The Aroma of the Passion of the Lord: a Sermon for Passion Sunday

The Aroma of the Passion of the Lord

At the early Eucharist on Passion Sunday, 2022

John 12:1-8

“For the day of my burial.” 

The words of Jesus in the Gospel reading for this Passion Sunday starkly tell us that the focus of Lent is shifting.

Shifting from the forty days in the wilderness to the journey towards Jerusalem ...

The journey towards the crowd and the trial, betrayal and denial, Cross and Tomb.

Jesus talks of his burial after one of his disciples, Mary of Bethany, anoints him with incredibly expensive perfume.

The Gospel notes, “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”.

The aroma filled the air, a sign of the deep significance and rich meaning of what was about to unfold.

We also get more than a hint of that deep significance and rich meaning when we consider that this is at the beginning of only chapter twelve of John’s Gospel, with its twenty-one chapters.  Eleven chapters have reflected on the three years of Jesus’ public ministry.  The next ten chapters focus on that last week alone, Holy Week, the week of Cross and Tomb.

These are the events which are the focus of the four Gospels, at the heart of the Christian faith, at the centre of the Creed we will shortly profess.

When our Jewish neighbours talk of God, they are thinking of the exodus of Israel from slavery in Egypt and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. When our Muslim neighbours talk of God, they are thinking of Muhammad receiving the Qur'an.  

When the Christian tradition talks of God, we are thinking of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is here, in these events, that the Christian tradition beholds God revealed; that we see what it means to talk about the grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness of God; that we understand what it is for life and death to be caught up in God.

There is, of course, a deep continuity between Judaism and Christianity.  And there are important similarities between Islamic and Christian understandings of God.

But it is here, in the events that begin with Jesus speaking to his disciples about “the day of my burial”, that we find the distinctive centre of the Christian tradition.

It is here that we encounter God; that we grasp what it is to be loved and forgiven by God, and ourselves called by God to love and forgive; that we are brought to know that nothing in life or death separates us from the love of God. 

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” The deep significance, the rich meaning of Cross and Tomb animates and fills the Christian faith.

Today, Passion Sunday, we ready ourselves.  We prepare for Holy Week beginning next week with Palm Sunday, and to again immerse ourselves in the rich fragrance of these events, the significance and meaning of which defines our faith as Christians.