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The
Passion of Christ by Reverend Murray Spackman, Vicar. Sunday 11th April, 2004 If you arrived a little early this morning, - which is always a good thing to do when we gather for worship, - - you may have noticed that at the top of the front page, where we usually highlight the theme for the day – we have printed “The Passion of Christ”. Now you may have
thought – “Wait a minute – we think about the Passion of Christ - meaning , the suffering of Christ on Good
Friday ! – and the movie blockbuster by Mel Gibson has quite adequately
highlighted all the intense suffering and agony which Jesus very clearly
endured , - but
today is Easter Day !
- and we celebrate the Resurrection.”
Well
you are quite correct, of course, and we will, and do, Celebrate the
Resurrection - but this morning I want us to think about the Passion
of Christ, in the two quite different meanings of
that term. The
word “Passion” in its classical sense, means suffering.
In our Church’s calendar, we even have a
Passion Sunday, which comes two weeks before Easter day, - on which
we traditionally focus on the Cross and the suffering that Jesus endured
there for us. On Good
Friday the emphasis steps up
to another level as we read, and think, and sing about, and meditate upon
again, and even enact in our Procession of Witness that suffering
which Jesus endured for us.
His Passion, his suffering is not something which the Christian
church takes lightly. The Cross, and the suffering of Jesus, is at the heart
of our message of new life. In
the film, “The Passion of the Christ”, which focuses on just the last
few days of Jesus life, viewers can easily come away from the theatre with
the question in their minds – Why?
Why did Jesus suffer what he suffered?
And unless you’ve read the Book and you know the full story you
can also get the impression that Jesus was more of a victim rather than
the one who, as the scripture says, “set his face steadfastly to go to
Jerusalem.” He is
seen, in the film, more as
the unfortunate pawn of political and religious injustice rather than as
THE one who was in control and who said – “No man takes my life away
from me. I lay down my life of my own accord.”
But again, we come back to that haunting question – Why
did Jesus endure the suffering and the agony?
I believe the answer is found, in part, in the other
definition of the word “Passion”. Passion is also defined as “a strong intense
emotion.” “An object of
intense desire.” Back in 1985 Tom
Peters and Nancy Austin - two
of the popular business and leadership writers of the time- published a
book on leadership entitled - “A Passion for Excellence.” The whole theme of
the book was that what made the most significant difference in any
organisation was where the leaders, and every members of the organisation,
have a Passion for Excellence. The
object of their desire, the emotion which motivates them in
business is to exceed and excell when others would quite happily
tolerate second-best.
Jesus had this kind of Passion – this Passion for
Excellence – and it was a passion to do His Father’s
will. While we today, and
even the disciples of Jesus, at times and in certain circumstances go a
bit cold in our discipleship, we can never say that about Jesus!
The object of his intense desire was always to do the will of His
Father. So
what was, and is, the Father’s will, which Jesus came to do, and which
cost him his life ? It is quite simply this -
that we should all have eternal life.
God’s will is that we should all be reconciled and
restored to a living and vibrant relationship with Him- not only for time,
in this world, but for all eternity. This is what the Father’s will for us is
– and it was in order to bring this into effect that Jesus came.
Our relationship with God could only be restored once sin had been
dealt with – and Jesus, the Son of God, was the only One who could take
our sin upon Himself, and in so doing destroy its power and deal with its
penalty. Jesus, the Son of
God, is so passionate about our salvation that He came and suffered and
died for you and for me!
This is not something we could do. We cannot cleanse
our lives once we have stained them with sin – only Jesus can! – and
only His death on the cross could bring about that divine miracle.
In his Passion to do His Father’s will – Jesus, the just, took
the place of the unjust. The Holy One of God, in whom was no sin, took the
place of the sinner and bore it in his own body on the cross.
That’s Passion! And
on the Third Day, as proof to all that the sacrifice Jesus had made for us
had been “full, perfect and
sufficient” for our sin – God the Father raised Jesus from death to
life. Jesus, by his
death, had broken the chains of sin which held closed the gate to eternal
life. When he was raised
to life, it was as though He flung wide open the gate to
heaven, and left it wide open for all who would trust their eternal
destiny into His hands and anchor their faith in his
substitutionary death and in His living presence. Jesus’
Passion for us that we might come to the Father through Him will not find
its fulfilment until we each come to the foot of the Cross, surrender
ourselves to Him, receive the
Power of the Holy Spirit in our lives,
- and then begin to walk the new life of faith that He has for us.
This
Easter morning, as we come again to receive the bread and wine – the
outward and visible sign of Christs Risen and invisible Body and Blood –
let us contemplate again Jesus’ Passion for us.
The suffering or Passion he endured, and the intense
desire of His Passion that we might be made new. |
