St Philip & St James Church

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Tuesday of Holy Week : Isaiah 50: 5-11 & Mark 15

Jon explained to us yesterday evening that Mark’s Gospel is about discipleship.  Tonight I want to continue that theme and consider what the crucifixion means for our discipleship.

The first few chapters of Mark’s gospel tell the story of Jesus and his disciples; how he gathered them, where he took them, what he showed them, what he said to them; all the time they were learning what it meant to be a disciple of the Son of Man.

However, half way through the Gospel, the mood changes.  Jesus begins to admonish the disciples for their lack of understanding, for the way in which they stubbornly cling to the ways of the world when they should be following his teaching.  Sometimes their lack of insight is juxtaposed with the understanding of the people Jesus meets and minsters to as they journey together.  As they get closer and closer to Jerusalem and the death of Jesus, the relationship between Jesus and his disciples seems to become increasingly fraught.

Just as they make the final approach to Jerusalem, two disciples, James and John ask Jesus, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’  Jesus tells them they do not know what they are asking; they have not yet fully understood what will happen in Jerusalem even though Jesus has spelled it out to them.  He has already told them at this point that ‘the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’

And then the other disciples find out that James and John have asked for this special status and they become angry with them so Jesus has to get them all together to sort it out.  This is what he says, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

I want to just underline three things in this last statement and use them to think about the account of the crucifixion we have just heard and what it means for our discipleship.

Jesus says he, the Son of Man, is a servant and those who follow him must be servants.  He says he will give his life.  And he says his life will be given as a ransom.

When Jesus starts talking about being a servant, he is referencing the passages in Isaiah that speak of a servant.  What does tonight’s passage say about the servant?  He is the servant that walketh in darkness, and hath no light. He is the servant that trusts in the name of the Lord.  He is the servant that trusts in God to be his light rather than trusting in the light he makes for himself.  He is the servant who is obedient to God.  The servant who is directed by God.  Although condemned by others, he is vindicated by God.  That is who Jesus says he is.  And he told his disciples they must be servants in this way also.

And because Jesus is referencing the servant described in Isaiah, his disciples know that this servant was destined to suffer.  In tonight’s passage the servant says this,  ‘ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting’. And a bit later in the book of Isaiah the servant is described as suffering and then dying as an obedient servant of God. 

And Jesus told his disciples that they too must give their lives.  Earlier in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’.  As disciples of Jesus we are called to loves others with sacrificial love, love that gives of ourselves and, of course, for some people this has meant literally giving their own lives; dying for others.

Why must Jesus give his life?  As a ransom for many.  The word ‘ransom’ has a narrow meaning for us living in this community today.  When would we in a practical sense find ourselves facing a demand for a ransom?  Only in the unlikely event of being kidnapped or having a loved one kidnapped.

But in the context in which Mark’s Gospel was written, ransom, was a much more live concept.  Many people who heard this Gospel lived in debt bondage.  And many were slaves.  In other words, many people could theoretically be ransomed, even though practically it would have seemed impossible to them.  To possess wealth sufficient to ransom one person from slavery or debt bondage would have felt amazing.  To talk about ransoming many people was beyond belief.

So when Jesus says he is giving his life to ransom many, he is talking about liberation on a huge scale that would transform the society in which he lived and died.  What did this mean for his disciples?  Did it mean that they would be among the many to be ransomed and set free?  Did it mean that through their own self-sacrificing love, they would in turn liberate many others?

This ‘many’ has been preserved in our Eucharistic prayer, of course.  Jon will urge you shortly as he holds up the chalice of wine, ‘drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins.’

But when it came to the critical moment;  the moment when Jesus gives his life; the moment of self-giving sacrificial love; the moment of God’s vindication in the face of universal condemnation; the moment when the blood is shed and many are ransomed; at this critical moment; the disciples are not there.  They have run away.  They did not understand.  Even though Jesus spelled it all to them, they did not understand.

And so, obedient to God as Isaiah said the suffering servant would be, Jesus faces his accusers alone, vindicated only by God.  He faces those who mock and torment alone, and in silence. 

And then darkness falls.  The servant of the Lord walks in darkness, remember, relying only on God for his light as he makes his final journey.

And then at the moment of death, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  All that separates the people from God is destroyed in that moment.  The ransom of many has begun.

Mark’s Gospel says Mary was there, as was Mary Magdalen.  They were looking on from a distance.  Their presence serves to underline the absence of the disciples.  The disciples were not there.

The disciples were not there and so it fell to the centurion, the man who commanded the execution party itself to say what must now be said:  Here is the man who was obedient to God.  Here is the man who was condemned by all yet vindicated by God.  Here is the man who sacrificed his life as a ransom for many.  Here is the servant of the Lord.  Here is the Son of Man.  Truly this man was the Son of God.

On Good Friday, at our meditation we call the Stations of the Cross; we will sing that beautiful hymn, ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord?’

For the disciples of Jesus, those whose story form such a major focus of Mark’s Gospel, the answer to that question would, of course be, ‘No, we were not there.’  Peter, the rock on whom the church is built, was not there.  Philip and James, after whom our church is named, were not there.  They were too frightened, their faith was not strong enough, their understanding way too imperfect.

 And we few, gathered here this evening, were not there either.  Our faith is also weak, as is our courage and our understanding.

Yet we, like them, are called to pick up our cross; we are called to serve others; we are called to sacrifice ourselves for others, loving others with self-giving love, we are called to be the means of ransoming others, setting them free.

Among the many horrors of the cross is the horror of seeing the inadequacy of the disciples exposed.  And alongside the exposure of their inadequacy is the exposure of our own inadequacy.  This is the moment of defeat.

But alongside this shaming moment when our inadequacy is shamed, there is another moment – the moment when we realise that we will never have to walk through the darkness alone trusting only in God, because the Son of Man has already walked though that darkness for us and so now we may walk in his light.  This is the moment of victory.

May we always have faith in that victory.  May we always walk in its light.  Amen.

 

Page last updated: Thursday 22nd August 2019 1:36 PM
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