When Christ the warrior went to War. Holy Saturday - the Silence Between Two Worlds.

About this sermon

Please visit my Substack and consider subscribing. Thank you. https://drgavinashenden.substack.com/ "Holy Saturday: Christ the Warrior in the Silence Holy Saturday reminds me, in part, of that place in the imagination of C. S. Lewis described in his book, ‘The Magician’s Nephew, where there is a ‘wood between the worlds’; a quiet, still place from which, with the right ring, you can move out of one world, pause, and then move into another. In the Office of Readings for Saturday, an ancient homily is given to help us in our prayers and reflections on the mystery of Christ’s death and impending resurrection. It begins: “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captive Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approaches, bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory.” There is a stream of imagination amongst the Fathers of the Church in which Jesus is portrayed both as a mighty warrior and as the victim who sacrifices himself. It is this mixture—the courageous warrior and the gift of his life for others—that provides a balance between the vulnerability of love and the heroic struggle to overcome evil. The Lost Sense of Christian Heroism This struggle against evil is not as much at the forefront of the presentation of Christianity as, theologically, it might be. When I cast my mind back to my teenage years, one of the things that kept me from pursuing Christ and the Gospel was the experience of Christians as verging on presenting as semi-pathetic as characters. The Anglican clergy I knew were semi- feminised and had little of the aura of heroism about them. The teenage Christians I knew were at the mild end of the character spectrum. I saw little heroic or courageous or powerful in their Christianity. This may have been a reflection on my incapacity of spiritual perception. It turned out that I was completely mistaken. Two Kinds of Courage In terms of courage, masculinity was expressed through superior force and determination in the secular adventure stories I grew up with. But the struggle that Christianity represents and embarks on takes place in a different medium from the one I was used to in secular adventure stories, and heroism there is of a more subtle but equally powerful kind. The courage I read about growing up was the courage of warfare—violence overcoming violence with more violence. But as C. S. Lewis writes, human beings are amphibious creatures. We live both in the animal realm and in the spiritual realm. As it happens, courage is required in both. In the physical, animal realm, it is a courage born of brute strength and determination. In the spiritual realm, just as much courage is required—but here the enemy is more subtle and invisible. Our enemy is evil and perversion. Struggling against this spiritual enemy requires just as much courage, determination and heroism—but our weapons require more skill, moral sophistication and subtlety. They are patience, forgiveness, generosity, humility, wisdom and sacrifice. Christ the Warrior The great Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood conceives of Jesus in the same way. Instead of a helpless man overcome by brutal soldiers, through the eyes of the great tree that was cut down to become the cross that bore the mighty Son of God, we see a noble and courageous warrior going willingly towards death and sacrifice. “Then the young hero (who was God Almighty) got ready, resolute and strong. He climbed onto the lofty gallows-tree, bold in the sight of many, when he intended to redeem mankind.” And the Cross itself speaks: “I trembled when the warrior embraced me, yet I dared not bow to the earth… Upright I had to stand.” And again: “The resolute hero stripped himself, climbed the high gallows, brave in the sight of many, eager to ransom mankind.” The War Against Evil In the Book of Revelation, Christ is presented at the end of time as a rider on a white horse, faithful and true, judging and making war—with a sword proceeding from his mouth. The war, of course, is a war against evil. The sword is his truth. In the Gospel, Jesus casts his own ministry as an invasion of Satan’s kingdom: “No one can enter a strong man’s house… unless he first binds the strong man.” (Mark 3:27)

Topics

• Holiness
• Jesus Christ