Lent Pilgrimage 6: Sacred Encounter

Introit: HOSANNA TO THE SON OF DAVID – Victoria

 Opening:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
(Zechariah 9:9)

Hosanna to the Son of David, the King of Israel.

All: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Welcome to Sunday Worship this Palm Sunday from the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel. The Chapel is a sacred place at the heart of this ancient University, where all are welcome whatever religion or belief position they hold. It was built as a memorial to the 754 sons and 1 daughter of the University community who died in The Great War. Surrounding us, the crests of the Chancellors of the University since its foundation in 1451 remind us of our heritage, and depicted in stained glass windows the saints Ninian, Columba, Mungo and Andrew watch over us.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, during Lent we have been preparing by works of love and self-sacrifice for the celebration of our Lord’s death and resurrection.

Today we come together in a final act of this memorial, this corporate act of memory, joined with the Church throughout the world. Christ enters his own city to complete his work as our Saviour, to suffer, to die, and to rise again. Let us go with him in faith and love, so that, united with him in his sufferings, we may share his risen life

HYMN:

All glory, laud, and honour

to thee, Redeemer, King!

to whom the lips of children

made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,

thou David’s royal Son,

who in the Lord’s Name comest,

the King and Blessed One. Refrain

The people of the Hebrews

with palms before thee went;

our praise and prayer and anthems

before thee we present. Refrain

To thee before thy passion

they sang their hymns of praise;

to thee, now high exalted,

our melody we raise. Refrain 

We hear our first reading: from the Gospel according to St Luke:

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

‘Blessed is the king

who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

Hear all the tribes hosanna cry;

O Saviour meek, your road pursue,

with palms and scattered garments strewn.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die.

O Christ, your triumphs now begin

o’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

The hosts of angels in the sky

look down with sad and wondering eyes

to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die;

bow your meek head to mortal pain;

then take, O Christ, your power and reign.

From Passion Sunday with its sorrow, to Palm Sunday with its acclamation and celebration. Jesus moved up to Jerusalem. To be Jewish in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover is something special. To this day, there’s a phrase Jewish people often say “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the time of Yom Kippur and Passover. Now, Jesus, this young Jewish teacher with a reputation for healing, was ‘going up’ to Jerusalem. Following in the footsteps of thousands of pilgrims who had made the journey before him, singing the Songs of Ascent. “Hosanna! Hosanna!” cried the faces in the crowd.

Being part of a crowd of joyful, happy people can be an uplifting experience – think of those who lined The Mall to cheer the newly married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Nearer to here, last year Glasgow Warriors rugby team won the Pro 12 Championship and had an open top bus procession into Glasgow’s George Square. The blue flags were waved, and smiling, happy faces in the crowd chanted “We are Warriors! We are Warriors!” Some people who did not know why the crowd had gathered or didn’t care hurried on to their business, the shops, their homes – much as people did in the ordinariness of Palm Sunday.

The University of Glasgow sits on Gilmorehill overlooking the city. People still speak of ‘going up’ to the University. Time at university can be remembered as a special place in the lives of those fortunate enough to be there. Each year more than 130 couples return to get married in this Chapel. When students graduate, the meaning is also understood as ‘going up’. Graduation is a time of celebration and acclamation. 

But for some, as with Jesus on Palm Sunday, there is in the midst of all the celebrations an accompanying, unspoken sorrow. Perhaps someone special is missing. And in both our times of joy and times of sorrow, we may be struck by how unconcernedly the world just moves on. The hardest part of my job is visiting a family when a student or member of staff has died or has taken seriously ill. I go unannounced to the family’s home, otherwise it becomes a visitation, rather than a genuine visit to offer our condolences and whatever support we can. For that family, their world has stopped, but outside it just moves on with seeming indifference. A wise academic once said, when making visits in these deeply sad times you had to be ready to accept the possibility of rejection. True, but the purpose is not to seek approval, but simply to the face of the University in caring and supporting our own in times of distress.

It’s there, in these times of sorrow and of joy, the words of the motto of the University become real – “The Way, The Truth, the Life”. The answer of Jesus to Thomas, who despite his questions and doubts remained there for and with Jesus. A friendly face in a hostile crowd. 

What we can do, in times of joy or sorrow, indeed all we’re asked to do, is to be there for each other. Not to stop the world, but to be a presence in each other’s lives. To become more than a face in the crowd. 

God of all,

you gave your only-begotten Son to take the form of a servant
and to be obedient even to death on a cross.
Give us the same mind that was in Christ Jesus
that, sharing in his humility,
we may come to be with him in his glory,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

All: Amen

HYMN: 

Open are the gifts of God, (CH4 390, Gibbons Song 13)

gifts of love to mind and sense;

hidden is love’s agony,

love’s endeavour, love’s expense.

Drained is love in making full,

bound in setting others free,

poor in making many rich,

weak in giving power to be.

Therefore he who shows us God

helpless hangs upon the tree;

and the nails and crown of thorns

tell of what God’s love must be.

Here is God: no monarch he,

throned in easy state to reign;

here is God, whose arms of love

aching, spent, the world sustain.

A Reading from the passion of Christ according to Luke:

Luke:

They brought Jesus before Pilate, and began to accuse him, saying,

Priests:

We found this man perverting our nation,

forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor,

and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.

Luke:

Pilate asked him,

Pilate:

Luke:

Jesus:

Are you the king of the Jews?

He answered
You say so.

Hagios ho theos, hagios ischiros, hagios athanatos, eleison himas

Luke:

Pilate called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them,

Pilate:

You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; but I have not found him guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.

Luke:

Then they all shouted out together,

Crowd:

Away with this fellow! Crucify, crucify him!

Luke:

So Pilate released the man they asked for and handed Jesus over as they wished.

Hagios ho theos, hagios ischiros, hagios athanatos, eleison himas 

Luke:

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said,

Jesus:

Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

Hagios ho theos, hagios ischiros, hagios athanatos, eleison himas 

Luke:

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him. … But the other rebuked him, saying:

Criminal:

We indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Luke:

Then he said,

Criminal:

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Luke:

Jesus replied,

Jesus:

Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

 Hagios ho theos, hagios ischiros, hagios athanatos, eleison himas

 Luke:

 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said,

Jesus: 

 Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

Luke:

Having said this, he breathed his last.

Casals – O vos omnes

You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy… . (Psalm 30: 11)

As we move into Holy Week, these words from Psalm 30 seem to be stood on their head by what is happening to Jesus. The great acclamations of Palm Sunday, turned to dust, to betrayal, to hatred and to death. The joy of those crowds who welcomed Jesus – lost now in the mocking of the crowd around the cross, of the criminal crucified with Christ. Palm Sunday seemed to be a happy ending – but it was not the end. The joy turns to pain, the jubilation to dismay and anger. The cries of welcome to the Son of David become demands for his death, shouts of “Crucify him!” No longer Hosanna, but sorrow. “O all you who walk by on the road, look carefully and see: if there be any sorrow like my sorrow,” in the words of the anthem we have just heard.

 We would not have reacted that way, we might think. But I wonder. Surely many of those people who celebrated the coming of Jesus the Messiah were just people like you and me, people who had worked out ways which helped them to find meaning in their lives and who sought to live out their faith, their values, in integrity. People who believed strongly in the Messiah, who were carried and sustained and uplifted by that hope. And then Jesus came, and wanted to change the ways they had been doing things, change the Temple, ask questions about how they understood what they believed. And they didn’t like that.

 If we allow them to, the events of Holy Week will confront us with our own expectations of life and faith, our own hopes, our fears and our doubts; show us where we have had faith in ourselves, our own structures, instead of in God, and call us to change, to a new understanding of how God works in our lives.

It might take us to the cross too. “Be our hope / in our stations / of forsakenness,” prays the German poet Hildegard Nies. Be our hope “in our waiting rooms of anxiety / in our suburbs of desolation.” And that is what the cross promises us. The cross, Christ crucified, is for some a stumbling-block, for others foolishness, as St Paul puts it, “but to those who are called … the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Christ, who rejoices with us when we rejoice; Christ crucified who, when our lives are filled with mourning, with pain, is there with us, accompanying us, sustaining us, with us. This is what Holy Week offers us: the way to the cross, a way with Christ which reminds us that he is present with us in pain, in grief as well as in joy and rejoicing. And a way with Christ who calls us to follow him into those places, that we might not just know him with us in our dark times, but stand with others in their dark times too. 

HYMN:

When God Almighty came to earth

He took the pain of Jesus’ birth,

He took the flight of refugee,

And whispered, “Humbly follow me.”

When God Almighty met his folk,

Of peace and truth he boldly spoke

To set the slave and tyrant free,

And whispered, “Humbly follow me.”

When God Almighty took his place

To save the sometimes human race,

He took it boldly on a tree,

And whispered, “Humbly follow me.”

When God Almighty comes again,

He’ll meet us incognito as then;

And though no words may voice his plea,

He’ll whisper, “Are you following me?”

Let us pray to God our Father,

who loved the world so much that he sent his only Son

to give us life:

For those who make laws, interpret them, and administer them,

that our common life may be ordered in justice and mercy,

let us pray to the Lord.

All: Lord, have mercy.

For those who make so many places in the world a

battleground,

And for those who have the courage to work for justice and peace,

let us pray to the Lord.

All: Lord, have mercy.

For those in the darkness and agony of isolation and grief,

and for those who, weighed down with hardship, failure, or sorrow,

are lonely or afraid,

that they may find support and encouragement,

let us pray to the Lord.

All: Lord, have mercy.

For those who have lost their way in their life, that they may find new

direction,

let us pray to the Lord.

All: Lord, have mercy.

That we, with those who have died,

may be received with mercy,

let us pray to the Lord.

All: Lord, have mercy.

Lord of the Church,

All: hear our prayer,

and make us one in heart and mind

to serve you in Christ our Lord.

Amen

We pray the Glasgow University prayer:

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who hast said "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life" we pray Thee: suffer us not to stray from Thee, Who art the Way, nor to distrust Thee, Who art the Truth, nor to rest in any other thing than Thee, Who art the Life. Teach us by Thy Holy Spirit what to believe, what to do, and wherein to find our rest. For Thine own name’s sake we ask it. Amen

Let us pray together as Christ has taught us:

Our Father, which art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done,

in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

HYMN:

My song is love unknown,

my Saviour’s love to me,

love to the loveless shown

that they might lovely be.

O who am I

that for my sake

my Lord should take

frail flesh and die?

Sometimes they strew his way,

and his strong praises sing,

resounding all the day

hosannas to their King.

Then “Crucify!”

is all their breath,

and for his death

they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?

What makes this rage and spite?

He made the lame to run,

he gave the blind their sight.

Sweet injuries!

Yet they at these

themselves displease,

and ’gainst him rise.

They rise, and needs will have

my dear Lord made away;

a murderer they save,

the Prince of Life they slay.

Yet steadfast he

to suffering goes,

that he his foes

from thence might free.

Here might I stay and sing,

no story so divine:

never was love, dear King,

never was grief like thine.

This is my friend,

in whose sweet praise

I all my days

could gladly spend.

May the Father,

who so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

bring you by faith to his eternal life.

All: Amen.

May Christ,

who accepted the cup of sacrifice

in obedience to the Father’s will,

keep you steadfast as you walk with him the way of his cross.

All: Amen.

May the Spirit,

who strengthens us to suffer with Christ

that we may share his glory,

set your minds on life and peace.

All: Amen.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be with you, and all those you love, now and forever.

Sung Amen (O radiant dawn, James MacMillan)

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