Passion Sunday

March 22                    NOTES FOR REFLECTION                          Passion Sunday

Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33

Theme: Something about journey's end, perhaps, as we are now but a week away from Jerusalem.  But how to capture all that in one short phrase?  Perhaps "All that Lies Ahead", or "No Turning Back Now" may capture some of the expectancy/dread of this time.  Something more theological might be "The Mystery of Our Faith" or "The Secret Now Revealed".  Last week, I think, I suggested "Lift High the Cross": we might follow that this week with "Lift High the Son of Man".  Finally, we could try a bit of bi-lingualism: "Crux Probat Omnia" (The Cross proves Everything), which I've shamelessly pinched from Richard Rohr.

[Note: Before I forget, we might want to give some thought to the fact that this year the Feast of The Annunciation of our Saviour to the Blessed Virgin Mary falls between Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday.  It brought to my mind the words of Simeon to Mary at The Presentation.  Just a thought.]

Introduction.  I'm not sure that our first lesson from Jeremiah is the happiest of choices for Passion Sunday – it would seem better suited to Maundy Thursday or Pentecost – but there we are.  God announces a fundamental change from external guidance by others to internal knowledge by all.  (The Teacher becomes the Holy Spirit.)  The lesson from the Letter to the Hebrews is also about transformation: the Suffering Servant becomes the Great High Priest.  And to continue this line of thought, in our gospel reading "the Son of Man" becomes "I" (Jesus).

Background.  Last week I mentioned that Trish had drawn my attention to Richard Rohr's reflection on the practice of "gazing" at Christ on the Cross – the practice of looking to a crucifix for healing – in chapter 9 of his book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality.  The whole chapter (in fact, the whole book) is brilliant, and it's impossible to do it justice in just one short quote.  But the following is specifically on the point I raised about the use of the crucifix in comparison with the "Snake-on-a Stick" story in the Book of Numbers.  With John 19:37 in focus (which quotes from Zechariah 12:10 – "They will look on the one whom they have pierced") Rohr writes this (at p.186):

Those who "gaze upon" the crucified long enough - with contemplative eyes – are always healed at deep levels of pain, unforgiveness, aggressivity and victimhood.  It demands no theological education at all, just an "inner exchange" by receiving the image within and offering one's soul back in safe return.  No surprise that C.G. Jung is supposed to have said that a naked man nailed to a cross is perhaps the deepest archetypal symbol in the Western psyche.

The crucified Jesus certainly is no stranger to human history either.  It offers, at a largely unconscious level, a very compassionate meaning system for history.  The mystery of the rejection, suffering, passion, death and raising up of Jesus is the interpretative key for what history means and where it is all going.  Without such cosmic meaning and soul significance, the agonies and tragedies of humanity feel like Shakespeare's "sound and fury signifying nothing".  The body can live without food easier than the soul can live without such meaning.

If all these human crucifixions are leading to some possible resurrection, and are not dead-end tragedies, this changes everything.  If God is somehow participating in human suffering, instead of just passively tolerating it and observing it, that also changes everything – at least for those who are willing to "gaze" contemplatively.

One of the most striking elements of Jesus' several references to his forthcoming death and resurrection lies for me in the absence of any explanation as to WHY the Son of Man must be handed over, mistreated, killed, etc; and nobody seems willing to ask him.  (It's rather like his somewhat unhelpful response to John in Matthew's version of Jesus' baptism: it is necessary because it is necessary.)  So it has been left to his followers, from St Paul onwards, to "explain" why Jesus had to die on the cross; and what a pig's breakfast they and we have made of it ever since.  What most of our "explanations" are really about is our own human nature projected onto God.  God, we say, is a God of Justice – and we usually say it a lot louder than we say "God is a God of Love".  Worse, we attribute to God the same understanding of "justice" as we have.  Our "Justice" is often little more than a scarcely disguised version of payback, utu, or tit-for-tat.

And so we have created for ourselves a God who demands that somebody be held accountable for the wrong done to him.  Why?  Because that's exactly what we want when somebody does harm to us.  That one false step leads us more and more into the extraordinary intricacies, contradictions and mind-numbing incoherencies of much of our theology surrounding the Cross.  From it all emerges a God (whom we often call "almighty"!) who is powerless by his very nature to accept the human race back into his presence without first sacrificing his own beloved Son!

All this to avoid the awful truth that on the Cross Jesus revealed to us that the only remedy for sin is love – that the only response to violence and wrongdoing of any kind is forgiveness – that the only way to take away the sin of the world is to die rather than commit it.  And, of course, what Jesus revealed on the Cross is not some sort of idea of his own – some last piece of teaching – what he was revealing on the Cross was the true nature of God.  God is NOT what we always took him to be, and still would like him to be in his dealings with other people.  God is a God who refuses to stop loving us whatever we do to him – even if we torture him and nail him to a cross.

Is that the God whom we see when we gaze at a crucifix?  A God who is lifted up so that all can see him as he really is?  A victim-God in whose image we are made, rather than a God of payback made in our own image?  Is that the God to whom we are all drawn?

St Peter writes (1 Peter 2:23-24): When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.  He himself bore our sins in his body one the cross, so that free from sins, we might live for righteousness: by his wounds you have been healed.

Jeremiah 31:31-34:  In my NRSV chapter 31 is headed "The Joyful Return of the Exiles", and it's all about a fresh start.  It's a sort of early prototype of the Reformation – for good and ill!  Individualism is to the fore: the passage preceding this week's reading is sub-headed "Individual Retribution" (not a particularly helpful choice of words), but it signals a move away from the idea of being punished for the sins of our forefathers, and towards being accountable only for our own sins.  More positively, this week's passage foresees a time when all will "know God", and we will not need the instruction of others.  The age of "external spirituality" will give way to what today we might call an inner life.  A movement from head to heart – from "study about" to "experience of".  From Rabbi to the Spirit of Truth.  And do notice what will enable all this to come about: "for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."  True spirituality sprouts in the earth of forgiveness.

Taking It Personally. 

 

• Do you more easily experience God outwardly or inwardly?
• In what sense (if any) do you believe that God's law is written on your heart?  Is that a helpful or an unhelpful image for you?
• Are you at peace with God?  Do you truly feel forgiven?
• Have you experienced the joy of a returning exile, or have you never been away from God?

 

Hebrews 5:5-10.  There is sometimes a sense in reading or listening to the Letter to the Hebrews that the author is answering questions that we ourselves are not asking.  Clearly, one big issue in the circles in which he was mixing at the time was a grappling with a world in which the centre of their religious life – the Temple – was no more.  And their teachers were telling them that a temple is no longer required – it had been replaced, so to speak, by Christ.  What did that mean?  What was the relationship between the Temple and Christ?  And rather like the process of trying to "explain" the necessity of Jesus' death on the cross, the Letter to the Hebrews shows some signs of the way in which an answer to one question seems only to lead to a new question.  This week's passage seems to focus on the practice of religion, not merely in the absence of the Temple, but also in the absence of a priesthood.  Don't we need priests any longer?  The answer is that Christ is now our Great High Priest.  How did that come about?  In the same way that any other High Priest has taken office, through God's call.  But, of course, Christ does not belong to the "ordinary" order of priests: he is "a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek".  This takes us right back, of course, to Abraham – and perhaps to an echo of Jesus' saying: "Before Abraham was, I am."

 

Taking It Personally.

 

• Perhaps for us the important verses are 7-9.  Ponder them slowly and deeply.  Ask the Spirit to lead you deeper into their truth.
• In verse 7 there is a description of Jesus' prayers.  How do they compare with your own?
• In verse 8 Jesus "learned obedience through what he suffered".  What do you make of that?  In times of suffering do you feel closer to, or farther away from, God?

 

 John 12:20-33.  As so often is the case with passages taken from this gospel, it is almost impossible to summarise this one.   It seems to start off with some surprisingly mundane detail, as if set in the bureaucratic corridors of power.  Jesus, the one who was accessible to all, now has a series of gatekeepers filtering his visitors.  Go to Philip; if he's okay with you, he'll check with Andrew, and if you get another "yes" from him the two of them will take your request to Jesus.  It is usually said that the arrival of some Greeks is taken by Jesus to be confirmation that his hour has come because it signifies the start of the in-gathering of the Gentiles, a sure sign of the End of the Age.  Would that have not been the case if they had come directly to Jesus instead of through a couple of intermediaries?  Then follows the nearest Jesus comes to an "explanation" of why he must die, with his analogy of the seed falling to the ground; followed by the familiar assertion that to be a servant of his we must follow him.  That this is no easy choice is immediately made clear by Jesus' own emotional turmoil, the nearest this gospel comes to the agony in Gethsemane.  Then comes the voice from heaven, and we recall his baptism and his transfiguration.  In the first case the voice addresses him and no one else hears it; in the second the voice addresses the three disciples with him.  This time "the crowd standing there" heard something, but were unsure what.  Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.  Perhaps the most interesting verse is 32: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."  The mask of talking about himself in the third person (as the Son of Man) has suddenly fallen away: cf. verse 23.  The explanatory note in verse 33 seems absurdly unnecessary.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

• Spend more time "gazing upon" a crucifix or a picture of Jesus on the cross.  Don't rush it, and don't try to have any profound thoughts. Just stay focused on it for as long as you can.  Repeat daily up to and including Good Friday.

• On Holy Saturday spend time reminding yourself that it is THAT death into which you entered through baptism, and that all is now over for you.

• On Easter Day enter into the joy of resurrection with thanksgiving and praise, for you have been raised up with him!