St Agnes Kennington
23rd March 1997
PALM SUNDAY
Some of us are aware, I guess, that there's a General Election coming up in a few weeks' time.
The word election means choosing; and you and I will be invited on 1st May to choose from a number of candidates which one shall represent us at Westminster for the next five years or so.
The word candidate means whiter-than-white, or dressed up in spotless linen. That's an interesting way to look at a potential MP, don't you think?
Even more significant for us is that this word was used for those men and women in the days of the Roman Empire who offered themselves for baptism as Christians at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Although the practising of Christianity was a capital offence, these people after a long period of instruction and testing were chosen or elected by the Christian congregation as suitable candidates for baptism.
The suitability of these Christian candidates (unlike that of most of their parliamentary counterparts who see their best chance of election in promising their supporters the earth) didn't depend primarily on what they promised to do in the future; on the contrary, the Christian candidates were judged in the light of how sincerely they had repented of their sins in the immediate present.
We might get a rather different lot of MPs, don't you think, if such a criterion were to be applied by voters on May the First!
Now let's turn to the Passion of Jesus Christ.
In this Passion story we hear about another kind of election. Pontius Pilate asked the ordinary people to exercise their vote to choose between two men, Barabbas and Jesus. He invited them to put their "X" alongside the candidate they preferred to be released and the one they wanted put to death.
As we know, they chose the wrong man. Instead of choosing the truly whiter-than-white innocent candidate in the judgement-hall they chose a man whose track-record was deplorable but whose popular appeal was greater. So Barabbas was elected and Jesus was condemned to death.
Ever since then we've been faced with the same choice; and most people still make the wrong one. It's between Jesus and Barabbas, the Son of God or the Man of the World. As a result the of their wrong choice on the first Good Friday an innocent man was condemned to suffering a shameful and humiliating death; as a result of wrong choices today innocent people are subjected to suffering, humiliation and even death.
At least that is what it looks like. But the reality is far different.
St Paul says of Jesus "he did not [choose] to cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave... and he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.. but God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names... that every knee should bend at the name of Jesus"
Crucifixion was the punishment for runaway slaves. Nailing them to a cross was thought to be a good way of deterring others from following their example. However, as St Paul says, Jesus willingly accepted this terrible but undeserved fate.
He accepted it because it was his Father's will. It was his Father's will because only in this way could the sins and sufferings of mankind be made any sense of at all.
Last week we faced the fact of suffering and I promised that I would tell you about God's answer to it. Well, God's answer to sin and suffering is not to prevent it by taking away man's freewill (which would defeat his whole purpose in creation) but rather to become a man himself, take those sufferings upon himself on the cross, and invite those he has freed from sin by his death to "take up their cross and follow him".
So the Election with which we are faced every day of our lives, is the choice between Jesus and Barabbas, Good and Evil, the God of Heaven or the Prince of this World: and it turns out to be rather a different affair from what most people suppose.
Instead of its being ourselves who are invited to do the choosing by placing our cross alongside the candidate we prefer, we discover that in the first instance God has already elected to place his cross alongside us, not with a view to our putting it down (on a slip of paper or anywhere else) but with the intention that we should take it up of our own freewill; and having thus taken it up that we should follow patiently the footsteps of the One who took up his cross on the first Good Friday for the love of you and me.
Jesus Christ is the truly innocent candidate, the lamb without blemish, who takes away the sins of the world. He invites us, and all men to follow his example and by confessing our sins become truly whiter-than-white candidates for the heavenly general election which will take place on the Last Day.
All this is what Paul calls the foolishness of God - that God should be willing to cast his vote for mankind on the hill of Calvary. As Jesus hung upon the cross, apparently as helpless and weak as a man can ever be, he was working out his purpose which his Heavenly Father had determined on from the creation of the world.
To the worlds eyes it looks like foolishness and weakness. But in the eye of faith, St Paul tells us "the foolishness of God is wiser than men's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than men's strength."