St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Helen gave this sermon on Passion Sunday 2024. Here it is for you again:

We all love a good story, or at least I do which I have probably shared before. They start so far back, you have the myths and legends from the ancient times of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Norse mythology. Then there are the fairy tales that we have passed down and those who told these stories 1,001 Arabian nights, The Grim tales, Hans Christian Anderson’s stories and we tell and re tell these stories in new and exciting versions you really can let your imagination go wild as you tell these stories, or at least I do when I tell my niece and nephew. They are there stories to entertain, teach lessons and many other things.

Today is a day some churches call Passion Sunday, and this mark a move away from the general feelings of Lent more toward the final act of Jesus life, his passion those final few days of his life and the death that he faced. When we do more than just read the story we really immerse ourselves into it, become part of this part of Jesus life as he is so much part of ours. When I looked at the reading for today they tell the wider story than this, they tell the story from the beginning of the Old Testament and creation down to the end of Revelation in the New Testament. The story of the redemption of Israel as a whole and then we zone in on the specific events that brought that about over Holy Week. We look at what has happened and what is going to come, the promise made by God and enacted by the Royal Priest God sent.

You have the first reading from Jeremiah and he is talking about the past and the things that have happened. What has gone wrong and that difficult past for the people of Israel. You have had the fall and then leaving the promised land before  Jeremiah talks about the coming out of Egypt and how the covenant with God has been broken again…and again and when it was broken the results weren’t great: 40 years in the desert, the Judges and kings who went from bad to really bad before turning away from God. Next were the invasions and dispersions by the Babylonians, Persians, Romans, it’s not great times for them. However inside of all this there is hope, hope that things will be better and that comes through the sometimes lone voices of the prophets, who remind them of God and the promises made by God like Elijah, Elisha, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and I’m sure you could name me many others, those who wanted to help the people turn back to God.

However these prophets were either ignored or rejected, they needed someone special, someone who would do and say things that would really make people take note. Someone who would leave behind a really good story to tell, that would inspire people for many future generations. The Royal Priest promised by God who would come to save and redeem the people and that’s where Jesus comes into this story. He was the last great prophet the one who was different he wasn’t just sent by God and inspired by God he was God ‘The Word made flesh and made his dwelling among us’. Jesus honours God and is glorified by God and God has marked Jesus as his equal ‘I have glorified it and I will glorify it again’ as we heard in the gospel today.

Jesus was the last hope to save those people and by following him you make you stake in the inheritance set out by God. God defines Jesus as different and he will go further than any of the other prophets to save the people and that is the story we are going to hear and that is why we are still telling his story, his death and what happened next nearly 2,000 years after it happened.

We then get the reading from Hebrews, you see that Jesus is glorified by God as he was obedient in his suffering. Think about it though Jesus was obedient but that doesn’t mean that he was always happy about it and 100% willing, remember the garden when he was praying ‘Take this cup away from me’ I can’t do what you’re asking of me, but he did and he stayed faithful to God. We know that isn’t always easy as God does demand a lot of those who follow, Jesus demanded of his followers as well and they knew the realities of being his disciple. The people of Israel had struggled and even with help from the prophets but something about Jesus and what he did changed that. He told us to follow him, to act as he acted, live by his teachings and tell his story and that is how we will get a share in the kingdom, the promise he made of eternal life revealed in his resurrection the second Eden, new Jerusalem as described in Revelation, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ Jesus is the source of eternal life, the one who was waited for and we are coming to the time when we remember that final act, what he did to allow humans access to that, when he was most human and most like us so as we go into the next couple of weeks, hear his story, tell it, like we tell those other great stories and follow his example. Go out and tell the story of his passion, just as he told us to. Amen