Sermon for Passion Sunday, 2021

Homily for Passion Sunday, 2021

Fr. Tony Melton

Christ the King Anglican ATL

What is needed to live? Maslow gave his hierarchy. The Bible does not rank our needs like that. We are not to separate physical life from our spiritual lives like that, as if one was more needful or foundational than the other. If we were to do rank them, then the order would surely be flipped. “Man does not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God.” The Bible suggests a different answer to the question “What is needed to live?” We need to know the Truth. We need our sins forgiven, our consciences cleared. And we need Justice, that quality of a society where people get their due. There is an opportunity for food, water, and shelter, because God has given these things in plenty. Truth, Forgiveness, and Justice. There is one more, but we will save that one for later.

These three needs of every person line up with the works of Christ. He in the Prophet who shows us the Truth. He is the Priest who forgives our sins. And He is the King who establishes Justice in His kingdom. Prophet, Priest, and King. Our Propers for this morning point this out.

The Old Testament lesson from Deuteronomy 18 is about God’s promise to Moses to send another Prophet to His people to show them the Truth. “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” Jesus is that Prophet, and because of Him we know the Truth. We know who God is. We know who we are. We know why the world is. We know what we are to do.

The Epistle is from Hebrews 9. “CHRIST being come an high priest…by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” How can people live without this? Do you know how blessed you are to be forgiven? Think about Cain. He kills his brother and it says that the blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground. Not only is there the screaming of his own conscience in his own head, but there is a screaming without. The very Creation condemned him. People walk around their whole lives with this screaming. The guilt of what they’ve done screams at them. The shame they feel screams at them. But the author of Hebrews says in our Epistle that the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” We are forgiven by Christ our High Priest! There is no more screaming.

In the Gospel, we have Jesus claiming to be God Himself, taking up the very name of God, calling Himself, I AM. Both our Psalm and the Gospel speak of Jesus as being honored by God the Father. "If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me.” Who is He that is honored of God, but the King of all Creation? We live under the reign of King Jesus. Within His Kingdom, which is the Church, there is justice. The hungry have food. The corrupt are corrected. The enemies of God are put to flight. There is joy in the Kingdom. Thanks be to God for Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King, giver of Truth, Forgiveness, and Justice.

Today is called Passion Sunday. All throughout Lent there is an interior focus, an assessment of ourselves in light of God and His commandments. But as we near Holy Week, there is a shift toward contemplating the work of Christ, His Passion, which is to say, His Sufferings for us. The evening Bible lesson in our Lectionary change to John 12 and following this week. The beginning of the Passion. And we begin our journey with Jesus out of the wilderness and up the rock road to Golgotha. Our Gospel this morning marks a transition in the narrative, too. He claimed to be God, and they took up stones to kill Him. From this point on, the jaws of human sin clamp tighter and tighter on Jesus until He is dead. Today, the Church our Mother shows us who it is that will suffer for us. It is Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King.

I mentioned earlier that there was another need that we all have in addition to knowing the Truth, being forgiven, and living in Justice. It is the need to love and be loved. While it is true that God loves us as Prophet, and perhaps more clearly as Priest. I’d like to turn our attention to the Song of Solomon to show how the person and work of King Jesus fulfills our need for Love.

The Song of Solomon is my favorite book of the Bible. The Gospels, particularly Matthew, show Jesus as the New Solomon. Jesus speaks of himself as the “Greater than Solomon.” So, a Christological reading  of the Song of Solomon that sees it is a love poem between Jesus and His Church is kind of a layup for Christians. “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” “I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.”

This Passion Sunday, we enter the vortex of His Passion, His Suffering for us. We are supposed to be swept away by the power of it. What He did for us is made all the more precious when we know Who He is. It makes it abundantly clear that the only way that our Prophet, Priest, and King would die for us like this, is if He was also our Lover. We know the Truth. Thanks be to God. Our sins are forgiven. Thanks be to God. We live under the just reign of King Jesus. Thanks be to God. “I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.” Thanks be to God.