Skip to main content

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.  

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders.  With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter.  The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition).  Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical).  Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...
25 comments
Read more

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition.  A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics".  Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics.  What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition.  Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...
19 comments
Read more

Pride, progressive sectarianism, and TEC on Facebook

Let me begin this post with an assumption that will be rejected by some readers of laudable Practice , but affirmed by other readers. Observing Pride is an understandable aspect of the public ministry of TEC.  On previous occasions , I have rather robustly called for TEC to be much more aware and respectful of the social conservatism of the Red states and regions in which it ministers. A failure to do so risks TEC declining yet further into the irrelevance of progressive sectarianism.  At the same time, TEC also obviously ministers in deep Blue states and metropolitan areas - and is the only Mainline Protestant tradition in which a majority of its members vote Democrat .* With Pride now an established civic commemoration, particularly in such contexts, there is a case for TEC affirming those aspects of Pride - the dignity of gay men and lesbian women, their contribution to civic life, and their place in the church's life - which cohere with a Christian moral vision. (I will n...
4 comments
Read more