Quinquagesima Sunday

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I was recently asked if the Bible tells us when JESUS knew He was going to suffer and die on the Cross. My answer…? Not exactly. – What we do know from our study of the Book of Revelation, is that St. John the Divine had an apocalyptic vision, where the dragon (who is the Devil), stood waiting for JESUS, “so that he might devour the Child as soon as He was born” (Revelation 12,4a). – This vision was holistic in its perspective, for, from the moment of His Incarnation, Satan made every attempt possible on the LORD’s life but was unsuccessful until the Cross. If you recall, JESUS’ life was threatened by Herod shortly after the LORD’s birth, the people of Nazareth wanted to throw him from a cliff because He claimed to be the Messiah foretold by the prophet Isaiah, and the religious leaders in Jerusalem, along with their followers, took up stones to stone the LORD, on many occasions.  

If the question is focused on JESUS’ knowledge of His mission in its fullest expression, known or unknown, as a child or a juvenile, we do not have much information in the Bible about JESUS while a youth in Galilee. We do know, however, that after His Baptism by John in the Jordan, JESUS set His face directly towards achieving His mission, evidenced by the fact that He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested. And once there, JESUS was tested to the extreme, so that He might prove He was worthy to fulfill His mission to redeem mankind from sin and to lead all people who believe in Him and His movement, into the promised land of His Father’s Kingdom.

JESUS became so familiar with His mission’s objective, and how a Roman Cross would be His undoing, that in today’s Gospel Lesson from St. Luke, JESUS tells His disciples about the circumstances surrounding His Passion, Death, and powerful Resurrection … for the third time! – In Luke 18,31, we read: “He took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again’” (18,31-33).

We are some fifty days from Easter. Lent begins in three days, and we will welcome the season of penitence, officially, with the celebration of the Eucharist on Ash Wednesday. And this we will do, so that we begin our journey to the Empty Tomb, without forgetting the Cross. – The Cross! – In today’s Gospel Lesson, it is evident, that JESUS knew about the Cross, and that it was His principal mission. He knew as the writer of Hebrews tells us, that if He was to be “the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him”, He had to acquire the perfect knowledge of the Father’s will for Him, “by the things which He suffered in obedience” (Hebrews 5, 9 & 8).

It is too early to speak about the extent of the LORD’s suffering, which He foreknew, for there are fifty days yet for us to discuss these matters before Easter. Yet, we should stop to consider what acquired knowledge JESUS was seeking to obtain through obedience to His Father, as He turned His face and began to lead His disciples to the deadly crossroads, awaiting the LORD in Jerusalem.

We are given a clue as to what JESUS was about in His final trip to Jerusalem, though we, like the disciples, may not instinctively understand the LORD’s motivation. In our Collect for Quinquagesima Sunday, we read that “without charity (love), all of our doings, are nothing worth.”1 This is a beautiful summary of what St. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (13,1-3). – Both the Collect and the Epistle Lesson for today convey this biblical truth, that though we might walk the earth, having the full measure of the giftings of the Holy Spirit activated in our lives – speaking the language of GOD’s Royal Court; having the mind of GOD to know all mysteries throughout all ages; having the faith to say to this mountain or to that mountain, be removed into the sea; or giving all of our time, talent, and treasure to the poor; or even laying down our lives for the principles of this things that most convict us – if we are not sincere and fervent in our devotion to GOD and our fellow men, (viz., love), we are nothing. ‘Without charity, all of our doings, are nothing worth.’ Without love, we possess a complete negation of any relationship to GOD and His promises – Presence – and Person. – Without charity, ‘church’, we are nothing. 

JESUS knew this also. Even though the LORD fed the five thousand, cleansed lepers, confounded the religious Temple leaders, and delivered people from demons, if He had not Love, His ministry would have been nothing worth. – And as we will learn over the next seven weeks, JESUS did not go to Jerusalem to start a military or political kingdom; He did not go there to be a hero; He did not even go there to make a dogmatic, religious point at the cost of His life. JESUS went to Jerusalem, knowing full well that He would be delivered to the Gentiles to be mocked, insulted, spit upon, scourged, and killed. JESUS, knowing His mission and its outcome manifestly, went there for Love. To do otherwise would have been for His life and ministry to be ‘counted as nothing worth.’ 

Is it possible to say such a thing about the LORD JESUS Christ? That if He did not obediently follow the will of the Father, deny Himself, pick up His Cross, and suffer humiliation in death before all the Jews and Gentiles in Jerusalem for the sake of sincere and fervent devotion to GOD and His fellow man, in and through Charity, that His life and ministry would be considered a negation? – I believe the answer must be ‘yes’, especially since He says as much Himself.

In St. John’s Gospel, chapter twelve, the LORD JESUS, discussing with His disciples on another occasion about His impending crucifixion by the Romans at the hands of the Jewish leaders, says: “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified [through the things He must suffer] … Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I came to this hour” (12,23 & 27).

In St. Luke 18,31-34, JESUS tells His disciples that everything that the Law and the Prophets foretold was about to come to pass. That is, Love was to be revealed in a way that no eye has ever seen before, nor has any ear ever heard of it. Love, which counts everything done as something worth, is, according to JESUS’ prophecy about His impending and willful suffering, soon to be revealed at The Cross. For, it is at The Cross that GOD makes perfect Love in Charity, known. At The Cross, the Charity that makes all things something worth, will be shamelessly proclaimed for all to see, to process, and if they wish…to believe. For, at The Cross, JESUS Christ reveals the Love of GOD for the world and He suffereth long, yet remaining kind. On the Cross, Christ, who is Charity, does not vaunt Himself; is not puffed up; is not unseemly and does not seek His own. On the Cross, JESUS who is Love, is not easily provoked, does not rejoice in iniquity, rejoicing only in the truth. On The Cross, the Love of GOD personified bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. On the Cross, our Savior reveals how He thinks about you and me. For on The Cross of Christ, JESUS Loves through a sincere and fervent devotion to GOD and His fellow men.

The disciples, by this time, I believe, understood who JESUS was to the best of their abilities. They had confessed as much, saying at one point: “We believe you are the Christ, the Son of the Living GOD!” (St. John 6,69). And while others turned away at certain points in His ministry from Him, with JESUS, the disciples stayed – for they knew that in no one else resided the words of life. Yet, the Scriptures are clear, though JESUS was plain in His allusions to His Passion and Death, His disciples, “understood none of these things; these sayings were hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken” (St. Luke 18,34). To the disciples, it was clear that they understood, “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him … To open blind eyes; to bring out prisoners from the prison, and those who sit in darkness from the prison house” (Isaiah 42,1 & 7). Yet, they did not understand, “Behold this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased … [For] greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (St. John 9,2; 15,5; St. Matthew 17,6). – One commentator has observed that at this point in the Gospels, JESUS was gaining popularity that would soon fade away because “the people had expected Him to be a temporal, nationalistic Messiah. And, their rulers, both civil and religious, had begun their treacherous plots to get rid of Him. Only the faithful band of the Twelve held fast as He turned His face towards Jerusalem for the final appeal of His mission. Yet even they were without the understanding of the real nature of His Messiahship.”2

A liberator who drives poisonous snakes from the garden and finds lost sheep; binding their wounds, so that they might leap and run again. This is the JESUS that the disciples and the people in Israel thought they understood. Yet, the LORD is that and much, much more. He is also the Lamb who lays down His life for His friends. He is so much more because He is Love, shining forth Heaven’s sincere devotion to GOD and His fellow men. – We have fifty days to explore, discuss, and prayerfully understand what it means, this Love that JESUS came to reveal on the Cross. This Love that suffereth long – envies not – does not seek its own – and that lays down its life for its friends.

Brothers and sisters of St. Mark’s, it is our duty as followers of Christ to understand this Love that JESUS reveals on The Cross. It is our duty, because in our Christian Baptism, like a seed, this Love – this Charity- has been deposited in our hearts, and we are to fan it into flame. For without the fires of sincerity and devotion to GOD and our fellow man alive in us, all our doings, all of our giving, all of our wisdom, and all of our sacrifice are nothing worth. Amen.

1 1928 Book of Common Prayer, 122.

2 Shepherd Massey Hamilton Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, (New York : Oxford University Press, 1950) 248-9.