation’ in the body of Christ and the cup of wine that they share as a ‘participation’ in his blood.  This, for St Paul, is not just a poetic way of speaking.  He tells them that a failure to appreciate this will result, indeed has already resulted, in some of them getting sick and dying.  The Meal that Jesus gave his followers is not something to be taken lightly.  It is serious.

What Jesus was doing by giving his followers this Meal, was putting his death at the very centre of his followers’ life and worship.  Today is Good Friday.  It is the day that we remember Jesus’ actual death on the Cross.  So why am I talking about what happened yesterday?  It is because it is all too easy to think of Jesus’ death with an eye to Sunday when we will celebrate his resurrection when, as Christians believe, God raised him from the dead.  The temptation is to think that Jesus’ death, while being something we should remember, is now something that is behind us.  We worship a living Lord not a dead one.

Jesus, however, by giving his followers this Meal and making it so central to their identity was seeking to ensure that his death could never be something that could be relegated to the pages of history; something to be remembered once a year and then forgotten.
 
Jesus followers are to be people of the Cross.  Not simply an empty Cross, but the Cross that has their Lord nailed to it, suffering and dripping blood.  It demands that his followers crucify their own desires and ambitions and renounce pride and the longing for position and power.  To be people of the Cross is to be people who wash each other’s feet.

But this cannot happen until we have experienced the Cross for ourselves.  Jesus went to the Cross knowing that this was the will of God for him and that there was no other way.  The Cross is still the God ordained way that those who want to follow Jesus receive the forgiveness of sins, the promise of new life, and future salvation.  To be baptized and become a follower of Christ is to be baptized into Jesus’ death.

Today reminds us of that and the Meal Jesus gave us makes sure we don’t forget it.

Palm Sunday

This is the transcription of my sermon for Palm Sunday on April 5, 2020.

Palm Sunday

Readings:

• Isaiah 50:4-9a
• Philippians 2:5-11
• Matthew 27:11-27:54

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week.  It celebrates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.  This was the beginning of a series of events which, over the following few days, were to lead to Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

In our service last week, we read St John’s account of the raising of Lazarus in Bethany near Jerusalem.  St John tells us that 6 days before the Passover, Jesus came back to Bethany where he stayed with his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  This was to be his home until his death.

While he is there the three friends give a dinner party for him.  Martha, as usual, serves.  Mary, however, does something that is to prove highly controversial and is the trigger for the chain of events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion.

St John tells us:

‘Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’ (John 12:3)

The cost of this perfume would have been very great.  And not everyone is happy with it being used in this way.  Judas, in particular, questions why it could not have been sold and the money given to the poor.  St John tells us that Judas said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and wanted a share of what the perfume was worth for himself (John 12:6).

We need to remember, though, that Judas had been chosen by Jesus himself to be one of the 12, that is, one of his closest associates.  Judas clearly had been committed to Jesus at one time.  Whatever else is going on with Judas, we see in his reaction a growing disillusionment with Jesus.

When, however, Jesus defends Mary and says she has done a good thing that will always be remembered and spoken of, the die is cast and the events leading to the Cross are set in motion.  Judas goes to the Chief Priests and offers to betray him.

We simply do not know what was going through Judas’ mind or what lead him to decide to betray Jesus, but we get in this story of the Dinner Party at Bethany a sense of his disappointment in Jesus.  He is not the only one that Jesus is to disappoint in the next few days.

After Judas has made his fateful decision to betray Jesus, the next day Jesus rides into Jerusalem.  The crowds, who had heard that he was coming, greet him, waving palm branches and proclaiming him King. 

And the King, the Messiah, was what many had been waiting for.  The One who would liberate them from the Roman oppressor and establish God’s Kingdom on earth.  Throughout his ministry, there has been speculation that Jesus was the One who would do this.  He, however, has refused either to confirm or deny it.

Now, though, it seems clear.  The prophet Zechariah had spoken how when the Messiah came, he would enter Jerusalem riding a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).  By entering Jerusalem in this way at Passover when the Jews were celebrating their deliverance from oppression as slaves in Egypt, Jesus couldn’t be clearer as to the meaning of his action.  And the crowds totally get it.

But having raised their expectations to fever-pitch, what does Jesus do?  He absolutely refuses to follow through.  Instead, Jesus goes quietly and passively to his death, like a lamb to the slaughter.  He puts up no resistance.  He doesn’t die fighting for what he believes in.  He allows the Romans not only to humiliate him, but also to humiliate the people who had cheered him as their King.  Pilate mocks them and their so-called King by writing the ‘King of the Jews’ in three languages above his head on the Cross as Jesus is crucified in front of them.  Could ever a Messiah have been more of a disappointment? 

You get some of the sense of the disappointment felt, especially by those who have believed in him, in the words said by the two disciples walking to Emmaus on Easter Sunday:

‘But we had hoped that he was the one to set Israel free.’ (Luke 24:21)

But no, he wasn’t, he let us down.  The Messiah wouldn’t have allowed himself to be crucified.

Jesus was a disappointment.

Jesus was not just a disappointment to the crowds and those who followed him believing him to be the Messiah, but also to his closest friends and associates too.  Peter, after Jesus is arrested, will deny him three times. 

We are often quite hard on Peter for this denial.  We shouldn’t be.  Peter, when he denies Jesus, has just come from the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus had badly let him down.

Peter had been one of the first to leave everything he had to follow Jesus.  And when others abandoned Jesus because his demands were too great, Peter stuck with him.  Then, when Jesus had asked his disciples who they thought he was, Peter had been the one to get it right; to see that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  Jesus had praised him in the highest of terms, telling Peter that it was God himself who had revealed this to him.

And then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when they came to arrest Jesus, he, Peter, was willing to die there.  To protect Jesus, he drew his sword to fight, despite being heavily outnumbered.  What did Jesus do?  He told Peter to put his sword away.  Jesus just gave up.  He surrendered.  Jesus denied Peter the chance to save him.

Jesus was a disappointment.

Mary Magdalene was disappointed too.  But her disappointment was different.  Mary was there at the Cross when most of Jesus’ other followers had deserted him and fled.  She did not abandon him.  She was the first to the tomb after he had died.

But there at the tomb, she’s confused and devastated, not because she had wanted something out of him, not because she had expected something of him, but because she loved him.  Her terrible sense of loss can be heard even today in the words she speaks in the Garden thinking she is speaking to the gardener.  Weeping, she says:

‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ (John 20:15)

Even though Jesus is dead, she goes on loving him, but why has he gone?  Why has he been taken from her? 

Mary’s disappointment lies losing Jesus.

So how has Jesus disappointed you?  In what way is Jesus a disappointment to you?

For Jesus continues to disappoint people today.  He refuses to be what we want him to be or to give us what we want him to give.

Many are like the crowds.  They see in Jesus a political figure who they can look to as a role model for their cause.  He has been looked to by both those on the right and those on the left of the political spectrum.  On Palm Sunday, the crowds saw him as one who could bring them freedom.  And so, in our own day, he has been seen as a defender of free market capitalism and as a Marxist revolutionary fighting for freedom from just that. 

In the present day, the crowds, both in and out of the Church, wonder whether he can inspire those who are seeking freedom from social injustice. 

Perhaps Jesus is the role model we need today in our struggle for a more inclusive, equal, and diverse society.  After all, didn’t he welcome everyone regardless of who they were or what they had done?  Didn’t he reach out to the poor and oppressed?  Didn’t he challenge the rich and powerful?  Didn’t he speak out against injustice and exploitation?  If these are his values, then we will follow him for these are our values too. 

But then when we look more closely, he disappoints us too.  For he doesn’t just welcome the poor and oppressed, but also the rich and powerful like the tax-collectors who made their wealth out of exploiting the poor.  His burial and the grave he was buried in were provided by rich, powerful leaders who belonged to the very group of people who had crucified him.

Unlike many of his day, Jesus values and respects women, but then he goes and chooses 12 men to be the leaders and the foundation of his movement after he has gone.  He lets Martha wait on him and Mary wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair.

Jesus refuses to fight for any political or social cause.  He won’t submit to any who try to enlist him to their ideology or cause whether of the left, right or centre.  He shocks us by pronouncing judgement on all the cities of this world.

Jesus is a disappointment to us.

Most who are watching or listening to this broadcast, however, aren’t too worried about Jesus’ politics.  Many of us have given up trusting in politicians altogether.  We do not believe that any politician can help us.  No, we became Jesus’ followers for completely different reasons.  Like the first disciples, we became his followers because he seemed to promise so much not for society in general, but for us personally.

Like James and John, who sought to sit at his right hand and left, we thought there was going to be something in it for us.  We liked the idea that Jesus was on our side that he healed the sick, forgave sinners, promised abundant life, and told us that we would never go thirsty and that we would never die if we believed in him.

And then what happened?  He didn’t prevent our income from falling or save us from losing our job.  We didn’t get the exam results we were hoping for.  Our children didn’t get into the school or college we had wanted them to.  We did still get sick, have accidents, get hurt and injured, and lose loved ones.  Problems, difficulties, tragedy, sickness, and bereavement have come to us his followers just as they come to everyone else.  And more than this, we even get hassle and trouble simply because we are his followers.  Not only are we no better off by being his followers, we are even worse off.

Jesus promised us much but has delivered little.

Jesus is a disappointment to us.

A few, however, and it’s just a few, like Mary Magdalene are not disappointed.  They didn’t become his follower because they saw in a Jesus a political leader with an ideology they could believe in.  They didn’t become his follower for what they could get out of him for themselves.  Like Mary, they became his follower because they fell in love with him.

This was what Peter had to come to understand before he could be the leader Jesus wanted him to be.  And so, Jesus before returning to his Father asks him, ‘Peter, do you love me’.  And Jesus asks him not once, not twice, but three times.  Peter is hurt when Jesus asks him if he loves him, but, finally, he understands Jesus at last:

‘Yes, Lord you know that I love you.’ (John 21:15-17)

This won’t mean it will be easy as Jesus goes on to explain to him.

But, like Mary, Peter knows now it’s about a relationship, a commitment to Jesus; about following Jesus, his way.

It will feel at times that Jesus has left us.  That someone has taken him away and we do not where they have laid him.  He will feel absent.  And we too will feel disappointment, like Mary a different type of disappointment to those who don’t love him, but a disappointment, nevertheless.

This week Jesus will be crucified.  And this is God’s answer to our disappointment whoever we are. 

To the disappointed crowds who seek a political leader they can believe in, the Crucified Christ says it was never about power, success or political causes: did I not say, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36)?

To the disappointed disciples who followed Jesus thinking he would make their life better in the present, the Crucified Christ says I never promised you it would be easy.  I warned you it would be hard; that you would be persecuted; that you would suffer: did I not say, ‘In the world you will have trouble’ (John 16:33)?

To Mary, however, whose disappointment is not in Jesus but in losing him and finding him absent, the Risen Lord speaks simply a word of love.  It needs no further explanation, ‘Mary’.  Did he not say, ‘My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.’ (John 10:27)?

Jesus speaks her name and Mary hears his voice.  Jesus is alive!  That’s all that matters.  Now she must go and tell his followers he is alive.  Then they too must go.  And so must we.  We must tell the truth that he is alive!

But it is Crucified Christ who is alive.  Not the powerful leader, not the political ideologue, not the spiritual magician who grants our every wish, but the One who was nailed to the Cross and who died for us and because of us.

And the Crucified One still does not promise us seats in the Kingdom; he doesn’t offer us power and position; he doesn’t guarantee safety and security.  Instead, he speaks of hardship, suffering, struggle, misunderstanding, and rejection. 

Who will follow him now?

Not many.  Just as Jesus said, if we but listened to him:

‘For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.’ (Matthew 7:14)

It is, however, a way today, Palm Sunday, that we can find if we are prepared to follow him, not just as he rides into Jerusalem with the crowds cheering, but follow him, like Mary, all the way to the Cross, and then with her beyond it to the empty tomb. 

And, at the empty tomb, we will find him not just as the Crucified One, but as the Risen Lord who tells us not to hold on to him, but to go out for him; to be those who believe in him and who proclaim his death until he comes.  He warns us that as people were disappointed in him so too they will be disappointed in us; for indeed, as he said, ‘the servant is not above his or her master’ (John 15:20).

But as we go, we go with his promise:

‘And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:20)

So, Lord:

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die;

bow thy meek head to mortal pain,

then take, O God, thy power, and reign.

Amen.

Minutes that Matter: Fridays in April, 2020

I am giving the talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter on Fridays in April. This is the transcript of first one looking forward to Palm Sunday this coming Sunday.

Talk One: Palm Sunday

This Sunday, in the Church’s calendar, it is Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter. It is the most important week in the Church’s year. Palm Sunday is so named because on it the Church remembers how Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on the first day of the week and how the crowds who gathered greeted him by waving palm branches and proclaiming him their King. At the end of the week, however, he was dead, crucified by the Romans. Why? Why was he killed?

At first sight it is an easy enough question to answer. The Romans were a ruthless occupying power who allowed no challenge to their rule. Jesus riding into Jerusalem and people proclaiming him King was not something they were likely to take lightly. Particularly as this was Passover when Jerusalem was full of pilgrims remembering how Israel had been led out of slavery into freedom in the Promised Land. Tensions were always high. No mystery then as to why the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate would want him killed.

Except he didn’t! 

Not only was it not the Romans who had Jesus arrested in the first place, it only took Pilate a few moments questioning Jesus for him to realize that Jesus was no threat to Roman control and had no desire to be a King. At least, not in any way that would pose a threat of any kind to him or Rome. Pilate decided simply to have Jesus beaten, just to show who was boss, and then released.

No, those who had arrested Jesus were the local Jerusalem authorities. And they had handed him over to Rome only because they didn’t have the authority to kill him themselves. They could punish him, but not kill him. For that they needed the Romans, even though they hated the Romans as the occupying power. So what made them so determined to have Jesus killed?

Here is where it all gets very difficult and the answers often given simply do not make sense. For example, one answer you will hear this Easter is that Jesus had spent the past three years teaching people to make love the most important thing in their life. He had welcomed those who were outcasts and seen as sinners to be his friends. He had been inclusive of all regardless of their sex, past, social status, or background. He taught, it is said, that love is more important than religious rules and rituals. The religious people, so the argument continues, couldn’t bear this and valued keeping their religious practices more than loving people. And so, they had him killed.

This really will not do. 

It is true that Jesus and the religious leaders and teachers of his day did not agree with each other and that they were very critical of him and he of them. They argued with each other and even argued violently at times. Religious figures like Jesus who help and heal people may provoke anger and jealousy, but to suggest that the Jewish authorities got into bed with the Romans simply because of religious arguments and because Jesus was too loving really is not very convincing.

It is even, it has to be said, somewhat antisemitic based as it often is on the mistaken belief that the Judaism of Jesus’ day was shallow and superficial and its leaders so deluded and despotic that they feared an uneducated carpenter from Galilee who criticized them for not being nice.

Christians follow a crucified Christ. The Cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. It is central to the faith we believe in and which we proclaim. But it is not enough this Easter to tell people they need to believe in and follow a crucified Christ, we need to explain to them why he was crucified in the first place. And to do that we need to show what it was about Jesus and his teaching that made otherwise good people want to murder him. 

It is not sufficient, in other words, to know that Jesus was crucified, we need to know why he was crucifiable. Responding that he was simply too good is simply not good enough.

Jesus deserves better of those of us who are his followers than that this Easter.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

This is the transcription of my sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent on March 29, 2020.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Readings:

• Ezekiel 37:1-14
• Romans 8:6-11
• John 11:1-45

Our Gospel reading is a very well-known and much loved one that has given hope to many.  It contains the famous verse used at funerals:

‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die?’ (John 11:25-26)

The reading does, however, raise a number of questions that we need to try to answer.

1. Why the delay?

In the previous chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus has been in Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication and tensions have been rising.  The authorities there are now trying to arrest Jesus, and so he leaves Jerusalem for the relative safety of a place some distance away beyond the River Jordan where John the Baptist had been baptizing and where his own ministry began.

It is here that a message reaches him that his friend Lazarus, who lived with two other friends, Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, is very ill.  Lazarus, Martha, and Mary live just outside of Jerusalem in a village called Bethany.  Going back there will mean, in all likelihood, that Jesus will be arrested and face death.  A fact that does not escape the notice of one of his disciples, Thomas.  (This is the Thomas who is often known as ‘Doubting Thomas’.  We will come back to Thomas after Easter.) 

Whatever doubts he may or may not have had after Easter, here Thomas seems to be quite certain of what going to Jerusalem means.  When Jesus says they are going to Bethany to help their friend, Thomas says to his fellow disciples:

‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ (John 11:16)

Quite what tone there was in his voice, whether one of bravery and determination or resignation and defeat, we are not told.  Either way, this is a dangerous move on Jesus’ part and Thomas knows it.

This does not explain one strange feature of Jesus’ response, however.  When Jesus hears of his friend’s illness, he quite deliberately delays going by two days.  What is more the message has been sent by the sisters, who obviously are desperate for Jesus to come and help his friend, their brother.  Even more strangely, the delay is not because Jesus is reluctant or afraid to go, but because he wants to make sure that Lazarus is well and truly dead when he gets there.

We often talk of the disciples as if they were both stupid and cowards.  This is somewhat unfair.  As Jesus himself acknowledges, they had left everything to follow him, and like Thomas seemed ready to die for him.  It is certainly true that they don’t seem always to have understood what Jesus said to them, but then Jesus wasn’t always very easy to understand.

Here, for example, Jesus tells them that he is glad that he was not there when their friend became sick; he talks mysteriously about Lazarus ‘falling asleep’ and has to explain that he means Lazarus is dead; and then he delays doing anything about it, despite having told them:

‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ (John 11:4)

And he says this when it is apparent that it already has lead to death as Jesus himself tells them.

So, what’s going on?  Why does Jesus delay?  Why doesn’t he respond to the sisters’ appeal to him and rush to help.

The problem is that we like the disciples judge everything by what seems good and right to us and we try to get God to do the same.  Like the disciples during Jesus’ earthly ministry, we simply assume that if something is in our own best interest, then this must be what God wants too.  If something causes us pain or problems and we want it to go away, then it is inconceivable to us that God wouldn’t want it to go away too.  And if God doesn’t immediately respond by making it go away, we get confused and troubled. 

We then start to question God.

As some of those who go to see the sisters after their brother’s death are to comment:

‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’ (John 11:37)

So, before we try to remove the ‘speck’ out of Jesus’ disciples’ eyes, we need to address the ‘beam’ in our own.

As Jesus’ followers today we are called to a different world view and perspective from those around us.  One in which we reorder our priorities and our way of looking both at events in the world around us and those in our own lives too.  What we are called to look and work for is not what makes us happy and comfortable, but what brings glory to God, and that will always involve the ‘Son of God being glorified’.

What will glorify God here is not Lazarus being healed, but him dying.

And so, when he is sure that Lazarus is dead, Jesus sets out for Bethany taking his disciples with him.  This is his final journey to Jerusalem.  The events of Holy Week are now getting very close.

When they arrive, they find that Lazarus has been dead for four days.  This is significant.  Jews at the time believed that a person could only be said to be truly dead after they had been dead for four days.  In other words, there is no doubt about it.  Hearing Jesus is coming, one of the sisters, Martha, comes out to meet him.

I always feel sorry for Martha.  We know of Martha and her sister, Mary, from Luke’s Gospel.  St Luke tells us how on one occasion, when Jesus and his disciples were visiting them, Martha was busy getting a meal ready for everyone while Mary sat at Jesus feet listening to him.  On this occasion, Martha complained to Jesus about her sister, earning a rebuke from Jesus for being too busy.  Mary, Jesus told Martha, was doing the right thing.

What Martha says to Jesus when she comes out to meet him is interesting:

‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’’ (John 11:21-22)

Compare this with what Mary says when Martha tells her that Jesus is calling for her:

‘When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ (John 11:32)

There can be no doubt of both of the women’s love for Jesus.  Both also imply that Jesus is to blame for not having done more to help.  If he had been there, Lazarus, their brother, would not have died.  There is, however, a difference in their response.  For Mary that’s the end of it.  Jesus hadn’t been there for them and now their brother is dead.  Perhaps that’s why Mary didn’t go out to meet him and why Jesus had to call for her.  She’s upset and disappointed with him.  It’s not that she doesn’t believe in his power and ability to heal.  She does and that’s the problem, why hadn’t been there to heal her brother while there was still time?

‘If you had of been there for us, my brother would not have died.  But you weren’t.  Were you Jesus?’

Martha had already said that, but she had also said something else: ‘Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.’  The Martha who was too busy to listen to Jesus previously has taken his words to her then to heart, and she is ready to listen to him now.  And so, it is thanks to Martha that Jesus says the words that have brought hope and comfort to millions. 

Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again.  Martha replies that she knows he will rise again as part of the resurrection on the Last Day.  The trouble being, of course, that that is then, and this is now.  Martha wants her brother with her now not on the Last Day.

But she is still listening to Jesus and he says those amazing words to her:

‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.’ (John 11:25-26)

Life is not about events either now or in the future.  Life is Jesus.  And for those who believe in Jesus, nothing, not even death, can take that life from them.  However, when we quote these fantastic words of Jesus, we leave out a vital bit of what he says.  Jesus immediately asks her:

Do you believe this? (John 11:26)

The words of Jesus about life and death are comforting, and they are words full of hope, but, Jesus asks Martha, ‘Do you believe this?’

Do we?

Jesus doesn’t say, ‘I am the resurrection and the life and even though someone dies yet will they live,’ he says that whoever believes in him will never die.

So again, the question, ‘Do we believe this?’

The question is not one about life and death in the abstract.  It is quite literally a question of life and death: our life and death.  The life and death of each one of us.  On the answer we give to this question depends our own life and death.

Martha answers as Jesus must have known and hoped she would answer:

‘She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’ (John 11:27)

Hooray! 

Now all that’s left is for Jesus to show that he knew what he was doing all along and raise Lazarus from the dead.  Then the sisters will be happy; Jesus will be forgiven; and, Lazarus will get to live to die another day; and in the meantime, they will all live happily ever after.

But that’s not quite how the story turns out.  I am not talking now about what happens to Jesus in Jerusalem after Lazarus is raised from the dead, that’s another story entirely.  No, I am referring to what happens here before Lazarus is raised from the dead.

After Mary has expressed her feelings and recriminations to Jesus and seeing how upset everyone is, what does Jesus do?  Does he say, ‘Surprise!  And raise Lazarus from the dead?’  Does he tell them just to have patience and to trust him?
 
No, he weeps.

So instead, it is us who are surprised.  Why would Jesus weep?  He knows what he is going to do, and do in just a few minutes.  While Jesus might be sad to see them so upset, that will soon change when they see their brother alive again.  But no, even though Jesus knows what is about to happen, Jesus weeps.

2. Why does Jesus weep?

This isn’t about ‘weeping with those who weep’, as St Paul puts it.  Jesus isn’t simply weeping out of solidarity and sympathy, although he does do that too.  He is weeping at the terrible awfulness of death and the enormity of what he himself is about to experience.

When it comes to death and what we believe as Christians, we have adopted an approach to death that, in theory at least, sees death as ‘nothing at all’.  Surely Jesus has conquered death?  Isn’t that the whole point of Easter?  Yes, we tell ourselves, Jesus had to suffer and die and that must have been terrible for him at the time, but God raised him from the dead.  He conquered it and now he lives and reigns forever.  We might find death unpleasant, but now, thanks to Jesus, we have nothing to fear.  Death is nothing at all.

But death is something at all.  How quickly we forget that it is a something that the Son of God himself both feared and had to experience.  Death is the something, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, that keeps us in slavery to fear.  Something that is so powerful and deadly that it took a creative act of God to do something about.  And even then, it was not destroyed just defeated.  St Paul tells us that it is still an enemy waiting its final destruction.  So powerful is death that it will be the last enemy to be destroyed.

Death laughs at our easy optimism and has no trouble in destroying it.  All it takes is a death of someone we love or for us to be confronted with our own death for us to suddenly realize that death is something after all.  And Jesus knows this.  He knows that whatever he does Lazarus will die again.  He will die.  You and I will die.  And we will all die until that time when God will finally destroy death once and for all.

And so, Jesus weeps, and so should we.  St Augustine said:

‘Why did Jesus weep except to teach us to weep?’

Faced with the evil that is death, we should cry our hearts out.  Cry out of compassion for those who have suffered loss and bereavement and cry out of guilt because it is our sin, our rejection of God, and our love of darkness rather than light, that has made death the power and enemy it is.

3. What sign then does Jesus give?

Many church-goers find this hard to understand.  ‘After all, didn’t Jesus say he is the resurrection and the life and that whoever believes in him will never die?  Indeed, he did, but we will only appreciate how mind-blowingly incredible this is when we realize how truly terrible death is.  So terrible that it is only Jesus who can give us hope.  And the hope he gives us is not simply his resurrection on Easter Day. 

We also have hope because although we must experience the darkness and awful horror of death, he is indeed the resurrection and the life.  Even though they die, says Jesus, and die we shall, yet shall they live.  Live because he is the resurrection as well as the life.  The same God who raised Jesus from the dead ‘will give life to our mortal bodies through the same Spirit that dwells in us’, as St Paul writes in our second reading.

But the Spirit must dwell in us, and he will only dwell in us if, as Jesus says to Martha, we believe in him.

So, we come back to the question Jesus asked Martha:

‘Do you believe this?’

For those who believe in Jesus, that is, for those who trust in Jesus and do whatever he tells them to do, there is the promise that Jesus is both the ‘resurrection and the life’.

The raising of Lazarus, temporary though it was, is a sign of the greater resurrection yet to come.  A resurrection when God will wipe every tear from our eyes.  When death will be no more; and when all mourning and crying and pain too will be no more (Revelation 21:4).

Until then, like Jesus this morning, we weep at the grave of our loved ones who die, but we weep as those who although they know the power of death, know that the power of our God is greater.  And so, while we weep, we have hope and rejoice in him who was dead but is alive and who has the keys to both death and hell.

Do you believe this?

May we answer with St Martha:

‘Yes, Lord, I believe.’

And believing, may we make it our goal whether in our life or death that the ‘Son of God may be glorified through it.’

Amen.

The Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary

This is the transcript of a short sermon I gave for the Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 25, 2020.

The Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings:

Isaiah 7:10-14
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This is the festival in the Church’s calendar when we remember the Angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary and his announcement to her that she would give birth to God’s Son, the Messiah. 

There are now just nine months to Christmas! 

Last Sunday was Mothering Sunday.  As I said in our service for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Mothering Sunday is different to Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day in Hong Kong this year is on Sunday, May 10. 

On Mothering Sunday, we think both of our earthly mothers and our mother Church.  In other words, of both those who mother us physically and spiritually.  Today reminds us that our Lord himself was born of an earthly mother and for many years of his life had an earthly mother to look after and care for him. 

For many that is where the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role begins and ends.  She gave birth and nurtured him, and then our Lord took over. Mary ceased to have any role after that.  For others, the Blessed Virgin Mary also serves a role model of faith, like other role models in Scripture.  This, at least, is an improvement on seeing her only in her role as mother to our Lord. 

This is not to suggest that that role was unimportant! 

At the present time, we are seeing just how important mothers are not only in providing physically for a child’s needs, but also in supporting them emotionally and spiritually during what is the worst health crisis we have lived through.  It is mothers, too, who are bearing the main burden in looking after their children’s education while schools are closed. 

One of my favourite painters is Henry Ossawa Tanner. 

He painted several paintings of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  One I particularly like is one of our Lady teaching Jesus.  Mary’s role in our Lord’s life was a significant one not only in giving birth, but also in raising and teaching him, and today is a good opportunity for us to remember and give thanks for it.

Another of Tanner’s paintings, which I have a copy of in my study, is of the event we are particularly thinking of today.   It depicts the Angel Gabriel appearing to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Gabriel is depicted simply using a ray of light.  Mary is sitting hands clasped listening intently.  She is young, but intelligent and aware. 

I like this painting especially because so many of the paintings and depictions of Mary make her appear so fragile and weak.  I realize that often she is depicted in this way out of a serious devotion and desire to show her submission to God’s will for her. 

They are not, however, a true representation of the Mary I know. 

For me she is an amazing woman who took on a role, which involved a ‘sword piercing her own heart also’ Luke 2:35).  A role that meant she would have to endure shame and misunderstanding from family and friends.  Even today, there are those who doubt her virginity and call her purity into question.  And all this before the hardship she had to endure as a refugee and, in all likelihood, as a single mother. Joseph apparently having died before Jesus began his ministry. 

This is a strong woman and we honour her. 

But is this all we do? 

For others in the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary not only had a role in the past as our Lord’s mother.  And her role in the present is more than as a role model for our faith, important though that is.   In addition to all this, the Blessed Virgin Mary is a very real presence in their life. 

Our Lord on the Cross said to the disciple he loved, ‘Behold your mother’ (John 19:27).  Was this a gift just to the Beloved Disciple or something more?  For many of us, it was a gift of our Lord to all believers as the Blessed Virgin Mary becomes our mother too. 

I have in my hand a rosary and, for many Christians, praying the rosary is a vital part of their spiritual life. It is also much misunderstood.  It is seen by some as an unacceptable form of devotion to Mary that amounts to worship and idolatry.  However, as those who use it pray one of the most popular prayers in the Church, the ‘Hail Mary’, they meditate on various aspects of the life of our Lord from his birth to his death. 

At our Lord’s first miracle, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, the Mother of our Lord said to the servants, ‘Whatever he tells you to do, do it’ (John 2:5).  The Blessed Virgin Mary always directs our attention to her Son and encourages us to obey him.  For many, Mary in a very real way, is not just an example of faith, but a companion on their spiritual journey.  She is someone they can turn to for support and, yes, for comfort too.  A mother, in fact! 

Today, the Feast of the Annunciation, reminds us of the importance of mothers and of the need to value and support them in the work they do.  The Blessed Virgin Mary shows us what it means to have faith - to trust and obey - as well as showing us the cost of discipleship and the sacrifices we too will have to make as we follow her Son. 

But more than this: she accompanies us on our path of discipleship: supporting us, encouraging us, and comforting us when we need it. 

Today we celebrate her: our Lord’s mother and ours. 

Hail Mary,
full of Grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of our death. 

Amen.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

This is the transcript of my sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent on March 22, 2020.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Readings:

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41

The Gospel reading this morning is St John’s account of our Lord’s healing of a man who had been blind from birth.  Our Lord uses it as an opportunity not only to heal the man, but also to teach his disciples about spiritual blindness and to challenge his critics about theirs.  St John includes this story in his Gospel to teach us about ours.
It is important to remember that for St John and, indeed, for all the New Testament writers, we are all born blind.  Sadly, many of us, like the Pharisees in the story, simply refuse to admit it.  As they say to Jesus, ‘Surely, we are not blind, are we?’

Throughout the Gospel, St John, over and over again, makes the point that although Jesus is the light of the world and is the One who can take away people’s spiritual blindness, we humans prefer to stay in the darkness.  We refuse to come to the Light.

1. Why do we refuse to come the Light?

Quite simply, because to do so means we have to admit that we are in darkness; that we cannot see; and that we are, therefore, unable to help ourselves.  It is an affront to our pride and our belief in our power and ability.  Jesus’ verdict on the Pharisees in the story is his verdict on us:

‘If you were blind, you would not have sin.  But now you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.’ (John 9:41)

St John begins his account with the disciples asking Jesus, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’  It is a bit of a weird question.  We can understand how the man’s blindness could be blamed on his parents, even if it seems harsh and unfair to do so.  We get that, in theory at least, it could be a punishment on them for something they have done.  It could even be as a consequence of lifestyle choices they had made before he was born, which had resulted in a physical disability, but how can he himself be blamed for being born blind?

The disciples’ question reflects a belief that someone must be responsible for the man’s blindness.  The link between a person’s condition in life with sin is one with a long history.  We still make the link today, although we use different terminology in making it.

Attributing the negative state a person is in to some fault of their birth or to them personally was not only common in the ancient world, it is common in our own even if we prefer not to use the language of sin.

So, for example, a person’s economic and social disadvantages are often blamed on the culture, class, or country into which they are born.  This is the thinking of many on the ‘left’ of the political spectrum.  It follows, then, that if you change society and challenge unjust structures within it, you change people’s lives for the better.

On the other hand, many on the ‘right’ of the political spectrum think that the individual is always responsible for their own life, both for the good and the bad in it.  Here, the disciples take it to an extreme and think apparently that the man born blind might have done something wrong in the womb!

We see both narratives being played out in our world at the present, often at the same time.  So, there is the campaign for greater social justice and for the removal of barriers that are said to hold people back.  And then there is the ‘you can achieve anything you want if you believe in yourself’ message that we are constantly being urged to accept.

It is, of course, true that much of the trouble we get ourselves into is down to ourselves and our choices.  Actions have consequences, and we can be too quick to blame society or other people for what is our own fault and no-one else’s.

It is also true that many have little or no choice about the situation in life in which they find themselves.  Children born to abusive parents who neglect and maltreat them clearly will not have the advantages of those born to loving, caring parents who do all they can for them.  A child born to poor parents in the slums of Latin America, for example, will not have the same life chances as a child born to rich parents in Silicon Valley.

The reality, however, is that the predicament that the human race finds itself in is due to a far deeper and more sinister cause.  Yes, human life is diminished by the evil that traps them in injustice and exploits them.  Yes, we do wrong and need to take responsibility for our actions.  But all this is part of a far deeper problem.  St John describes this as being in darkness, and our problem is that we are all in darkness. 

The darkness, however, is more than just a state, it is also a force.  A force that expresses itself in social and economic structures that imprison and destroy people, and it reaches deep into the hearts and being of each one of us.  While, however, the darkness expresses itself in many different ways, it exists independently of them.  Earlier in his Gospel, John has made clear just how bad the situation we find ourselves in really is:

‘And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.’ (John 3:19)

We are all spiritually blind, slaves to sin, and in the power of spiritual forces beyond our control.  We even prefer darkness to light.

2. What, then, is to be done?

If the disciple’s question, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ is a troubling one, then Jesus’ answer seems even more troubling.  Jesus answers their question:

‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.’ (John 9:3)

Jesus appears to be saying that the man was selected and subjected to blindness so that God through Jesus could show how powerful he was.  The blind man is thus being used as a sort of visual aid – if you will forgive me for putting it that way!

Scholars who try to address this issue normally do so by appealing to Greek grammar to show that Jesus isn’t saying that God caused him to be born blind to reveal his work, but that God’s work is revealed in the man as a consequence of him being born blind.  God didn’t make the man blind to reveal his power, the man’s blindness made it possible for God to reveal his power in the man’s life by healing him.

I might not be personally responsible, for example, for someone having to beg on the street, but coming across a man begging gives me the opportunity to show how generous a person I am – or not, as the case may be!

Scholars who argue this way may or may not be right about the grammar, but we may be in danger of missing the point of what Jesus is saying to his disciples and of what, I think, he wants to say to us. 

When challenged by the Pharisees about how he gained his sight, the man born blind says:

‘Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.’ (John 9:32)

Again, it is true that the society where we are born and the family who we are born to affects both the person we are and the person we have the potential to become.  It is true, too, that we are responsible for our choices and decisions and the consequences of them.

But to put it plainly, it was only God who could do anything about the man’s blindness, and it is only God who can do anything about ours.

3. What does God do?

Jesus, having said that the man’s blindness will reveal God’s works, then does something very odd.  We know from the Gospels that Jesus has the power to heal and that he can do this simply by saying the word or by laying hands on the person needing healing.  Jesus can even heal over a distance when physically separated from the person needing healing as he did with the Centurion’s Son.

Instead here, Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud.  He then puts the mud on the man’s eyes and tells him to go and wash it off in the Pool of Siloam, which, St John tells us, means ‘Sent’.  So why the elaborate ritual?

Well, if you have been following these Broadcast Services and sermons during Lent, you will know the words that Lent begins with:

‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

In the book of Genesis, man is created by God from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7).  Lent reminds us of both our fragility and mortality; something which, even at this time of crisis, we refuse to face up to.  The Rabbis spoke of how Adam was created from dust by God spitting on the ground and making him out the clay, out of the mud.

Two Sundays ago, for the Second Sunday of Lent, Jesus told Nicodemus, a Pharisee, that he must be ‘born again from above’.  (You can still listen to the service and sermon on YouTube!)  Nicodemus, however, simply doesn’t get it.  He doesn’t see it!

Here Jesus, in healing the man born blind gives a practical demonstration of what he said to Nicodemus by repeating the action of God at the creation of the first man.  The man born blind is not only given physical sight, he is brought to new birth and given spiritual sight.  For the story of the man born blind from birth doesn’t end with the man’s physical healing, but with him coming to faith in Christ and worshipping him.

What is also interesting in all this is the reaction of the Pharisees.  What they cannot understand or cope with is not that Jesus can heal, but that he chooses to do so on the Sabbath!

Here our prejudices blind us to the significance of what is going on.  We, again as I have said in recent sermons, see the Pharisees stereo-typically as the bad guys.  In many ways, however, they weren’t bad guys, and no-one at the time thought they were.  They were deeply committed to God and to doing what God wanted.

We need to remember that keeping the Sabbath wasn’t just about having a day off each week.  It wasn’t simply a day for people to enjoy themselves and do whatever they liked.  ‘Keeping the Sabbath holy’ was one of the 10 commandments from God alongside not murdering, committing adultery, stealing or lying.  If it was wrong to murder, it was wrong to work on the Sabbath.  Jesus healing on the Sabbath was the equivalent of a doctor opening his clinic on a Sunday.  The Pharisees weren’t against Jesus healing people, they just thought he should do it on another day.

We let our faith in ourselves get in the way of worshipping God.  The Pharisees let their faith in God get in the way of worshipping Jesus.  What they couldn’t see was that in Jesus, God was coming to them, and so he could decide what could or could not be done on the day of the week especially set aside for him.

The Pharisees, for good motives, sought to regulate the worship of God, and in the process became blind to the God they sought to worship.  It is a warning to us that both our desire to worship God and the rules we establish for his worship can themselves prevent us from seeing God.  We must throw aside all restrictions and allow God to open our eyes, so we can see him as he himself chooses to reveal himself to us in Christ.

Those who occupy positions of leadership and influence in the Church need to be very careful that the rules, regulations, and restrictions that they place on people, even when for the best of reasons, do not turn out to be the very things that prevent people coming to a place where, like the man born blind, they can see clearly to be able worship God in Christ.

Questioned by the Pharisees and asked whether he knew that the man who healed him was a sinner, the man born blind replied.

‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ (John 9:25)

Conclusion: ‘Come and See’.

Jesus first words in John’s Gospel were to Andrew and another disciple.  He asked them, ‘What are you looking for?’  They answered him, ‘Rabbi, where are you staying.  Jesus replied, ‘Come and see’.  (John 1:38-39)  Last week, the woman at the well in Samaria said to the people of the place where she lived, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.’ (John 4:29)

Come and see!

Today, Jesus invites us to ‘Come and see’ so that with the man born blind, and countless others who have responded to his invitation, we too may worship Jesus and be able to say with confidence:

‘One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’