by CCW | 13 April 2014 15:53
It is a Palm Sunday word, a text from the second lesson at Evening Prayer[1], and yet one which expresses so much of the meaning of this special day and week. In a way, Luke’s comment captures the intensity of Holy Week – but only if we hang on the words of Christ.
That is where it all hangs, as it were. Holy Week, in the essential catholic understanding of classical Anglicanism, is about the fullness of the Passion of Christ. Hanging on his words is about paying attention to the accounts of his Passion as presented by all four Evangelists. Nothing expresses so concisely and completely the essence of reformed Catholicism.
Nowhere is it more concisely and completely expressed than in the pattern of Scriptural readings for Holy Week in The Book of Common Prayer. That is the challenge of this week: to enter into the Passion of Christ in all of its fullness. And so today, we have The Passion according to St. Matthew. On Monday in Holy Week, we begin the reading of The Passion according to St. Mark which we complete on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we read The Beginning of the Passion according to St. Luke, which is continued and completed on Maundy Thursday. On Good Friday, we read The Passion according to St. John. And, in and through it all, are the various liturgies that complement and reinforce the deep Scriptural logic of the reading of the Passions: Tenebrae and the Liturgies of the Triduum Sacrum, the three great holy days, that concentrate the meaning of the Passion so powerfully and so wonderfully.
The intensity of Holy Week is nothing less than the intensity of the Passion as seen through the lenses of all four Gospels. No other Church provides such a fullness.
We hang upon the words of the Passion as presented in the four Gospels, undeterred by the confusions and the contradictions – for that after all is an aspect of the reality of sin – and the variety of perspectives and points of view that the different Gospels present, compelled instead by the compelling story the Passion presents. What is that story?
It is the story of sin and love, no more and no less. The pageant of the Passion, refracted through the lenses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, presents the parade of our humanity in all of its glory and its sad, sad disarray. We are in this story – if we hang upon the words of this week. Our humanity is on display as much as anything else. We are asked to contemplate the grandeur and the misery of our humanity. We are asked to contemplate the tragedy of our humanity, if left to ourselves; more importantly, we are invited to consider the divine comedy of our humanity redeemed and restored by the God/Man Jesus Christ – but only if we hang upon the words of the Passion.
For they are all Christ’s word to us. We are on display. We learn about the good, the bad and the ugly of our own souls by hanging upon the words of this week. The Scriptural lessons provide a rich fullness. We are challenged about ourselves and about our understanding of God. Nowhere do those two ideas collide more intensely than this week. The pageant is about us, on the one hand, and about Christ for us, on the other hand, and only so can Christ be in us – but only if we hang upon the words of the Passion.
This is the week that defines and determines the very nature of Catholic Christianity. Here is the liturgy which begins and never ends, the liturgy which defines our very souls.
We begin with the shouts of praise. “Hosanna to the Son of David,” we cry as Christ enters Jerusalem triumphantly yet paradoxically; a king yet riding upon an ass. He becomes a figure of controversy. And quickly and suddenly, as we see in today’s liturgy in the reading of the Passion, our shouts of praise and gladness turn to cries of condemnation and murder. Hosanna turns to Crucify.
Nothing captures so completely the fickle and incomplete nature of our fallen and broken humanity. To contemplate the forms of our sinfulness is part and parcel of the pageant of Holy Week.
How is that even possible? Only because of the power of God’s love. Far greater than our sins is the power of God’s love. This is the week that should and must condemn our hearts. But “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.” Above all else that is what we are given to see in the pageant of Holy Week – the love of God for us in the suffering humanity of Christ. But only if we hang upon his words.
Holy Week concentrates for us the whole meaning of Christian life and faith. We are challenged to contemplate the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys of our own souls but as illumined always by the light of God’s love in Christ Jesus. We hang upon his words, most especially the words of the crucified, to learn God’s love.
We begin with Hosannas today and end with Crucify. But that is not the last word. Through the words of the Crucified we shall come to the words of Alleluia – but only if we hang upon the words of his Passion and discover the love which makes something out of our nothingness. We know the story but that only intensifies the learning again and again of the things in the story that speak to our souls. We have to go into the story, to live it and to find ourselves in it. Without our hanging upon his words there can be no Alleluia.
For that is the deep meaning of Holy Week. The Passion of Christ is the liber charitatis, the book of love, opened for us to read. We read about sin and love. We learn about the triumph of love but only if we hang upon his words.
Fr. David Curry,
Palm Sunday, 2014
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2014/04/13/sermon-for-palm-sunday-6/
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