Jeremiah 31.31-34, John 12.20-33
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday), 18 March 2018
Corton Denham, Weston Bampfylde (not actually preached due to snow abandonment)
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
We live in a judgmental society. Take our Saturday evening TV entertainment, for instance. Where once the nation may have settled down together to enjoy a variety show, we now observe talent competitions which are as much about the stratagems and intrigues of the panel of judges as they are about the performers on stage. Britain’s Got Talent - but it’s the judges who have power; The Voice - where the performers are judged on their vocal talent alone, but the focus is on the judges and their reaction to what they hear. If you can’t stomach the sight of Simon Cowell sending another hopeful back into the wings condemned to obscurity, you can turn over to Come Dine With Me, where four ordinary people become judges of each other as each in turn plays host to the group, and their dinner parties are combative tests of who’s the best.
These might seem trivial examples but they are at the heart of our popular culture, so they actually tell us a lot about the sort of people we are. You will be able to think of other areas of life where our judgmental nature is revealed; in popular attitudes towards civil servants (judged as ‘inefficient’), NHS staff (judged as ‘incompetent’), or towards those who are struggling on low incomes (judged as ‘cheats’ or ‘scroungers’), or towards outsiders - asylum seekers judged as ‘gold-diggers’, travellers moved on from yet another site having been judged to be ‘dirty’, and currently Muslim women who, by a twisted act of judgmentalism over the clothes they wear, our popular imagination relates to ‘terrorists’. By our judgemental attitudes, words and actions we condemn others to all sorts of deaths in this world. Many people even condemn themselves by the judgements of this world: feeling they’re not good enough to meet the standards of the world around them, conditions such as anorexia nervosa, various forms of depression, suicide, are the consequence. [1]
We should not be surprised that we live in a judgmental society. For this is the way of the world. It is the way that the ruler of this world, the devil himself, wants us to be. He wants us to be like those guests smiling politely at their host around the meal table on Come Dine With Me, then tearing their host apart as soon as she leaves the room: for human conflict, division, and distress are the goal of the ruler of this world. What is the opposite of human flourishing? Where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. That’s the intention of the ruler of this world. And that’s why we live in a judgmental society.
Sadly we listen too much to the ruler of this world. Our churches are by no means immune to judgmentalism and divisiveness. It’s sobering to stop a moment to consider how we sometimes talk about others in the village we live in. And sobering in the extreme how disparagingly some Christians talk about other Christians with whom they differ on points of doctrine or ethics. But today, Passion Sunday, encourages us to listen to another voice on this subject. The voice of Jesus - who let us recall, was condemned by the judgements of the world, condemned to die a dissident’s death by crucifixion, the voice of one who turned around the judgements of the world against him, turned those very judgements back onto the ruler of this world. No statement in any court of law at any time in history has greater significance than the words which Jesus told his disciples about the meaning of the cross:
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’
Jesus on the cross is the judgement of this world. For Jesus on the cross reveals the ways of the world for what they are - the opposite of human flourishing, where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. The onlookers at the cross knew they were watching an innocent man die - a man innocent of malice, innocent of hatred, innocent of anything except his claim to be the architect of a new way of life for the world, a way which put God at the centre and where the consequence for people’s lives would be to live in love for each other - the kingdom of God, a world of of human flourishing.
Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate judgement on the ways of the world. The crucifixion acts like a mirror: the accusations thrown at Jesus return to accuse the accusers, as they see the wrong in themselves for the first time. The torment they put Jesus through returns to torment the tormenters, as they feel the pain of the wrong they have done to him and to each other, throughout their lives. Those who only days before were shouting 'hosanna' are now shocked to hear themselves chanting 'crucify!'.
The crucifixion judges the world - and it is not Jesus who is condemned, it is the ruler of the world who receives the force of the death sentence at the cross.
So when Jesus said, ’Now is the judgement of this world;’ he continued, ‘now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’
Jesus conquered death on the cross by rising again from the dead, to live again, to show us that death itself died on Calvary that day. The deep meaning to the cross and resurrection is this: on the cross the architect of the way of the world has been driven out; through the resurrection the way of the world which accuses and condemns people loses its power, loses its grip on humanity as the new way, the way of God’s kingdom of love and human flourishing, is born.
It is this cosmic battle between good and evil which makes the crucifixion such a fascinating event for those of us who throughout history have looked on at it and wondered. Jesus said,
‘I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
Jesus has indeed drawn us to himself, tens of millions of us, in a way that no-one else could, by being lifted up on the cross, raised from earth by the Roman guard. Jesus has drawn many of us in fascination to this event which looks like the very pivotal point of human history.
Of course, some are drawn to Jesus to mock and deride him, as is the way of the world. And as he taught in the parable of the sower, others are drawn to Jesus to look on in admiration awhile but not to learn anything from what he did - for the ruler of this world, though driven out and disempowered, is still working hard to have his way with many of us.
But for us - we’re drawn to Jesus to listen, to learn, to understand the significance of what he has done for us, the power of the resurrection for human flourishing, for our own well-being. That’s a reason we return here week by week, to hear more to help us understand how we can embrace this life-giving power.
Because for those of us who have grasped this, the power of the cross and resurrection means the transformation of our lives. The ruler of this world has been driven out of our hearts; the Saviour of the world is there instead. God does not condemn us - and God’s grace helps us to learn how to let go of our condemnation of other people. Jesus people are not judgmental people - we are people gifted with the spirit of human flourishing, the Spirit of God in us which fulfils us as we build each other up, as we love and serve together in harmony. This is not wishy-washy niceness; this is the consequence of a man’s decision to go through an execution for us, and to come through the other side: this is the power of life over death. This is what Christianity is about.
What this means for us in practice is that, in Jesus, we can remove ourselves from the judgmentalism of the world. We can still enjoy our Saturday evening TV judging panels, for instance, but we don’t need to adopt the same poses as the judges. We can watch Come Dine With Me with fascination, understanding more keenly why people are acting out as they do, maybe using it as a mirror on ourselves. And we can challenge judgmental attitudes towards others, when we feel them rising in ourselves, and hear ourselves and others voicing them; we can work out our salvation by asking Jesus to help us replace those attitudes with thoughts and words and actions which lead towards human flourishing. Jesus said,
‘Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life’.
‘Those who love their life’ - their judgmental life, dead set against others - ‘lose it’ - for that sort of life comes from the ruler of this world, and he has been driven out.
‘Those who hate their life in this world’ - those who see the destructive forces at work in their society and in their hearts and daily commit to challenge and reverse them - ‘will keep [their life] for eternity’.
The world judges us in ways which drain life from us and condemn us to all sorts of little deaths each day. But Jesus judges us in absolute love and forgiveness and brings us into an eternal life of human flourishing. His actions at the cross and the resurrection make it possible for us to turn to him. We who have chanted 'crucify!' can now sing 'halleluia!'. Thanks be to God for the power of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Note
Sermon revised slightly from my Now is the judgement of this world, preached at Bridestowe and Lydford on Passion Sunday 2012.
[1] Rene Girard, Anorexia and Mimetic Desire (Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory).
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