Sermon

Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.

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While I was living in Madagascar for a few months, my host told me one day that we were going on a mystery ride. After an hour of driving down red dirt roads in the Malagasy bush, we came to a sort of oasis. Towering trees surrounding a small, green-blue pond. Ribbons made from long strips of colorful cloth were hung all throughout the branches, and as I walked in the shade of the trees, I looked into the pond and saw some of the biggest fish I have ever seen. My host then told me that this pond was considered a holy site for the Malagasy, a place to connect with ancestors through a simple liturgical sacrifice. As he was explaining this to me, some locals arrived, unpacked a picnic lunch and then brought part of their lunch to the edge of the pond. Unbeknownst to me, this pond contained freshwater eels as well as fish. The head of the family took pieces of meat from their lunch and held them six inches above the water where the eels came up and ate the meat. This was a sacrifice to his ancestors and the fact that eel took his offering meant that the ancestors heard his prayers. This was my first time witnessing an actual sacrifice and it reminded me of what I had learned about Greek and Roman sacrifices in the ancient world. In fact, it had all three main components of an ancient sacrifice.

First, the ancients always considered an animal sacrifice to be the offering of a life, not a celebration of death. So, an ancient would consider the offering of a goat to be an offering of a life on behalf of the one bringing the goat. It was not the victim, the goat, which was truly offered up, but the goat’s life on behalf of the participant. Second, sacrifices almost always included a meal. While only the fat and a few bones were actually burned, the rest of the animal was grilled and then shared among the people gathered. Third, sacrifices were not individualistic. The meal knit these individuals into a special community. 

What I witnessed in Madagascar is no exception. The offering was part of a meal–a meal which bound the living members together with those who had already died. The reception of the nourishing meat by the eel signified that the community was in harmony and the living members in good standing.

Think also of the Jewish Temple practices which bound Israel together. The Jewish Passover, for instance, was an elaborate meal of sacrifices of lamb, bread, and wine with an ancient liturgy that taught future generations their own story of Exodus and reminded those at the table to what community they belonged.

What we celebrate today and what we have focused upon this entire Holy Week is the ultimate sacrifice made by God Himself so all may be knit together in one holy fellowship. During this past Holy Week, Jesus became the Passover sacrifice for us by joining the meal with his own death on the cross. On Maundy Thursday, Jesus claimed that the wine and bread offered at the meal is not just bread and wine but his very own body and blood. In fact, the meal now consists of Jesus himself, because He is the sacrifice. The lambs offered at the Temple were killed and then, according to the Mishnah, they were skewered as they ran one strong wooden stick through shoulders and another one from the mouth to the buttocks of the lamb. It was a cruciform sacrifice, just as Christ was crucified. 

The Proper Preface for Easter puts it this way: “He is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sins of the whole world.” This shows Christ two-part sacrifice of the Passover Lamb but also the sacrifice of atonement: the once-a-year sacrifice at which the Jewish high priest entered the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle or Temple and poured the sacrifice of blood, upon the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat of God Almighty for the sins of all Israel. As we have shown many times before, Christ’s entrance into the Holy of Holies is signified by his own tomb, as when Mary Magdelene looked into tomb and saw the two angels sitting on either side of the stone that had held Jesus’ body. It was an image of the Ark, on top of which were two Cherubim on either side of the place of sacrifice.

This is exactly what the author of Hebrews acknowledges: [Heb 9:11-14 KJV] But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us].”

Through his most perfect sacrifice, Jesus conquered death and atoned for the sins of all mankind. And even more, we join this perfect sacrifice because we are baptized into this sacrifice. In this sense, Christ’s sacrifice creates a community, like all sacrifices do. As Paul says: “We are buried with him by baptism into death.” And since we join that sacrifice, we all get to enjoy His life which Christ sealed by His resurrection. Again, Paul says: “[Rom 6:4, 8-11 KJV] Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We are now all truly alive because we live IN Christ through our baptism. His sacrifice is ours, His Body and Blood our nourishment, His Body our fellowship with one another. It is a community marked by his wounds and sacrifice because we are united in His Body and nourished by the meal of his Body and Blood. 

At first, though, this community did not realize the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection–they had no foundation to understand such a marvelous act. As soon as dawn began to break on Sunday, Mary Magdalene rushes to the tomb to find the body of her beloved. She seems frantic, wrecked by grief and sleeplessness, but as she comes into the area of the tomb, she knows something is wrong. She runs and gets John and Peter who investigate but leave in haste, knowing the danger they are in by being about an opened tomb. We actually have a law written on a stone tablet from around the 1st century that declared a death penalty for anyone caught disturbing the tomb of a buried body. The Gospel’s account says that they believed. Let us be clear, though, just as John reminds us, they have yet to believe in the Resurrection of their Lord. No, they now believe Mary’s testimony is true. The body is gone. 

Mary then goes into the tomb herself, where the angels ask why she is weeping. And with a flat affect as if she is not even surprised by the presence of angels, she tells them plainly that she seeks the Lord. Noticing another presence now, she turns, and does not recognize the Gardener until Jesus calls her by name as only He could say her Name. Mary finally sees Her Lord and grasps his feet which she had bathed with her own tears. Now she has found Him, but still she only thinks of Him as He was, not as He is now, as Her Resurrected Lord who will ascend and be with His father. She then carries the news back to the Apostles to whom Jesus appears later. At first, the community of believers do not know what to do with the sight of their Lord. They do not understand the sacrifice that He has made on their behalf. But as Jesus appears in the breaking of the Bread, and as He teaches them and reveals the meaning of the OT, and as He sends the Holy Spirit to them, their confusion turns into faith. They become a community of the faithful, united together in Christ, united together in His sacrifice.

You have walked together through Holy Week. We have experienced the suffering and death of Our Lord. And now you see the empty tomb and Jesus calls you by name. Do not let the sacrifice of Our Lord pass you by again as an empty symbol but have faith and seek those things which are above–seek Christ Himself. He is here, not rotting in a tomb, waiting for you to join His sacrifice, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God! Christ is risen–rise with Him and offer your life to Him as He gives Himself for you.

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Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.

“Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”

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This morning we are taking part and continuing an ancient tradition of the Church. The Sunday of Holy Week, what we now call Palm Sunday, has had the same Epistle and Gospel in the Western church for at least 1600 years. The procession with palms was started at the time of Constantine the Roman Emperor when he and his mother, Helena, established churches in Jerusalem to mark the actions of Christ during Holy Week. 

Today, I want to offer a few short thoughts to help us prepare for this holiest of weeks and the great Easter feast. First, we must assert that what we proclaim within the liturgy, we really believe to be true. Not only do we believe that these historical events actually happened, but we believe that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ changed the world and that our liturgy has real power because of the work of Christ. As we looked at last week, we believe that Jesus Christ is God, that He is the Son of God, and that He is truly a man. 

Second, we believe that Jesus Christ came of His own free will to reconcile man to God. After the Jews conspired to kill Jesus, he withdraws himself until the appointed time. It was no accident, then, that after the Passover meal, Jesus allows Judas to go, and he goes to the Garden of Gesthemene in order to spend his final evening in earnest prayer. He knows what is set before him, and he knows that he will have to go about it alone. His disciples will abandon him as the soldiers come and he is taken into custody. The other followers all watch from afar as he is crucified. The Jews turn against him as their leaders rush a fake trial on bogus charges. The Gentiles turn against him as Pontius Pilot sentences him to death. Jesus Christ alone faces the cross, one of the cruelest inventions of humanity, and he does so knowing what is to come. It is of his own will that he faces death and the sin of the whole world. 

Third, we believe that Christ actually accomplished something on the cross. In perfect obedience and full knowledge, Christ takes on the weight of the world in order to reconcile man to God. As St. Paul writes: “He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”And that work of reconciliation includes conquering death, atoning the sins of the world, and his own glory. 

As Christ died, so did he conquer death upon that cross. Humans were wounded by eating from a tree, and from the sin of Adam and Eve, death wrought its curse upon every child. Each infant that is born is born into death, and is without hope of true life. But through Christ’s work on the cross, he took on the sin of our parents and by dying on the cross, conquered death once and for all. Now Christians no longer have to fear eternal death, since we are joined into his life at our baptisms. When parents bring a baby to the baptismal font, we see a beautiful baby, but God sees and knows how that baby is sick with death. But God has sought to redeem humanity from its sickness and that power came from the cross. Paul writes to the Romans: “[Rom 6:4 KJV] Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” This is one of the mysteries of Christ’s death on the Cross: that through his death, we might all live with him. 

His death on the cross was also an atoning Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. As when the Hebrews were saved by spreading the blood of the lamb on the doorposts so that the blood would atone for the demands of death, Jesus’ blood atones for the sins of the whole world. He took on physical pain at the Cross, to be sure, but even more he took on a spiritual weight in that he took on the weight of all sin of all time on him. As Paul writes the Galatians in an alarming phrase: “[Gal 3:13 KJV] Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree:”

The final mystery of the Cross we will look at this morning is that by this humiliating, excruciating, and awful death, Christ is glorified. Paul ends the Epistle set for this Sunday: “He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus’ name is glorified above all names because it is through his incarnation that the Word became man and died on a cross so that mankind may be reconciled to God. And that beautiful name of Jesus is now our name for we are sons of God IN Jesus. We are Christians, little Christ’s, who have been born again into his identity, who hold onto his promises of eternal life, and who gaze upon our saviour on the cross in humility, thankfulness, and in great glory. 

Take this most Holy Week and meditate upon your glorious Master upon the Cross. By his mysterious work you are saved. Look upon his face that was beaten for that is the face of God. Look upon his hands and feet which were pierced with nails for those are the hands and feet of God. Look upon his bruised body that was torn to pieces by whips for that is the body of God. Look upon Jesus on the Cross for He is God. He is the God whom we worship, the God who suffered on our account, the God who loved us so much that he sent His only Son to reconcile us, the God who died on a cross in order to save us from our own sin. 

Our job this week is to meditate upon this wondrous mystery. Take time each day this week to focus on the cross so that your Easter joy might be more rewarding. As the Psalmist says: “[Psa 126:3-5 KJV] The LORD hath done great things for us; [whereof] we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Let us sow in tears this week as we ponder the death of Our Lord so that we may reap in joy on Easter Sunday. 

“Then the soldiers… platted a crown of thorns and put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying: ‘Hail, King of the Jews.’”

After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he went to Jerusalem for the Passover and when the people discovered that he was there they went out to meet him with palms crying out “Blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord!” The ruling elite in Jerusalem had already attempted to arrest him several times, but he simply walked away. They couldn’t lay a hand upon him; they would not take him until he was ready. 

That Passover, he was ready. When Judas betrayed him in the Garden, a band of Roman soldiers formally arrest him and turned him over to the Jewish authorities. But before the night was over the Temple rulers would hand him over to the Romans. Caesar took custody of the enfleshed God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Listen to me: by what we call 9:00 a.m., Caesar  had nailed him to the cross and by 3:00 p.m. he was dead. Twenty-six years later St. Paul wrote to the Christians of Philippi and he quoted what was probably a popular hymn in their Liturgy:

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men… he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross…” Philippians 2

Paul’s hymn begins with the declaration that Jesus is in and of himself God Almighty. 

“Who being in the form of God…”

The word translated “form” speaks of the formal cause, which was the outward expression of the essential nature of a thing. It does not mean form, as in mere appearance. That Christ was in the form of God does not mean that he is like God, or is similar to God, or that he only appears to be God. When the Church of Philippi sang, “Who being in the form of God,” they meant that Jesus Christ was in fact God Almighty. The same word is used in another verse of the hymn: 

“(Christ) took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men”

This is what it means: Jesus Christ is God and this God became a real human being. He has always been God and he always will be God. But he has not always been a human being. He became a human being just like all of us: he had a Mother.  In fact, when God became flesh, he became Mary’s flesh. As sure as you are the flesh of your mother, God became the flesh his His Mother, thus the Church’s august title for Mary is Theotokos: “Mother of God.” The blood that flowed down the Cross was the blood the Son of the Father received from the Blessed Virgin Mary. He did not disguise himself as a human being. He became one of us; a real human being, a real man, fragile as any other man and beset by the same human contingencies that beset us all. How fragile? Well, ultimately the Roman authorities put him to death. God became flesh, he did not merely animate a piece of flesh to disguise his true identity or speak from behind a mask of human flesh. 

Furthermore God’s human flesh, his human nature, is now part and parcel of his Divine life, and it always will be. In Genesis we have the narrative of man made in the image of God while in life of Jesus Christ we have the narrative of God made in the image of man. In the story of God’s life made flesh we see not only the uncreated glory of the only begotten Son, but we also see the created glory of his creature man uplifted as God has always intended. 

The Incarnation was not merely God’s response to sin; the Incarnation is not God’s backup plan; the Incarnation is God’s perfect will, his loving will to enable his creature man to participate in his Divine life, to enable his creature man to know the God who is God and to love the God who is God as his own divinized child. That had always been God’s intention and sin did not get in the way of God’s intention to enter his creation as a creature so that the creature could do the unthinkable: actually, really enter into the uncreated life of the God who is God. It is our destiny, in a manner of speaking, to see God through God’s own eyes.

The original and continuing intention and the very real accomplishment of the Incarnation was and is the deification of man and the bestowal of God’s glory upon his creature. That is it! Believe or not we hit the jackpot of all jackpots. The uplift and the deification of man and the bestowal of God’s glory upon man was the purpose and the accomplishment of the Incarnation. Let’s get back to the text. 

Having gathered strength from his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus then opened himself up completely to Satan’s final assault. This is sickening. And this is love. Jesus suffered as no man can possible suffer. He suffered as true God who knows with exquisite perfection each lash, each blow, and each iron nail driven into his hands and feet. Because he was true God his agony, his experience of pain & passion is simply beyond our comprehension. And so is his love for us, beyond our comprehension. And it is his love that beckons us, even lures us, into the mystery of godliness beyond our horizon.

“And when he had scourged Jesus he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers took Jesus… and they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe… And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him saying: Hail, King of the Jews.”

God clothed our first Parents with the skins of animals not to cover our shame but rather that we might know from the inside out sin’s finality with regard to creation. There is no felix culpa. There is nothing good about sin. And God would not permit sin to get in the way of his original intention to make us his very own children.

Palm Sunday commemorates the moment of Jesus’ glory, his love and faith in his Father and his unending love for us. After scourging the Shepherd of Love, the Roman soldiers covered God’s Flesh with a scarlet robe, the blood soaked banner that proclaimed Jesus’ never failing faith in his Father, and they quickly took him off to Golgotha, a high spot not far away. And that is where he died of his own free will and there his body of flesh became the place of judgement and the place of blessing for the whole wide universe. 

Palm Sunday is the harbinger, the signal, of the end of Lent and the beginning of springtime for the Church and for all humanity. But this season has become and will continue to be a season shriven: shriven of palms, this year like last year shriven of the close physical presence of one another, and on Good Friday shriven of the Sacrament of Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. But be sure of this: we are not shriven of Christ and his love for us. He has taken our nature into himself and become one of us — body and all — forever. He has made us partakers of the Divine nature. He has emptied himself for love of his Father and you. He will never leave us or forsake us. And now you and I are called to empty ourselves for love of him and others.