The Cross of Christ: (inflection) point of history

Isaiah 50.4-9a I offered my back to those who struck me

James 3.1-12 Taming the tongue

Mark 8.27-38 The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously

 

 

‘If any want to become my followers,

let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

Mark 8.34

 

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I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find that there is a word or a phrase that I haven’t heard for a long time, or haven’t ever heard, that suddenly I seem to be hearing, repeatedly, in different places and from different people.

 

One such example for me, just last week, was the phrase ‘inflection point’.

 

Someone said to me, now that I am Vicar of Croydon having been Priest in Charge, ‘this is an inflection point for you and the Minster’.

 

Similarly, at the Whitgift Foundation I was on an interview panel for a new Chief Executive, and someone said, reflecting on the significance of the appointment, ‘this is an inflection point for the Foundation’.

 

I heard the Donald Trump/Kamala Harris debate described as an ‘inflection point’ for the presidential campaign in the USA.

 

An ‘inflection point’ is a moment of noticeable change in a situation; it’s the moment after which things will never quite be the same again.

 

The general election was a major political inflection point; the emergence of the world wide web was an inflection point in technology and culture and so on.

 

Today we heard of an inflection point in the Gospel.

 

It happens at Caesarea Philippi.

 

It is a decisive moment when Jesus reveals something that the disciples had barely wanted to consider, and something that moved Peter to deep indignation.

 

Too often we focus on Peter’s words in this scene, as if it is about him and his ‘me and my big mouth’ moment.

 

That said, in the spirit of our second lesson from the letter of James, Peter’s tongue speaks wonderful truth ‘you are the Christ’, and then Peter’s tongue delivers a rebuke to Jesus.

 

As James says,

 

With [our tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. (James 3.9,10)

 

What insightful words, and let’s be honest, we all do it.

 

Each moment of the day, then, is an inflection point.

 

I can choose to speak with my tongue what is good and beautiful and true, or choose to wound others, sow dissension or even to deny Christ.

 

As the wonderful and ancient hymn of St Ephrem the Syrian says,

 

Lord, may the tongues which 'Holy' sang

keep free from all deceiving…

 

St Ephrem the Syrian (c306-373) New English Hymnal, 306

 

So, what we see at Caesarea Philippi is Peter recognising the inflection point and wanting to stop it.

 

He can cope with saying Jesus is the Christ, but can’t handle the recognition that the Messiah is vindicated through the cross and will not shy away from insult and spitting (cf Isaiah 50.6): he will not shy away from death.

 

Here’s the moment it becomes clear:

 

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8.31)

 

Peter sees where all this is going and tries to stop Jesus by rebuking him, but Jesus is set on this path, declaring:

 

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Mark 8.34)

 

The cross is the inflection point of the Gospel.

 

It all hinges on this.

 

To be a disciple of Christ is not simply about following a great teacher, an inspired guru or an amazing wonder worker, it is so much more.

 

To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to walk the way of renunciation; about finding abundant life by giving up superficial life; about salvation born in suffering; about love until death.

 

Thy will, not mine, be done.

 

Yesterday was the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross which asks us to ponder the invisible, but indelible, mark we bear as baptised Christians, as we take up Christ’s call to self-denial, as we face, and embrace, what the cross means and as we follow him day by day.

 

St John Chrysostom, who was celebrated last Friday, says that on the cross ‘we see him crucified, we call him king’.

 

The inflection point of history is Calvary; the cross of Jesus Christ, of which the hymn says:

 

When I survey the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of glory died,

my richest gain I count but loss,

and pour contempt on all my pride.

 

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) New English Hymnal, 95

 

St Paul reminds us that the cross is a red line for some and crazy to others but says, ‘to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (cf 1 Corinthians 1.18, 22).

 

That’s what makes the cross the inflection point of history, it is the moment God declares, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Corinthians 12.9).

 

Jesus says: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

So there it is, '…love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all’.

The scriptures: announced, accepted, actioned

Deuteronomy 4.1-2, 6-9 Observe these laws and customs that you may have life

James 1.17-27 Accept and submit to the word

Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23 You put aside the commandment of God, to cling to human traditions

 

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Running through our three readings this morning a clear theme, that of considering the word of God in the scriptures, and how believers are to relate to that word.

 

They’re hard hitting readings that invite some probing questions.

 

Do the scriptures so capture our minds, bodies and spirits that we seek ‘to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them’?

 

Are they, as Psalm 119 says, ‘a lantern unto my feet : and a light unto my paths’ (Psalm 119.105)?

 

Can we say of scripture, ‘O how sweet are thy words unto my throat : yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth’ (Psalm 119.104): in other words, is reading scripture a source of delight, wonder and sweetness to you?

 

Do we, as the letter of James commends, place ourselves under the word of God and not seek to impose our own wills upon it?

 

It even leads us to consider what, if anything, can we dispense of; when are we abandoning the commandment of God and holding to human tradition.

 

We ask all these questions with the conviction that Holy Scriptures are the ‘lively oracles of God’ are they’re referred to in the Coronation Service.

 

The Bible is not one inspired book among many or simply a guidebook of a moral or ethical way to live.

 

To call a book, or collection of books, Holy Scripture, as we do the Bible, is to say something profound about it: it is the conviction, and assertion, that the text conveys more than simply what is written.

 

It’s to say that - in the case of Holy Scripture – the texts bear the intentions, teaching and commandments of God: it is a revelation of the will and purpose of God.

 

This is what Moses is doing in our first reading: revealing the commandments of God.

 

The teaching he gives is something complete in itself, hence why the people are commanded not to add to it or subtract from it.

 

And the commandments in the scriptures are to be transmitted through the generations: ‘make them known to your children and your children’s children’ (Deuteronomy 4.9): they’re worth passing on.

 

The task of the Church’s proclamation through her preachers, her teachers, through parents, grandparents, through all of us, is to enable that word to reverberate through the generations.

 

So, the word is announced: announced to us a gift from God, that is in turn to be announced to the community of faith and to the world.

 

That’s why scripture is the heart of the first part of the Eucharist: it is announced.

 

So too it is accepted and received.

 

The letter of James tells us, ‘…rid yourself of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls’ (James 1.21)

 

There’s a quite a bit to unpack!

 

The preliminary to welcoming the implanted word is to rid ourselves of sordidness and rampant wickedness. To be able to welcome God’s word we place ourselves under its authority.

 

Again, the Eucharist mirrors this by calling us to confess our sins so that we can be both reconciled to the Lord and to one another, but also so that we don’t impose upon scripture our own projections, but we wait - like Samuel and St Peter, in the words of a gospel acclamation - whispering, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening, you have the words of eternal life’

 

It is in that spiritual state that we come to accept and receive the word before us.

 

Welcome with meekness the implanted word. I guess many of us don’t like the word ‘meekness’, it sounds a bit pathetic, simpering, weak.

 

It is, though, the posture of humility, in which we use our two ears in proportion to our one mouth: the word is to be heard above the clamour of personal priorities and whims.

 

Meekness is the spiritual posture of the Blessed Virgin Mary, receptive and willing, that says, ‘I am the handmaid [the servant] of the Lord; let it be unto me according to thy word’ (Luke 1.39)

 

And this word has ‘the power to save your souls’.

 

There’s the crux of it.

Fidelity to the scriptures has the power to save your eternal identity before God, to restore you, to heal you, to open you up to the ways of heaven now and in the life of the world to come.

 

Wow. Wow. Wow.

 

So, we have the word of God announced; the word of God accepted.

 

But let’s just catch our breath.

 

The word of God refers to texts on the written page and also to the Word (capital ‘w’) of God, Jesus Christ: indeed, one bears witness to the other.

 

Jesus Christ, who is soaked in scripture, is the fulfilment of it.

 

Our fidelity first is to the person of Christ. As he himself says:

 

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39–40).

 

One of the great problems of contemporary Christianity, perhaps the biggest challenge for the Church, is that so many people don’t actually read their Bibles: ‘is this not the reason why you are wrong,’ Jesus says to the Sadducees elsewhere, ‘because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?’ (Mark 12.24)

 

Let’s get back to our Bibles!

 

So, the movement in our readings today is that the scriptures are announced and accepted; and they are also actioned.

 

The spirit of the scriptures is put into action when we seek to orientate our lives to God and remain faithful to Christ; when our hearts are moved and cleansed from all defilement, and are presented as a holy and living sacrifice to God.

 

The gospel reading reminds us that we can do all sorts of external actions to give the impression that we are following the commandments of God, we can even honour Christ with what we say, but our hearts can remain far away.

 

Left to our own devices we slip readily into evil intentions, ‘abandoning the commandment of God and holding to human tradition’ (Mark 7.8)

 

When scripture is actioned then we see the fruits true religion, as James puts it, ‘pure and undefiled before God, the Father’ which he describes as ‘care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world’. (James 1.27)

 

That’s why we need to interpret the world - culture and society - through the eyes of scripture and not interpret scripture through the eyes of the world.

 

So we have the word of God, announced, accepted and actioned.

 

Announced by God through revelation and inspired authors.

 

Accepted by believers as the lively oracles of God.

 

Actioned by those who seek to serve the will of the living Word of God, Jesus Christ.

 

There’s the commission for the new week, to pick up your Bible and be soaked in the living word of God and invite the Holy Spirit to lead you to the ways of Jesus Christ, the Word… made flesh.