A Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill by the Reverend Robert Atwell on Palm Sunday 2008

What happened in Jerusalem two thousand years ago? It’s a straight-forward question, but not that simple to answer. Anyone who has participated in a dramatic reading of the Passion as we have just done knows how many different characters are involved. It would be quite a task simply to list all those who must have come across Jesus as he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, who witnessed his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane late on Maundy Thursday night or his execution barely twelve hours later.

There were pilgrims arriving in Jerusalem for the Passover. There were the religious aristocracy who were determined to get rid of a man who constantly challenged their authority. Then there were the disciples of Jesus and his mother, confused and bewildered by the pace of events that spiralled out of control. There were ordinary people confronted with an event that did not fit into their understanding of God.

There were soldiers and police of various kinds who – at least at first – probably thought it was going to be just another ordinary day on duty. There were the Roman officials who had to make quick decisions lest they end up with a riot on their hands. Like Lhasa at the moment, Jerusalem was a tinderbox, and the slightest spark could have sent the whole lot up in flames. And then there were a clutch of prisoners on death row awaiting execution, all hoping for amnesty from the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, because it was the Passover.

If all these, who in some way had come across Jesus, were to have been asked, 'What happened?' they would have given different answers. Some would have seen nothing out of the ordinary: just one more public execution by a repressive regime. But others would have recognised instinctively that something extraordinary had happened, something of inestimable importance that was to change the course of human history.

Which brings us to now, two thousand years down the line.

If we were to ask the same question today, ‘What happened that week in Jerusalem?’ a survey of people's attitudes and responses would yield a similar variety of answers. Now, as then, there would be a mixture of ignorance and indifference. But there would also be faith: a recognition of the grace of God breaking into our world un a unique way.

The accounts of the last week of Jesus’ life and his execution by the Roman authorities were the first parts of the Gospels to be written down. We call them ‘Passions’ because they record the passionate love of God for his world. Today the English word ‘passion’ invariably carries an erotic content, but the Latin root of the word, passio, means ‘suffering’. These texts are called ‘Passions’ because Jesus reveals the love of God through his suffering and death.

Christ will not be put to death again, but the fruits of that death live on and we are all its beneficiaries. Once you’ve been touched by this love, so amazing, so divine, you know that it’s the most important thing in the world. I believe that the goodness of Jesus' love and his sacrifice was immense, permanent, for all time and for all people. It has certainly transformed my life.

Crucifixion was terrible. It lifted up its victims to display them naked and immobilized before a terrified populace. It was the ultimate deterrent used by the Romans to subjugate the populations they had conquered. ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself,’ says Jesus in St John’s Gospel (John 12.32-3).

It is clear that from quite early on in his ministry Jesus had a premonition about the fate that awaited him. Sometimes he referred to his death obliquely; sometimes he was candid about it – much to the puzzlement and horror of his disciples. The lifting up of Jesus on the cross is part of a single movement of his self-offering and exaltation to God.

‘Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so will the Son of Man be lifted up.’ (John 3.14) As he approached his death Jesus also referred to that odd event described in the Old Testament when an infestation of poisonous snakes attacked the Israelites in the wilderness as they journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses fashioned a bronze serpent, stuck it on a pole and lifted it up for the people, telling anyone who had been bitten to look at it and so be healed. Jesus uses this story to interpret his own imminent death. He too would be ‘lifted up’, not on a pole but on a cross, and it would be for the healing of mankind.

There is no adequate way of commemorating Jesus’ death. To truly remember something is a complex thing because it involves more than drumming up a memory of a past event, even something as horrific as the crucifixion. Remembrance is more than a feat of memory. The true opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but ‘dismembering’. To truly remember is to put something back together that has become disconnected.

In our worship today and throughout this Holy Week we are drawn into the movement of God’s grace. As we remember Christ crucified and reflect on our place in what has happened, so we discover ourselves being glued back together again by the grace of God. It is through Jesus that we experience the healing for which we long, for we are all wounded people. ‘By his wounds we are healed’.

Christ is lifted up, and when we look into his face we encounter not the condemnation of God, but his love and forgiveness; and in that encounter is our salvation, our healing and our peace.