Why the crucifixion is relevant all year-round, not just at Easter
Preacher: Revd Professor Alison Baverstock, Curate, St Mary’s, Long Ditton
Readings: Luke 23: 33-43; Colossians 1: 11-20
Today is the Sunday of Christ the King, which marks the end of the liturgical year, before Advent takes over and the cycle begins again with a new Gospel focus.
The readings for this morning are out of line with the calendar year; with our understanding of the annual cycle of what happened and in what order.
We are now in the run up to Christmas, which is just five weeks away, and yet we are reading about the crucifixion.
This feels odd, but comes from the list of readings prescribed by the church’s official Lectionary, a list of readings week by week, which ensures a complete reading of most of the Bible every three years.
And perhaps hearing the story out of season helps us to concentrate on what is within it, without the familiar church structures and pressures of Easter
- the long and emotionally draining services which encourage us to identify with what happened, hour by hour. In London for several years now there has been the staging of a passion in Trafalgar Square which is riveting and troubling, bringing us face to face with what happened in a contemporary context, buses going past in the same way that Breughel has events going on in the Flemish landscape, with the rest of life carrying on.
- and the now much more contemporary iconography of spring flowers, better weather and chocolate. A priest friend told me that an overheard response to an open-air service on Good Friday was to comment on the strange absence of the Easter Bunny.
I asked for our readings to be made in a particular order, narrative followed by explanation – normally the gospel reading comes last. But in this case the narrative is the remembered event, although written down later, the explanation in Paul explores what it means for us.
So what you heard first was the gospel reading, an extract from Luke, chapter 23, verses 33-43. This is a first-hand account of the crucifixion by those who witnessed it. Luke is generally held to be based on the testimony of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it includes reported speech – so what was said at the time.
I think we should pause for a moment to think how extraordinary it is that this has survived – indeed the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of the best documented events of ancient history.
We should also note how it is written. The linguistic style of the New Testament is very different from that of preserved writings of the literary men (and it was men) of the era, who imitated the style of the great handed down, rhetorical texts and so did not reflect everyday spoken language.
The NT on the other hand is written in the Koine (coin-i) Greek spoken in everyday life – the most widely spoken form of Greek – in order to appeal to the common people. This is the style which has also been found in contemporary non-Jewish texts such as private letters, receipts and petitions which have been discovered in Egypt (where the dry air had preserved them but they had not been copied because not of any importance).
So, trouble has been taken to ensure this message can be read and reach all. And it’s very simple compared with the explanation that follows, in Paul’s epistle which I will come to.
So back to Luke.
This is an execution.
The state-ending of a life that has been judged to have been forfeited, whether through misdemeanour or because the individual is a threat to the government.
And this is being done by a method that is particularly painful, long drawn out – and can last for days.
It’s going to be witnessed by his friends and mother. The most unnatural thing in life is for parents to outlive their children, and this is particularly so for those who are to be executed. It does happen, parents are allowed to be with their offspring who are to be executed, say for drug dealing in SE Asia, but it’s a terrible thing.
It’s happening at a place of terror, ‘the place called The Skull’ which is outside the city walls.
This is a bit like gibbets on hills outside towns, sometimes preserved today only in name form, at a crossroads, but which still send a shiver down one’s spine. A high up place is chosen as a demonstration of good order; to display a public warning to others. We need to remember that this is a country under occupation by the Roman Army. Those who threaten good governance are to be brought into line.
What we see is that Jesus is known to them all, by reputation. They all know the impact he has had within the area, the reputation he has gained for being a forgiver, for saving others, for being hailed by others as the Messiah.
However, they know him by reputation not physicality. They don’t know what he looks like – don’t forget they had had to pay Judas to kiss him in the Garden of Gethsemane, in order show them who he was. During his public ministry, for the last three years he’s been playing a cat and mouse game, always on the move, popping up all over, they are never sure where he will appear next. They know his reputation not his face.
And this is a public execution, the prisoners’ belongings are taken from him, and he is sneered at by his executioners. Three of them are being executed together. One has a go at him, saying ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
The other accepts his sentence and tells him to lay off. He is rewarded with a promise that ‘today you will be with me in paradise’. A journey end to look forward to, just a little longer. This is how change management is worked in business context, you give people a sense of where they are going.
We can conclude from these exchanges that Jesus is actively present in all this, not passive. Calm in the face of what he knows will be an agonising death. At the opening of the passage he forgives them ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’. And he offers consolation to the prisoner who is to be executed alongside him.
As is often the case with a reversal of power, the fallen is subjected to additional humiliations – as reportedly happened when Saddam Hussein was about to be hanged, he was mocked, sneered, shouted and spat at. Shoes thrown at him.
Jesus has done no wrong. Pontius Pilate had tried hard to offer the crowd an alternative victim, but the process proceeds – with mocking and a forced procession through the streets.
The additional details are cruel. His belongings are shared between his guard when his friends and relatives are there and could have received them, everything taken from him. A sign appended above him – ‘This is the king of the Jews’. A crowd has gathered to watch, and mocks too ‘He saved others, let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah’
This all feels so real. The ghoulish desire to watch the misery of others; humanity’s regrettable tendency to feel comfort and affirmation through observing rather than intervening, in the same way that people on a motorway slow down to see the extent of a car crash, or take sides in the difficulties of a celebrity completely unknown to them; watching and observing, layering detail and intricacy of understanding, not wanting this to be a two-way exchange with those involved – rather a subject for discussion afterwards. ‘Did you see the way she…’ In the process the victim becomes less human, more object for comment.
It’s a sad but entirely realistic narrative.
But then, in our second reading from Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, we have the interpretation of this story. It comes from Paul, the first great theologian, the former administrator in the Roman Army who had himself helped supervise the execution of Stephen, and who has now become the greatest advocate of Jesus there has ever been.
He is addressing the Colossians. A community he had visited, and he now wants to affirm in their developing faith. He had heard they were falling into serious error and wanted to support them in their faith.
He looks beyond the physical and rather at the meaning of what took place on Golgotha, to give them courage:
‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross’.
So the cross is a symbol of reconciliation with God, the execution of one perfect man, his only Son, brings us close to God, and gives us rights.
The Son is created in God’s image, ‘the firstborn over all creation’. He reconciles through just being, on earth and in heaven, within our day-to-day reality and as part of what is to come. He is the head of the church, the uniting of disparate elements of life and this is achieved through the sacrifice he went through on the cross.
These are enormous claims, but they have resonated throughout history – and are with us today, as we sit in our pews in this beautiful chapel. This is a message that can be heard out of time and that lasts from one generation to the next.
I remember in early lectures in Mediaeval History, the ones at the beginning of the year when you have a quick rush through the period as a whole, Professor Donald Bullough showing slides on the spread of Christianity – how it grew and spread from the middle east, reaching Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain and spread from missionaries from Ireland – St Ninian, St Kentigern (better known as St Mungo) and St Columba although “they first appear in places where churches had already been established” and possibly England (I am aware that there will be experts here and this is dangerous territory for me).
But what we can conclude is that this was a message that was powerful and that stayed in people’s hearts. That they could not help but pass on, so even those who had not heard Jesus in person became knowledgeable about him and what he could do.
And it is a message that affirms and directs, empowers and requires. It is a message that is a legally-based entitlement, not a vague promise. Through this death:
‘the father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light’.
This is the language of property passing on, of formal entitlement not wishy-washy promises.
So what has this to say to us, here in Sallies Chapel on a cold day in November? With the prospect of a pier walk to come. I hope that still happens.
- Well firstly that this is a message that has had a profound influence on the world.
Whether it is the individual’s choice to accept or reject the message of the cross, they cannot ignore it.
The cross is one of the world’s best-known symbols, recognised universally. Early Christians did not use it – it would have been a bit like having a model of an electric chair around your neck – they rather used a fish as a symbol which contained the first letters of the phrase ‘Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews’. But when the cross came to be recognised, separated from the first-hand anguish of those who had seen Jesus die, it stayed. Simple and instantly recognisable.
- Secondly that the interpretation of the cross changes lives
Those who accept the cross and its meaning are entitled to hope for better things. To understand that God has not forgotten us, and in the desperate conditions we face in this country at the moment, the unrest, the unwillingness to acknowledge failures of policy and process that have taken place, the desire to reformat the past so that while making it more politically acceptable, lessons remain unlearned, to carry on in the pursuit of selfish aims, there is all the while a better way to live.
That by connecting yourself with the better values, of acceptance, of self-denial and public service, better things are to come.
- And above all that this is true. Let’s not forget what happened.
The text has reached us of events that took place nearly 2000 years ago. A rich text, full of detail, a remarkable story with the reactions and words of those involved.
After Jesus was laid in the tomb, and then rose again, it was in everyone’s interests to find a body – to demonstrate that he really had died, and yet no body could be produced.
Think of the bounty that would have been available for those able to produce a body, to damage the reputation of this mendicant, itinerant preacher from a backwater within the Roman empire, to knock any legacy on the head and enable the good administration of the province by its army of occupation to continue. If there was 30 pieces of silver available for identifying who Jesus was, how much more must have been on offer for producing the body. Yet none was found.
Then there is the immense impact of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. I would recommend you to read ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ also thought to have been written by Luke.
It presents the body of Jesus’ followers, dispirited and meeting in secret. But then utterly changed by the arrival of the Holy Spirit: suddenly multi-lingual, empowered, active and determined. From being a frightened bunch of individuals, meeting in secret, they rush out into the world to share what they had experienced – and what they wanted the world to know.
And it was this message that was sufficiently powerful to persuade Paul, arch defender of the Roman administration, supervising the execution of a Christian martyr, to change his mind and become the chief defender.
Forty years ago I sat where you are, a regular attender at the 8am service.
Time has moved on, and we are now closer to the anniversary of 2,000 years since Christ’s execution.
But throughout that time, the power of that story has been expressed through church building and detailed interpretation of the text. It’s also been expressed through schisms over what the words mean and there are really painful discussions today over how they should be interpreted. But all these point to a reported experience of fundamental relevance to the world.
And as this fundamental truth remains. It should both comfort and take us forward. As Sir John Betjeman so memorably put it in his poem Christmas, so relevant to us right now:
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
Thanks be to God.