The 3rd Sunday in Lent
Dear Friends,
Passion Sunday reminds us that Christianity is not platitudinous. It points inexorably to the only turning point in human history that matters; to a grubby hill where man’s great violence against man is meted out; to a single, perfect and sufficient sacrifice by which the work of salvation is accomplished. It is, as St Paul reminds us, utter foolishness to those who reject their need of God: a fanciful tale indeed. But for those who have travelled the gospel path, it is the only event that correctly interprets all other events. Here begins the dawning realisation that this was his mission all along; that those little rejections along the way would lead to the greatest rejection of all; that those daily burdens lifted from weary human shoulders would find their sum total in the burden of a heavy cross; that the bread fractured at table only hours before would become the body broken into countless pieces for the salvation of the world.
We have worked our way through the stories, but only now do they all make sense - only now do we realised that all of it was leading to this: the dreary birth, the chance encounters in the Temple, the immersion into water at the Jordan, the long hours of teaching, the ministry to those forgotten and alone, the healing and the raising up, the fleeting conversation by night or by a well - and all along he was telling us that this is what would happen. All of it was leading to this. Here he will so fully engage himself to the world that the symbol of the event will subsequently be the only bridge by which we might meet him. It is why, in the words of that ancient hymn, we might cry:
Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore,
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.
Upon its arms, like balance true,
He weighed the price for sinners due,
The price which none but He could pay,
And spoiled the spoiler of his prey.
I encourage you to use this hymn in your daily prayers as we approach Holy Week. Here it is - The Royal Banners Forward Go - sung by the choir of Gloucester Cathedral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8P649PiWkI
You may wish to listen to it sung in its original Latin and to an ancient plainsong melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhXHj3fhmuQ
Bruckner’s great anthem Christus Factus Est accesses something of the emotional heart of our journey throughout these coming two weeks. Almost symphonic in construction and intent, it is not until we reach the end - with its revolving repetition of the ‘name that is above every name’ - that we realise that the triumph of the cross is the paradox of utter despair and total redemption.
You may listen to it here, sung by the Cambridge Singers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCXDRoQJyTU