Jeremiah 31: 27-37 John 12: 20-33
Faith in Christ is something to make a song and dance about but don’t forget we’re British.
At our baptism, we are enjoined not to be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified and yet I suspect, if we’re honest, each of us is – on occasion at least – mildly embarrassed about it.
I remember taking part in a Good Friday walk of witness many years ago in Spennymoor where all self-respecting locals get fish and chips on that holy day and the queues outside Clems on Whitworth Terrace are long.
As we moved solemnly down the street, Jean who had chosen a fish dinner instead of the walk of witness turned round in the queue in the desperate hope that the Vicar wouldn’t see her.
I admire people who go straight to the pub after the Ash Wednesday service with a great black cross chalked onto their foreheads – especially if they immediately order a pint. Somehow the lack of embarrassment cancels redeems the failure to order more suitable Lenten refreshment.
Next Sunday we will gather outside the Castle on Palace Green to begin our Palm Sunday procession round Palace Green and into the Galilee Chapel where we will begin our Holy Week journey to the foot of the cross. Even that is a rather half-hearted attempt to proclaim the faith of Christ crucified. After all, Palace Green is pretty deserted on a Sunday morning at the best of times. One day, if we get our act together, we’ll start in the Market Place, invite all the churches in Durham to join us, close the road and strew Saddler Street with palm branches. I might even put it into the Vision and Strategy Excel spreadsheet some time – if I can remember how to…
In today’s second reading from St John’s Gospel, the scene is painted of Jesus accepting his destiny in what is a more public setting than those occasions when he has tried to explain his mission to his disciples. Here he makes one final appeal to the crowd – a crowd which is divided and unable to square Jesus’s claims with its own perceptions about the Messiah.
This is a public manifestation of Jesus’s obedient service. The crowd hears what it thinks is thunder when God states that he has glorified his name and will do so again. Jesus interprets the moment to them as the culmination of his mission and the condemnation of all that is unbelieving and hostile to God.
Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified.
It’s not easy and most of are British with that sense of reserve that is disinclined to wear our religion on our sleeve. I usually change into civvies when going to the doctor – if only to avoid making people in the waiting room anxious. It never works: only the other day when having my heart shocked back into sinus rhythm, the cardiologist worked out who I was and told me that she lived next door to Lilian Groves and wasn’t she marvellous.
But we have to find ways of confessing the faith of Christ crucified – in ways that work for us and are authentic. But they must be ways that are effective. Here at Durham Cathedral we work hard to maintain safe spaces in the margins of the daily round for those people who dance on the edges of faith. There is a passivity about the daily office which makes
it ideal for friends and neighbours who might be curious about matters to do with faith but who aren’t ready to commit. Our Lent Talks this year have been specifically designed for people of faith and people of no faith.
When did you last invite someone to come with you to Durham Cathedral? Might this Passiontide which we observe against the backdrop of a deeply troubled world be the moment to bring a plus one to a Lent Talk or to Evensong, to the spacious prayerfulness of some or all of the Good Friday Three Hours, to the theatre of the Dawn Eucharist on Easter Day?
Faith in Christ is something to make a song and dance about – even if we’re British.
Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified.
Let us pray:
Give to your Church, O God, a bold vision and a daring charity, a refreshed wisdom and a courteous understanding, that the eternal message of your Son may be acclaimed as the good news of the age’ through him who makes all things new, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.