As we’ve been reading about Abram, as we’ve been exploring his story we’ve been looking for Gospel echoes. Because we believe that the Gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, it doesn’t begin with Jesus. And in our passage today, in a throwaway line about Abram’s belief, and in an incredibly strange ritual, we find the strongest echoes yet of the Gospel in which we believe.
No matter the darkness you find yourself in, Jesus is already there.
As we stand at the foot of the cross we stand in darkness. Literal darkness; we read that darkness covered the land from noon until Jesus’ death three hours later. And metaphorical darkness as Jesus goes down into the very depths with us. And as we stand here in the darkness, we find that Jesus is here with us. And that no matter the darkness we face in our lives, Jesus is already there. The darkness of life’s hardships, the darkness of sin, and the darkness of death.
You’d have heard them before you saw them. This great crowd pouring into Jerusalem for the festival. It wasn’t unusual to sing the Psalms, particularly those called the Psalms of Ascent, sung by pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem.
But this crowd has taken up a different song, a different shout. “Hosanna to the Son of David!”, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”, “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”. It’s a declaration of praise, of victory, of unbridled joy. The Psalms of Ascent drowned out by the sound of a crowd praising God not for what he has done, but for what he is doing. No wonder the people of Jerusalem are in turmoil.
We have in our readings today two thing we might assume are opposed, and they often are in our world; power and authority, and sacrifice. Often we think of them as opposite ends of the spectrum. But in Christ they’re brought together.
Paul in the opening of his letter to the Colossians which we heard is praying that God would strengthen the believers there, because he has brought them out from the power of darkness and into the kingdom of light; the kingdom of Jesus. And Paul immediately segways into who this Jesus is, and he doesn’t go in the direction we might expect. There’s nothing about his humble birth, earthly ministry, teaching or miracles. Rather what we have is a celebration of Jesus’ supremacy, how he is above all things. It’s something well worth dwelling on on a Sunday like Christ the King.
We have at the heart of our Gospel reading today the very core of the Gospel. The most famous verse in the Bible, indeed you could summarise the whole Bible in this one verse (but you still need the rest to unpack this summary). ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life’. It’s such a familiar verse to many of us, but it’s an utterly lifechanging verse if you grasp it. It speaks of the cross: the reason for the cross, the one who goes to the cross, and the results of the cross.
If God is just why is there so much injustice in our world? If God is good, why is there so much evil in our world? These are questions we are often faced with, and as we come to this next part of the Creed we come to at least something of an answer.
On Good Friday we welcomed Canon Dr. Tudor Griffiths as our guest preacher to consider Jesus final hours before his death. In it he pondered power, the finality of death, and the need to sit in the silence of the tomb and not rush on to Easter.
The Gospel is full of twists and turns, God is always acting, but often not how we might predict. As Simeon recognises in Jesus the first of these twists, he points ahead to another, that the crib is for the cross.
Up until now the Mark’s Gospel, his biography of Jesus, has been characterised by crowds pressing in to hear Jesus, by parables and miracles. We’re seeing the power of Jesus and the draw of Jesus. But now he’s reached as far north as he will go. Caesarea Phillippi is pretty much the furthest you can go without leaving the historic bounds of Israel. And so it is here that Jesus physically turns around. But this incident at Caesarea Philippi is a turning point in more than just the physical sense, it’s the turning point of the Gospel; narratively, in the lives of the disciples, and in our own lives.
Our Gospel reading today begins with the request of two Gentiles to see Jesus. And whilst they immediately drop out of the picture, they’re never mentioned again, their request prompts this revelation from Jesus that his hour has now come, the time is here, and what does that mean? Glory for him, and glory for his Father.