Daniel 12.1-3 Some will wake to everlasting life, some to shame and disgrace
Hebrews 10.11-14 When
all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin-offerings
Mark
13.1-8 Jesus said to them, “See that no one leads you
astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many
astray.
‘There will not be left here one
stone upon another that will not be thrown down.’
(Mark 13.2)
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Today’s
gospel reading is dramatic and unnerving.
Jesus
foretells the destruction of the Temple and speaks of the signs of the end of
the age.
It
sounds chaotic, destructive and frightening: we might well ask, ‘where is the
Gospel, the Good News – in all of that?
Today
is the annual ‘Safeguarding Sunday’.
Safeguarding
is tremendously important to me and a priority as Vicar.
To
my shame ‘Safeguarding Sunday’ is not something I have ever emphasised in the
life of the churches in my care.
All
that went on last week, and what led to it, resulting in the resignation of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, shows that safeguarding is not for one Sunday year.
Safeguarding
is not an inconvenience, a bureaucratic exercise or something to sigh and shrug
our shoulders about: it is about creating a culture across the church where the
voices of victims and survivors of abuse of body, mind or spirit are heard and
all who are vulnerable, not least the young, are safe.
The
Church has not always been that place of safety; we have not always modelled the
life of faith and hope and love we espouse.
So
what might the gospel today speak into that bleak scenario?
One
way in is to consider the Temple: the physical Temple in Jerusalem; the Temple
of Creation; the Temple of the body.
The
Temple of which Jesus foretells destruction is the Temple in Jerusalem.
As
Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher,
what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” (Mark 13.1)
We
construct edifices of great beauty and power.
That’s
true of the Church of England, but for too long those at the heart of the
Church of England have stood gazing at the Church and thought ‘how wonderful’
and, in doing so, have gazed on their own grandeur and glory and worried about
‘reputational damage’, as if their wonderful stones, what they have built and
lived in, will be pulled down.
‘Yes,
it will’, says Jesus, ‘When you build to your own glory and not to God’s, then
the edifice will crumble’.
Furthermore,
the Church of England, through her Bishops and Synods, has for too long sought
the approval of society, protecting a worldly reputation and not being right
with God.
All
we see of God in the face of Jesus Christ is compassion for the victim, for He
Himself becomes the Victim without blame, the Spotless Lamb, who is one with every
victim of violence and abuse, in a way the powers -that-be in the Church of
England have not been.
To
see the Cross at the heart of our faith is to see the association of Christ
with the innocent victim and nothing of worldly reputation.
This
moves us to the Temple of the Creation,
because the Temple in Jerusalem was conceived by God to be a microcosm of the
Creation, the meeting point of divinity and humanity, where right worship is offered.
At
the heart of the Temple in Jerusalem was the representation of the Garden of
Eden – creation as God intended it - before the whispers of sin, through the
wiles of the Enemy were heard and acted on, taking humanity away from God and
in need of rescuing, salvation and redemption.
Sin
is the corrosive force that attacks the Creation itself, yet even then God’s
redeeming power is at work.
In
nature and human society, we see destruction and war, and our natural instinct
is despair: but our instinct as
disciples of Christ must be hope: hope, not that we can save ourselves, but
that we have a saviour.
God’s
capacity - repeatedly demonstrated in the scriptures - is to turn our
destructive ways into the ‘birth pangs’ (Mark 13.8c) of a new age, the pain of
the close of an old age.
What
does that look like on ‘Safeguarding Sunday’?
The
Church of England is at the close, we pray, of a former age.
It’s
painful for we who live through it but, as the new child knows, from the
safety, warmth and security of the womb delivery into the world is traumatic,
yet ultimately about life, new life, abundant life.
What
we live through now will, by God’s grace, deliver us into the life of the New
Creation.
All
this is a reminder of the spiritual wisdom - expressed in the service of Holy
Baptism - that we die to sin, to live with Christ.
This
takes us to the Temple of the body.
In
St John’s Gospel Jesus says that the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem
- to which we might add, the Temple of
the Creation - is a sign fulfilled in the destruction of his body on the cross,
which will be raised after three days.
St
Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians extends this Temple imagery saying,
…do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you
have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So
glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6.19,20)
For
those who say Christianity is anti-the-body, re-read that passage!
It
tells us that the body is precious, to be cherished, not to be abused, hurt or
destroyed.
That
has a bearing on the body of the unborn, the terminally ill body, the marred
body, the pained body, the tired body, the elderly body.
Every
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God.
That
is why abuse of another person’s body is so wicked, it is a blasphemous
destruction and violation of the sacred ground of another person’s precious
body.
And
so too is psychological or spiritual abuse that assaults the God-given human
spirit within.
‘Safeguarding
Sunday’: it might sound like a niche cause, or theme enforced on the Church,
but I hope we see on this Sunday, and every day, that safeguarding is integral
to the protection of the human body, which is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, the
meeting place of divinity and humanity in God’s good creation.
And
may the Church, which is Christ’s own body, honour her call to be
compassionate, loving, kindly and gracious, and purge away the sin that clings
so closely, but over which Christ, the High Priest, has triumphed.