It can be overwhelming at the moment listening to the daily news as we hear of the latest figures for the number of cases of the Covid 19 virus and the number of deaths worldwide. Indeed, it may be so overwhelming that some of us may have stopped listening to the news or reading it. We simply can't bear it. If we are still listening we will be aware that there is much discussion about the 'peak' of the outbreak and when that will come. We all fear and dread the 'peak', that is the highest number of cases and deaths, but we all know that the peak must come and be passed before the numbers begin to fall and things begin to ease. We have to go over the peak and on to the other side.
Usually, of course, when we talk of 'peaks' and 'troughs' or the 'heights' and the 'depths', heights and peaks are good things and it is the depths that refer to loss, difficulty, and suffering. In this case, we know that the 'peak' of this pandemic will mean the depths of suffering, fear and anxiety for a great number of people.
Heights and depths. As we follow the way of Jesus this Holy Week we move from the heights of his exuberant welcome into Jerusalem, through his betrayal, his anguished prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, the desertion of his closest friends, the cruel mockery of his enemies, his false trial and torture, to the depths of his agonised death on the cross. Then we go with him to the heights as we celebrate next Sunday that the Lord is Risen and lives and reigns forever. But Jesus had to go through the depths of suffering before he was vindicated, raised and exalted.
In our reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians today we hear about heights and depths. These verses express the humiliation and exaltation of Christ; his descent to the deepest and darkest place in his death on the cross, and his subsequent exaltation as Lord of all. This hymn, as it is sometimes called, begins in fact in the 'heights'; it affirms that Jesus Christ 'was in the form of God', but he didn't see his divinity as something to be 'exploited.' The Greek word has a sense of 'grasping' or 'snatching'. He did not see equality with God as something to be 'grasped', taken by right and held on to; rather he emptied himself, he gave himself away.
Each phrase of this hymn then seems to descend deeper into the pit, like rungs of a descending ladder. As one commentator on these verses points out, here Christ 'moves from highest height to deepest depth, from the light of God to the darkness of death.' Down, down, down, he willingly goes. He does not grasp after his divine status but empties himself; he takes the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. He becomes flesh and blood like one of us, suffering the constraints of human existence. He takes on the form of a servant. We might think of Jesus stripping off his outer robe and stooping to wash his disciples' feet, the incident we particularly remember on Maundy Thursday. Jesus came not to 'be served' but 'to serve'.
Jesus takes up the role of the suffering servant in the book of Isaiah. As we heard in our Old Testament reading, the servant listens obediently to the word of the Lord God and willingly gives his back to those who strike him. 'I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard: I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.' Jesus willingly suffers this, and more, as he is tortured and mocked before his execution.
Jesus' self-emptying, his taking on our human nature, his obedience as the suffering servant, leads him right to the bottom of the ladder, to the depths of the pit. As we read in Philippians, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.
In our long passion reading today we read of those depths; of the false trial of Jesus, the ineffectual attempts by Pilate to have him freed, the clamour of the crowd for his blood, the mockery of the soldiers and the taunts of the scribes and the elders. Jesus is flogged and tortured and then nailed, hands and feet, to a cross. But even greater than his physical and mental torment, Jesus faces the ultimate suffering of feeling forsaken by his Father. This is the bottom of the pit. Jesus cries out from the cross: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' However, this is not nihilistic despair but a desperate cry to God, despite his seeming absence. Even in that place of darkness, Jesus calls to God. Jesus' cry of dereliction is word for word the first verse of Psalm 22, a Psalm which describes the Psalmist's physical suffering, the taunts and mockery of his enemies, and his sense of abandonment by God. All this is experienced in an intense form by Jesus.
Will God not rescue Jesus from the cross?
In our Old Testament reading from Isaiah, the suffering servant declares 'The Lord God helps me, therefore I have not been disgraced...I know I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.' Similarly in Psalm 22, the Psalmist, after expressing his suffering and desolation, then goes on to celebrate his deliverance. So, if Jesus is the chosen one, the Messiah, the King of the Jews, surely God will rescue and deliver him too? This is exactly what the scribes and elders and leaders of the people say as they taunt Jesus on the cross: 'If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now if he wants to...'
If Jesus is the Chosen One, the Son of God, then surely God cannot leave him abandoned to suffer and die? It is interesting that the Muslim view of Jesus' death is that God rescued him from the cross so that he did not die. Muslims revere Jesus, not as the Son of God, but as a great prophet, and they believe that God did not allow his enemies to triumph over him. So, they believe, Jesus was in some mysterious way rescued from the cross and raised alive to heaven without dying. The Christian view is different. It is precisely because Jesus is the Son of God that he must identify with us even to death and take upon himself the sin and suffering of the world. There are no short cuts for Jesus; the only way to his own vindication and resurrection, the only way to new life, forgiveness and transformation for all humanity, is through the cross.
So Jesus is not rescued from the cross. He must go down to the depths of the pit. He must go through with it and drink the bitter cup to its dregs. And there on the cross, God is 'in Christ reconciling the world to himself.'
Of course, vindication does finally come. Just as God acts to deliver the suffering servant and the Psalmist, God acts to deliver Jesus, but only after he has passed through the darkest regions of suffering and death.
I referred earlier to the heights and depths in our reading from Philippians. Jesus goes down to the bottom of the pit, the lowest rung of the ladder, as he becomes obedient even to death on a cross. But then of course we have the reversal in the last few verses:
'Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'
A key Christian confession is that 'Jesus is Lord'. He is the Lord who is Crucified and Risen. He is the exalted Lord of heaven and earth, precisely because he is also the crucified one. We cannot have Easter Sunday without going through Good Friday.
As we go through this Holy Week and reflect on the way of the cross, that Jesus had to go through the depths of suffering and death in order to be raised to new life, may we draw strength and hope for ourselves and for our world. Yes, recovery will come for our world after we have gone through the 'peak' of this virus. But all of us will one day have to pass through death; whether it is sooner or later, we all have a death to die. Yet, because Jesus has walked this way before us, we know that death is conquered and through him there is new life and transformation for us and for the whole of creation. For Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One is Lord.
As it says in the wonderful hymn
'Praise to the Holiest in the height
and in the depths be praise.
In all his ways most wonderful,
most sure in all his ways.'
Revd Helen Marshall