Passiontide - Day 1

The 5th Sunday of Lent sees a shift in the tone of the season - it grows heavier, darker, deeper, sadder and more focused, almost transfixed to the cross.

Hence the reading, John 12:20-33, which is focused on the cost of the cross. But so many of us miss this...

Holy week is a funny thing you see. We have this dark, contemplative season where in a spirit of introspection and self-examination we seek to walk with Jesus and discern the many and varied ways our walk has become hobbled. Through Lent I realise that my walk is hampered by a limp, by ill-fitting shoes, by a rocky road...and then we hit Palm Sunday, which is all-too-often a joyous celebration. We play act and frankly lose the sheer irony of the day.

Yes - Jesus entered triumphally, but we know how it pans out. Why do we celebrate? Surely the spirit of lenten sadness should move us to weep that so many so quickly deserted Jesus, including his own.

And then we stumble into Easter Day - the high point in our calendar.

Consider this...if you take the four Sundays including Mothering Sunday (4th Sunday in Lent) you can quite easily lose entirely the Lent theme: Mothers' Day, 5th Sunday, Palm Sunday, and Easter Day...the effect is exacerbated if one doesn't go to any church events during Holy Week...one could ignore the agony of the cross entirely!

Therefore - allow me to try and take you on that path of lamentation that Passiontide requires...

In John 12:20-33 we find Jesus in a deeply contemplative mood. "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified". Not quite the response Andrew and Philip expect when informing Jesus he has some guests to entertain. One writer has suggested that the disciples have had to 'find' Jesus as he was withdrawing from public ministry. He is all too aware that his purpose was about to be fulfilled.

But this is not just his purpose - but he teaches us a valuable and essential Christian principle, "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds"...and He goes on to repeat his thoughts on what discipleship looks like...a choice between life and death.

In our cell group we have been wrestling at length over this issue of following Jesus. In Mark 8 Jesus says you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. And we began to think the three things are separate...the first is about submission, which requires us to let go of our own agenda and ambition; the third is about obedience. But taking up your cross is not just a euphemism for 'deny yourself'...it speaks directly to what needs to happen to us - we have to die, not just make a decision to serve or submit.

Like Jesus we too have to die. Paul writes about this in Romans 6: "We died to sin" (v.2)

Death...it's not something I seek, but Jesus seems to be saying, "pursue death, run at it, ensure that you have been killed off - you are useless to me as you are - your sinful self will prevent my greater glory, and oddly - will stop you living. You are worth more to me dead than alive - for when your zombie nature is killed, then you can be really alive, for I shall bring resurrection. This shadowland you currently live in is as nothing compared to the bright gloriousness of you as you are truly meant to be..."

....And still...fear remains.

But trust is essential - and obedience. I follow; he leads.

And even Jesus shrank away from the fact of his death. Even he, my Lord and King. Even he said - I am scared of death, but for God's glory, and his known purpose he set his face toward the cross.

And that is passiontide. The fixing of Jesus' face on the cross. It is where our eyes must also turn. We must look upon the horror and glory of the cross...and in our turn, follow.