Sermon for Passion Sunday
“What wilt thou?”
What do you will? Not simply what do you want but what do you will? What are you committed to? It is the question of Passion Sunday.
The Cross is veiled. Present yet hidden, its shape is only dimly seen. “We see,” at best, but “in a glass darkly.” What does this veiling of the Cross mean? Should not the Cross be fully and visibly before us? What do we mean exactly by the Cross?
The paradox of Passiontide is that the Cross is veiled precisely so that we might come to learn more fully just what the Cross means in itself and for us. The journey of Lent is concentrated for us in Passiontide, deep Lent, and then is further concentrated in Holy Week and then, again, on Good Friday. It is all the way of the Cross. The paradox of the veiled Cross is that we do not know and do not see as clearly and fully as we should. What stands in the way is the disorder of our wills and our desires.
Our passions, we might say, stand in the way of our understanding of the passion of Christ. “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” The gospel story suggests that there is an element of ambition and self-interest present even in the most holy of situations. Theologically, the point is simply that our motives are never pure and clear; they are always mixed. Why? Because we neither truly know what we want – “ye know not what ye ask” – nor do we fully will that which we do know, let alone do what we should do. “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” We are divided creatures, divided among ourselves and divided within ourselves. The veil is the fog of our desires.
