St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Helen preached this sermon on Sunday 15 September 2024 – the third of Creationtide, in which we focused on the sky.

A couple of weeks ago I was away on retreat staying with the Community of the Resurrection, over at Mirfield and there are many reasons why I like to visit them. There are many reasons why I like to go there on retreat:

• The services in the monastery with the chanting, incense and praying with the brethren there.
• The grounds where you can reflect and pray in the labyrinth and prayer gardens
• The brethren are all lovely and it’s lovely to chat, eat and pray with them and live their life.

But there is another thing I like to do while I’m there and it’s something I can’t do in many other places and that is stargazing because it is a good spot for that. So after Compline, about 21:45 when everyone else is going to bed and settling down for 12 hours of silence you will find me outside in front of the house looking up at the sky and marvelling at the stars and it’s stunning, ok probably making a bit more noise than I should, it’s not the most disruptive thing I have ever done there and they still have me back. I’ve even got a really handy app on my phone to show me what I’m looking at, constellations, planets it’s brilliant. One thing that I always think when I look up at the stars is just how vast it is up there. I mean you see the moon, I’d expect that but then you realise you’re looking at planets like, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and it boggles my brain as they are so far away but you can see them with the naked eye. Just reminds me that we are a small cog in the vastness and the enormity of what’s up there it’s…there aren’t words to describe it.  

The night sky can be very peaceful but they sky can also give off other emotions, daylight and sunny is happy but when you get a storm setting in and the sky goes red and purple and it looks angry and I think that is very much the mood we see in the gospel reading today and I would say one of the most important events that happened in Christianity and that’s Jesus execution. So what I want to do is really immerse ourselves in the story we have just heard in todays gospel, in the story of Jesus death because it’s an amazing story, epic when you think about it. So start by standing at the foot of the cross and you are looking up at Jesus, you might want to close your eyes of look at the pictures I’ve given you, an image of Jesus on the cross taken from below. This image is a picture of a large crucifix in the Calvary garden at then Community of the Resurrection, which I took while I was there the other week by…lying on the floor next to it with my phone and looking up the sides, even that is not the most disruptive thing I’ve done there but they still had me back. So if it’s helpful here or at home please use it if not then don’t worry but it’s a nice image.

So you are standing at the foot of the cross, you look up the side and you see Jesus hanging there. Nailed by his wrists and ankles, nails that we drove into him, he’s in a lot of pain, his body is broken (I’ve said it before when I break the bread during communion I imagine it’s Jesus bones being broken) and he’s naked, he’s very vulnerable. It’s when he’s at his most human, when he’s most like us. You hear him crying out to God My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?, why have you abandoned me you have left me to die. Then you realise it is going dark, it’s afternoon but dark and remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah ‘The earth shall mourn when the heavens above are black…all the cities were laid in ruin before the Lord, before his fierce anger…the mountains…they are quaking’ The sky is more than just black there is thunder and lightning, it’s like the sky is shaking the earth at them moment Jesus takes breaths his last breath…you feel it on your face and the storm thunders in the sky, it’s red, purple and angry. You look at Jesus again, his body is limp and you know that he is no more, his mission has failed he’s dead. You hear the rip of material as the angry sky bursts and the temple curtain rips in two. A centurions nearby make an exclamation Surely this man was the Son of God! What do you think? Do you think he was who he said he was? Of course we know the story doesn’t end there because as the early morning crept through two days later, the women go to Jesus tomb and it is empty, in some accounts they even see him, Jesus is alive and the sun comes up on something new and different is going to happen through God’s compassion for humanity.

As I’ve said the skies are huge, they are vast when we are told there are billions of stars and galaxies out there we can’t comprehend that but we just sort of accept it because what else can you do? That is quite similar to Jesus death but more so his resurrection. That great miracle at the centre of our faith that we can’t really comprehend or understand but maybe that’s the point of it,  when Fr Charlie preached at my first Holy Communion on the Resurrection he said we’re not supposed to understand it as we don’t really know what happened in the tomb or what it means that Jesus rose from the dead but our job is to be dazzled and amazed by the resurrection, just as those were who first saw that empty tomb were. Jesus is alive and present in the world today, a much brighter sky than the storms that gathered over him the day he died.

Jesus used the skies for his last earthly act. When he ascended into heaven, you can imagine the disciples watching the sky until they could no longer see him. Then a message is delivered to those who were watching ‘Why do you stand looking up towards the heavens? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go’. Maybe that explains the star gazing and my obsession with looking up at the stars , wanting to know what’s up there. So as we watch and wait for Jesus return, keeping an eye on the sky we also use the time wisely and make sure we have plenty to tell Jesus when he returns from the skies. Amen