Poets, Preachers and the Passion of Christ – IV
This is the fourth of four Lenten reflections on Poets, Preachers and the Passion of Christ. The first is posted here, the second here, and the third here.
Poets, Preachers and the Passion of Christ IV
The Lenten project of penitential adoration undergirds the whole life of Christian Faith but it reaches a kind of climax in Passiontide and especially in the events of Holy Week. As we have seen from some of the poets and preachers of the Anglican tradition, the Passion is a central concern throughout the whole of the Christian year and contributes to the understanding of the Christian pilgrimage of faith in terms of the interrelated principles of justification and sanctification as well as glorification that inform the character of spiritual life. At issue is the constant task of understanding the Passion which can only happen through our constant reflection upon it.
But “they understood none of these things,” Luke observes in the Gospel reading for Quinquagesima Sunday. What things? The things of the Passion. Jesus tells the disciples what will befall him in Jerusalem and yet “they understood none of those things.” Part of the Lenten journey is about seeing and understanding. It is not by accident that the Gospel reading continues with the story of the blind man on the roadside between Jericho and Jerusalem, symbolic of the earthly and the heavenly cities respectively. The purpose of going up to Jerusalem with Jesus is about seeing and understanding the Passion of Christ more and more clearly.
The Annunciation frequently falls within the season of the Passion. Mary responds to the angelic salutation that she is to be the theotokos, the God-bearer with a question, “how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” Her question is not about doubting but about understanding what God seeks for our humanity. Her question leads to her ‘yes’ to God, her “Be it unto me according to thy word.” But that means as well a commitment to the constant learning about God’s will and purpose for our humanity. As Simeon profoundly remarks at the occasion of Christ’s presentation in the Temple, “yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also; that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” His words point already to the Passion and to our learning and understanding what it means both for Mary and about us and for us.
