Gospel for 25 March, 2007

Then he began to teach them that the Son of man was destined to suffer grievously, and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter tried to rebuke him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.' He called the people and his disciples to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. What gain, then, is it for anyone to win the whole world and forfeit his life? And indeed what can anyone offer in exchange for his life? For if anyone in this sinful and adulterous generation is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.' (Mark 8:31-9:1 NJB)


Today is both the 5th Sunday in Lent and the Great Feast of the Annunciation. The Annunciation is the promise that our Saviour is coming and indeed is already Incarnate among us. Today’s Gospel, and our entire Lenten pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, ending once more at Calvary and the rock-hewn tomb tell us how our salvation, promised in the Annunciation, is to be accomplished. The Incarnation is a necessary ingredient, but it is via the cold, unfeeling truth of betrayal, abandonment, mocking, torture and death of the Son of God, that our salvation, our reconciliation, our restoration are made complete. Jesus, who was born of a woman, born under the Law, had to die under that Law to redeem those who stand condemned under that Law.

One of the paradoxes of the Gospel is that the way of life goes directly through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Jesus came precisely for that reason, to travel that road through the Valley, tp prepare the way for us and so that along with Him we might be made alive once more.