All these questions.

But the Good Friday message is always the same and the biggest of all the questions remains the same. What does it mean when we say that Jesus died for us on the cross?

Matthew leaves out talk of victory to stress humility.  Jesus, in his entry into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives rides a humble donkey.  Triumphant Kings and warriors rode war horses, didn’t they?  The donkey is absurd, isn’t it?   

Then we come to a moment of emotional intensity unmatched in the New Testament.  Jesus sees Mary crying and he begins to weep himself. Jesus cries with Mary. What a powerful example of Jesus’ compassion and what a testament to his fullest embodiment of the human emotional life.

The religious leaders even turn against the now-sighted man with disgust that he, a sinner, would deign to tell them how to think about Jesus. You can almost smell the self-righteousness of these affronted religious types. We know them in our own time. They often get caught offending in just the way they accuse others of sinning.

Time and again we see the witness of an individual, in this case the Samaritan woman at the well, lead to a whole group believing in Christ.  Jesus stays in the village for two days.  The people are first drawn to listen to Jesus by her witness, then converted by Christ himself. 

In terms of humans being in control of their own lives, of course the cross is a moment of profound humiliation and defeat. But in John, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are collapsed into a single movement of absolute divine control or God being sovereign and in control of everything.

These messianic temptations were the devil’s ways of tempting Jesus to bypass the cross, to satisfy the expectations of the Jews and bring down the fire of heaven on the Romans. To be a hero. To be obedient to someone other than God and adopt the role of the Son and King of Kings without being the suffering servant prophesied in Isaiah.

On the mountain top, the divinity of Christ is revealed to them. After being literally petrified with fear, they are woken by the touch of Jesus, a touch from the King of kings.   The word used to describe Jesus’ dazzling appearance is the same as that used to describe lightning. The disciples are woken out of their ignorance, their sleeping, to see the light of Christ.

This week's continues the Sermon on the Mount and follows the Beatitude and Jesus teachings on salt and light and to avoid the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. It contains no parables or miracle narratives, only straightforward teaching: do this.

When Jesus says he will not abolish, he clearly does not mean he will not re-interpret.  Many times Jesus reinterprets Old Testament Scripture, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, usually beginning with something like … "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times ... but I say to you."

Now last week’s gospel says that Jesus began his ministry by urging people to repent. To turn away from worldly selfishness because the Kingdom was near. So, these blessing follow all those who would follow and centre their lives on Jesus who is the embodiment of this new Kingdom of Heaven.

Now at the heart of all of Paul’s letters is the cross of our Lord Jesus. In fact it is so central to Paul’s teaching that he wrote in the very next chapter of this letter to the Corinthians that “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2)

When Jesus asks us, ‘what are you looking for?’ he’s asking if we are ready to be disciples. If we are looking for comfort, or security, or some assurance that we are right, we might be looking in the wrong direction. If we are looking for acceptance or affirmation from others that we are ‘good people’, we might not be ready to ask where Jesus lives.

I think it is important to celebrate our baptisms today and to recognize that our own baptisms are located back into the baptism of Jesus Christ himself in the River Jordan.

God was in the process of revealing himself not only to Jews but to gentiles, people like us.

To fulfil Old Testament prophesy, the birth of the saviour of the world was first revealed to the Jews, i.e. the shepherds; then the gentiles, the wise men.  

So today let’s be like the Shepherds and go and see this little baby – this literally awesome baby who was already Lord at his birth.  He came for us, for you and for me. 

God did not entrust his son to be fathered by a rabbi or a scribe or a Pharisee or a rich merchant but by a tradesman, from a very humble village in one of the most humble provinces in the Roman Empire.

John the Baptist's question from prison is really the question for hearers of every age. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” It is the question.  It sort of leaps off the page and lands in our laps.  What are we to make of this Jesus for whom we wait?  Is he real?  Could he really be ‘God with me?’  When John preached ‘Repent!  For the Kingdom of God is nigh,’ what did he even mean?

For all the gospel writers; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and for the early Church, John the Baptist was the start of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t just arise out of a vacuum but is the continuation of what God had already been doing through the Jewish people.

So, welcome to Advent, when we look back to the birth of Jesus and all that that means and look forward to his second coming. And we are beginning our season of Advent by looking at today’s Gospel and New Testament readings in the light of the great hope we have in Christ Jesus.