ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by Fr. Julian Browning at Evensong and Benediction on the Sunday next before Lent, 14 February 2010.

Readings: Exodus 3.1-6; John 12.27-36a.

Jesus said: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

We don't talk much about our own death. It's hardly a popular subject. If by some gloomy chance, we do start to ruminate about our deaths, we fear the worst. I shall not be ready, it will be most inconvenient. It's bound to go wrong. Or as Dorothy Parker suggested should be put on her tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgement. And it did go wrong for her. Nobody claimed her ashes. She spent the next seventeen years in a lawyer's filing cabinet.

In the passage from St John read this evening, Jesus talks about his imminent death. It is a prediction of the Passion, a prediction of crucifixion, and what St. John is doing with this literary device is explain to his readers what Jesus's death is all about, what it means. Through Jesus's words, his words to us, we are given inside knowledge, the theology we need to interpret these strange events. We have seen God revealed in Jesus' work on earth, and God will also be glorified by Jesus's death, both by his acceptance of the hour, and the manner of his death. Jesus is lifted up from the earth on the cross, and it is that image which will draw all people everywhere and down the ages to see him as Lord, as the Son of God. We are being prepared for change, for a transition from being the crowd standing there listening to Jesus, weighing up the pros and cons - to being his disciples watching at the foot of the cross, part of the story ourselves.

This wonderful passage, with its earlier section about the the grain of wheat dying to bring forth a rich harvest, is usually reserved for mass on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, so that we are propelled into Passiontide with the theological knowhow we require. Father, glorify your name. Jesus's purpose in life and in death is identical with the will of God.

That's weeks ahead. We haven't got there yet. But the sneak preview is for our benefit. On Wednesday we embark on one of the holiest and most challenging seasons of the Church's year, the season of Lent. For Lent each of us needs the bare outline of a plan, any plan will do for a start. That's just three days to think about what to do in Lent, or maybe not what to do, but how to mark the season as special and valuable to us on our journey to Easter. Today St John provides clues for our Lent as well as for Passiontide. Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. That's not just Jesus before his Passion, it's us preparing for Lent. Our lives are not for glorifying ourselves, they are for glorifying God. Our souls are troubled, because we are not entirely committed to this, so we can only move forward in trust, in faith. Having faith does not mean having an untroubled soul. Events have overtaken us, as events overtook Jesus. Wednesday is going to be Ash Wednesday whether we like it or not, whether we're ready or not. To glorify God we have come to this hour, and we just have to do the best we can, with no guarantees. A church can provide the structure for a well-spent Lent, but not the content, and not the open heart and mind we need if our purpose in life and in death is to be identified with the will of God. Alone each of us was called by God. Alone we struggle and pray. Alone we die and give an account to God. In Lent we accept and give thanks for that aloneness; God has singled us out.

We might have to start talking to ourselves about a death. Not the death which takes us out of this world, but deaths in life which lead to new life. When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die (Bonhoeffer). What is it that has got in the way, what have we put between ourselves and God so that we can't have a two way conversation? What must die? Lent is about hard truths, accepting reality. To help you on your way I'm going to give you a Valentine's Day card. On the outside of the card there is a little mouse who says, You are the answer to my prayer. We open the card and inside there is a great big cat, and the little mouse says, "You're not what I prayed for, but you seem to be the answer." The truth sets us free. We make ourselves real by telling the truth.

Jesus said, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. It is time for us to prepare for change, to prepare for the dying of our old selves. We have been like the crowd wandering through the Gospels listening to Jesus when it suited them. They kept their distance because it suited them not to understand too well. When Jesus is lifted up on the cross, that all changes, there is no distance between us and him anymore. He draws all people to himself. It is for that unity, that glory, that truth, that we start to prepare.