Passiontide

Preached at St Helen’s Church, Solihull at 10am Eucharist on Sunday 21st March 2010.
A shorter version of this sermon was also preached at the 8am Eucharist at St Alphege.

Fifth Sunday of Lent – Year C – Passion Sunday

Readings: Isaiah 43: 15-21 Philippians 3: 4b-14 John 12: 1-8


Today we enter Passiontide, and we start our slow build up towards the key days of our Lent and Easter observances. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. Then later that week we remember the all important days; Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day.
Every year in the Church we repeat the great rituals of Holy Week to remind ourselves of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the central story of the Christian faith, and this annual remembrance helps us enter into the story ourselves and make it our own. And it is this entering into the story ourselves which I think is the key point. Our Holy Week rituals and liturgies help us to draw close to Jesus in his passion, death and resurrection. We are seeking to participate with Jesus in his experience, so that it becomes part of our lives, part of our own story. And ultimately this changes everything, we are converted, everything is transformed within us.
No we can’t pretend that drawing close to Jesus in his passion and death is an easy or enjoyable thing to do. It might even seem un-natural. It is easy to think, “I don’t want to participate in this story. The passion and death of Jesus is all about violence, pain and death. It is horrible and I don’t want to get involved with it!” We all feel the desire to minimise suffering and avoid death, and there is something very natural and human about that. But this is not what Christianity is about. Christianity is absolutely about the death and resurrection of Christ. We are baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 6). At every Eucharist we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11: 26). And we do this because of the resurrection. We do it because Christ’s life is stronger than death, Christ’s love overcomes hated, hope in Christ overcomes fear. So in Christianity we are not afraid to engage constructively with suffering, pain and death because we place our hope in the resurrection of Jesus.
Let’s think about what Paul had to say about this in the reading from his letter to the Philippians, which we heard today. Paul has come to value Christ so highly that all the good things he had before (all the things for which many people probably envied him!) no longer count for anything. He says, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ.” Knowing Christ is like the precious pearl. You know the parable; a man finds a pearl of extraordinary value, and he sells everything he has in order to buy the pearl, because he recognises the unsurpassed value that it has.
Then Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I might attain the resurrection of the dead.” Paul wants to share in the sufferings of Christ because, somehow, it draws him into the resurrection of Christ.
And this is the invitation to us too, to share in the sufferings of Christ so as to share in his resurrection. And how do we do that? Well, I believe we have an opportunity to do that every time a suffering crosses our path. Perhaps someone is rude to us and we feel hurt? Perhaps we are hurt by something we’ve seen on the telly; the victims of an earthquake, or an unjust situation? Perhaps we are mindful of our own sin and inadequacies? Perhaps we have been put in a difficult situation at work? Perhaps we face a major suffering; a serious illness, a bereavement or death? Spiritual experts suggest that when we face a suffering, any kind of suffering, we can pray “Jesus, help me to see you, the crucified Christ, in this small suffering of mine. Help me to love you in your great suffering, through this small suffering of mine.” And by sharing sufferings with the crucified Christ in this way we find, somehow, that the risen Christ shares his resurrection life with us. And this has immense value. This is the precious pearl.
Once again, we can’t pretend that this is easy. It requires a very mature Christian attitude, and the support of other Christians who understand it. But I have to say that, in so far as I have managed to live it, I have found it to be profoundly true and immensely helpful. My moments of suffering and loss have, in the end, been precisely the moments which have led me deeper into Christ. And there has been renewal and new life and a realisation that my Christianity stands on a foundation much deeper and firmer and stronger than I ever imagined. And as I repeat this experience more often, I start to have more and more confidence in it. I start to really trust in it, and I realise that no human problem can really threaten Christianity, because Christ, through his cross has already conquered the world.
So how can we make a start on this experience? How can we get going? Well Passiontide and Holy Week is a real opportunity. Let’s use our church services to draw close to Christ as he passes through his passion and death and onto resurrection life. Also at St Helen’s this year we are setting up a Holy Week Meditation in the St Helen’s chapel, a little like the labyrinth of previous years. Let’s all come and spend time at that mediation, to draw close to Christ in passion, death and resurrection. And then, thirdly, let’s make use of the big and small sufferings of our everyday lives, and find in them as a precious link to the great suffering of Christ on the cross, who we need to love.
And by sharing with Christ in his sufferings, like St Paul, we somehow(!) receive a sharing in his resurrection life. And this is the pearl of great price, so precious that everything else starts to appear worthless.