1703012-fr-daniel-dries

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A sermon preached by the Rev’d Dr Daniel Dries Lent 2 (Evensong) Christ Church St Laurence – 12 March 2017 May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. Jesus said, Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. The English poet W H Auden wrote that, “Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.” Good Friday certainly lacks the joy and exhilaration of Easter and Christmas. Perhaps, this day of defeat is a stumbling block to faith, at least for some. For others, the tree of defeat seems to generate some sense of morbid fascination. Over the course of a typical year, we can expect certain news stories to appear with a slightly unnerving and predictable regularity. I have observed that, every year on Good Friday, the evening news bulletin will usually show a thirty second grab from the Good Friday service at St Andrew’s Cathedral, and a second diplomatic 30 second grab from St Mary’s Cathedral. The respective archbishops are depicted in their pulpits, although it all became rather exciting a year or two ago when the bulletin I watched somehow confused the identity of the two clergymen, no doubt generating some degree of concern for both. On Good Friday, in addition to these token acknowledgments of Christian tradition, there will almost certainly be a brief story about some well-meaning person of faith (usually in a third world nation) who carries a large crude cross through a village and attaches himself to it (curiously, I think such people are always male). I would never criticise any person for living out their Christian faith in a slightly unusual way. No doubt, there are many in our world who consider it quite peculiar for grown men to walk around in a small black hat adorned with a pompom. However, we have to ask what Jesus really meant when he encouraged his disciples to carry their cross and to follow him. I suspect that whipping ourselves and tying ourselves to a piece of wood is almost certainly not what he intended. There will always be people of faith (of all faith traditions) who are drawn to a literal interpretation of sacred texts. Despite W H Auden’s assertion, there are also people who will be drawn to the tragic aspects of a most brutal and humiliating execution. The morbid aspects of the crucifixion really do seem to strengthen the faith of some believers.  Jesus said, Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. In a more recent translation Luke, Chapter 14 reads, ‘Whoever does not bear the cross…’ while in the version we read this evening, Christ says that ‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’ Gender-exclusive language aside, there is something very powerful in this minor variation – own cross. It suggests that we all have a unique cross to bear. Slavishly imitating the cross of Christ, or even trying to carry the cross of another person, will almost certainly take our attention away from the unique cross that has been entrusted to us. Having a cross to bear has become something of a cliché. We speak of bearing a cross if we have an illness, an ailment, or if something or someone in our life is not quite as we would have them be. Few of us would choose to experience a shocking toothache or living next door to difficult neighbours. We may think of these as heavy crosses to bear, but we would never choose them for ourselves. Page | 1


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1703012-fr-daniel-dries by Christ Church St Laurence - Issuu