Wednesday in Holy Week 

St Matthew 27: 27 – 31

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.  After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Reflection

On April 1st, it is probably appropriate to be reminded of what St Paul describes in his first epistle to the Corinthians as “the folly of the Cross.” An unjust execution doesn’t seem a really logical answer to the source of our salvation but as Christians we believe that sin and death have been overcome for us by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

In the passage we have read today we see Jesus as a figure of ridicule. Dressed up with the trappings of monarchy, the crown, the sceptre and the cloak he endures mockery,  abuse and physical assaults from the soldiers.

I wonder if the sheer appalling magnitude of the pain involved in death by crucifixion is too much for us to fully comprehend. However, many of us have been teased and bullied, particularly as children. It can be practically a rite of passage unless we are very fortunate! Is it possible that we are able to relate rather more easily to these initial passages on the road to the eventual crucifixion. At some time we have nearly all experienced the sharp pain of a thorn, perhaps when collecting blackberries and can therefore empathise easier with the feeling of many thorns being pressed into one’s head.

The other lesson this situation brings to my mind is that Jesus is now in the hands of a mob. The judicial process represented by the Governor of Judea, Pilate has broken down. He has literally washed his hands of Jesus and the mob is celebrating Barrabas and baying for Jesus’ blood. We should remember that mobs are not only a feature of first century Judea. They still operate in our world and challenge us. In 2021 on the steps of the  United States Capitol and last year outside asylum hotels in England or in the Sudanese city of Al Fashir.

Jesus accepts his fate without retaliation for our sakes. We must ask that, however difficult we can all follow his example. 

Prayer

Loving Lord Jesus, who for our sakes suffered so much.
It is hard for us to fully understand the pain which you endured.
Even harder to understand why it was us who have benefitted from your agony.
We ask for your grace to always show our thanks to you and remember the true cost of our salvation.
We ask this in your name, Jesus. Amen

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd The Revd Dr Michael Hopkins
 

1 Thou art the King of Israel,
great David’s royal Son,
now in the Lord’s name coming,
the King and Blessèd One.
 
2 The company of angels
is praising thee on high,
while we and all creation
together make reply.
         
3 The people of the Hebrews
with palms before Thee went;
our praise and prayer and anthems
before Thee we present.
 
4 To Thee before Thy Passion
they sang their hymns of praise;
to Thee, now high exalted,
our melody we raise.
 
5 Their praises you accepted;
accept the prayers we bring,
in every good delighting,
our great and gracious King.

 
Prayers of Adoration and Confession and the Lord’s Prayer
 
Living God, on this Palm Sunday we join with the crowds to say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  We praise you for your steadfast love that endures for ever, for your mercy that is new every morning, for Jesus Christ our King, humble and riding on a donkey, coming not to dominate but to serve.  We praise you for your power, shown not in might but in mercy, not in fear but in forgiveness, not in violence but in vulnerable love.
 
Yet, God, as we lift our hosannas, we confess how easily our praise can turn to silence.  Sometimes we have sought the parades of power more than the procession of peace.  Sometimes we have wrapped our faith in our own causes, or been quick to judge and slow to forgive.  Sometimes we have stayed on the pavement when you called us to follow behind the donkey. Forgive us.  Strip away any pride, any fear, and any guilt.  Renew in us the mind of Christ, who took the form of a servant for our sake.
 
Hear the good news: The same Jesus who entered Jerusalem in humility went on to the cross for our sake and rose again for our salvation. In him we are forgiven; in him we are made new.  Thank you, God.
 
As a redeemed and renewed family, we join together in praying the Lord’s Prayer…Our Father…
 
Introduction
 
In a moment we’ll hear our Bible readings, and reflect on them.  Psalm 118 and Luke’s account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem take us right into the noise and colour of the crowd.   Psalm 118 is an ancient festival song.  Pilgrims would sing it as they climbed up to Jerusalem: call and response, voices echoing off the city walls, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever.’  It’s a psalm full of gates, processions, and blessing.  It celebrates the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Luke’s Gospel tells us how that old psalm came alive in a new way when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.  The people shouted their hosannas, spread cloaks on the road, and took up the words of Psalm 118 for this man from Galilee.  But Palm Sunday is more than a charming story with palm branches.  It’s a moment of choice, and a moment of challenge. As we prepare to hear these readings, imagine the scene: Jerusalem heaving with pilgrims; the smell of food and dust; children darting about with palm branches.  And then the sight of a man on a donkey coming down from the Mount of Olives.  In that moment, God’s kingdom is breaking into the world: humble, courageous, and very different from the empires around it. These readings ask us not only to picture that day long ago, but also to consider our own lives: what kind of kingdom we look for, which procession we choose to follow, and how we will respond to the One who still comes to us, gentle and riding on a donkey. As we prepare listen to Bible, let’s place ourselves in the crowd, with ears and hearts open, and allow those words to draw us closer to Christ our King.
 
Prayer of illumination
 
Humble King, who came riding on a donkey and not on a warhorse, 
open our hearts now to your Word.  
As we have heard the voices of the crowd, 
quiet the noise within us,
so that through the words of Scripture we may hear your Spirit speak.  Show us the way of your kingdom, not the parade of power, 
but the path of peace, mercy, and truth.  
Through Christ our Lord, 
the One who comes in the name of the Lord.  Amen.
 
Readings          Psalm 118:1-2,19-29
 
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; 
his steadfast love endures for ever!
 
Let Israel say, ‘His steadfast love endures for ever.’
Open to me the gates of righteousness, 
that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
 
This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.
 
I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!
 
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God, and he has given us light.
Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.
 
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God, I will extol you.
 
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.
                           
Reading   St Luke 19:28-40
 
After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here.  If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.”’  So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them.  As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’  They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’  Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.  As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.  As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the  multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,  saying, ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
 
Hymn       My song is love unknown
Samuel Crossman (1624-1684) Public Domain Sung by the Choir of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney and used with their kind permission.
 
 

My song is love unknown,
my Saviour’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
my Lord should take
frail flesh, and die?
 
2 He came from his blest throne,
salvation to bestow;
but men made strange, and none
the longed-for Christ would know.
But O, my Friend, 
my Friend indeed,
who at my need his life did spend.
 
3 Sometimes they strew his way,
and his sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then ‘Crucify!’ 
is all their breath,
and for his death they thirst and cry.
 
4 They rise, and needs will have 
my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save,
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful he to suffering goes,
that he his foes
from thence might free.
 
5 In life, no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heaven was his home;
but mine the tomb wherein he lay.
 
6 Here might I stay and sing:
no story so divine;
never was love, dear King,
never was grief like thine!
This is my Friend,
in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Sermon
 
If there’s one thing the UK does well, it’s a big procession for a major state occasion.  Perhaps you watched the elaborate ceremonial for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral: soldiers, sailors, aircrew, and all those military bands.  Rows of uniforms and flags.  Slow, deliberate movement.  A moment of national memory.
Why do we love a parade?  Perhaps because it’s more than people walking down a street, it’s a story about who we are and what we value.  
 
Palm Sunday also says something about who we are.  Jerusalem heaving with visitors.  The smell of food and dust.  Children darting about with palm branches.  And two processions, though most people only talk about one.  Even the stones underfoot seemed to hold their breath.
 
On one side of the city, the official parade: Pontius Pilate riding in from the coast with his cavalry and soldiers, showing off Rome’s power.  Horses, helmets, swords, all designed to send one clear message: “Don’t start anything.  We’re in charge.”
 
On the other side, at roughly the same time, another parade.  No horses, just a borrowed donkey.  No troops, just fishermen and labourers.  No banners, just palm leaves grabbed from the roadside.  And in the middle, Jesus: a man from Galilee, already famous for healing, teaching and unsettling the authorities.
 
Two parades.  Two visions of how the world works.  One says “keep the peace by force.” The other says “the kingdom of God is near.”  And still today, the temptation is to mix faith with force, to use Jesus’ name to advance power rather than service.  But Palm Sunday exposes that lie.  The kingdom of God does not come on warhorses, nor by legislation of privilege, nor by fear of outsiders.  Christian nationalism, the attempt to make God the mascot of a nation or a party, is simply the old Roman parade in new clothes.
 
The crowd around Jesus is buzzing.  “Hosanna! Save us!” they shout.  Some are hopeful, some just curious.  The religious leaders mutter, “Tell them to be quiet.”  Jesus smiles and says, “If they were silent, the stones themselves would shout.”
 
From the start, creation is involved.  The stones underfoot, the walls of the city, the road from the Mount of Olives, all of it ready to join the chorus.
Today’s readings drop us right in the middle of this drama.  Psalm 118 is an old pilgrim song, a hymn sung by crowds coming up to Jerusalem for festival.  It’s full of gates and processions, palms and praises.  A song to sing on the road.  It begins, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.”  And the crowd answers, “His steadfast love endures for ever.”  Back and forth, like a chant at a football match rolling around the stadium.
 
It sings about “the gate of the Lord,” the idea that God’s people come through the gate with thanksgiving.  It shouts, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Luke tells us that’s exactly what the crowd shouted about Jesus.  They’re taking the old festival psalm and applying it to this man from Galilee.  In other words, the crowd are saying, “This is it.  This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.  This is God doing something new.”
 
Historians tell us the Romans didn’t leave festival security to chance. Jerusalem’s population at Passover might be four or five times its usual size.  Pilgrims everywhere.  Passions running high.  From the west gate of the city came the official parade: Governor Pontius Pilate arriving from the coast with troops.  Horses, chariots, helmets, banners.  A show of power, designed to stop trouble before it started.  And at the east gate, at the same time, came another procession.  No horses.  Just a donkey.  No troops.  Just ordinary people, pilgrims from Galilee.  They’re not singing Roman marching songs.  They’re singing Psalm 118.  Two gates.  Two parades.  Two visions of how the world works.  One says “keep the peace by fear.”  The other says “God’s peace is coming in humility.”
 
It’s theatre.  It’s also deadly serious.  Jesus knows exactly what he’s doing.  He sends the disciples ahead to fetch the donkey.  He stages this moment to echo Zechariah’s prophecy: “See, your king comes to you; humble and riding on a donkey.”
 
When the Pharisees tell Jesus to hush his followers, he says, “If these were silent, the stones would cry out.”
 
It’s a wonderful, slightly odd picture.  Imagine it: the stones under your feet breaking into song.  The city walls bursting out in praise.  Creation itself refusing to be quiet.  All because what’s happening is so important it can’t be stifled.  God’s kingdom is breaking into the world.  Even if every mouth were shut, the earth itself would testify.
 
And maybe that’s a word we need in 2026.  We sometimes feel as if the Christian voice is small, drowned out by bigger stories: politics, social media, celebrity, division.  We wonder if anyone is listening.  But God is not finished.  God will raise up witnesses.  Even the stones.  Psalm 118 says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  It’s as if Jesus himself is that rejected stone.  The authorities may reject him, but God will make him the cornerstone of a whole new world.  If we stay silent when Jesus’ way is co-opted by power, the stones themselves will cry out.  God’s kingdom will not be reduced to a campaign slogan. It’s global, humble, cross-shaped, and rooted in love.
 
It’s easy to treat Palm Sunday as a children’s day: palms, procession, a nice hymn, then back to normal.  But the first Palm Sunday was an act of public protest.  Jesus deliberately chose to embody a different kind of kingship.  Not thrones, but towels.  Not a warhorse, but a donkey.  Not domination, but service.  He was calling out the whole system, temple and empire alike, and saying, “God’s kingdom is here.”  That’s risky.  We know where it leads by Friday.  But Jesus does it anyway, because love is always risky.
 
Psalm 118 calls God’s chosen one blessed.  The crowd calls Jesus blessed.  But Jesus is not the kind of king they expected.  In our world the word “king” is mostly symbolic.  We think of royal weddings, coronations, figureheads.  But in the ancient world, the king’s character set the tone for the whole kingdom.  If the king was violent, the land bled.  If the king was generous, the land flourished.
 
Jesus redefines kingship entirely.  His power is to heal, not to harm.  His glory is in lifting up the lowly.  His throne is a cross.  His crown is thorns.  He’s found not in palaces but among the poor.  That’s why our response to him can’t just be waving palms.  It has to be following his way — in how we live, spend, serve, forgive.
 
We’re surrounded by parades: parades of nationalism, parades of consumerism, parades of fear.  And some of these parades even try to carry a cross at the front, baptising political power in Jesus’ name.  But Christian nationalism is simply another version of Pilate’s procession: the horses, the helmets, the show of force.  Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t look like that.  It’s not about dominating, excluding, or claiming God for one nation.  It’s about humility, service, and welcome.  Palm Sunday calls us to choose the donkey over the warhorse, the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of this world.  
 
Palm Sunday asks: which parade do you choose?  The one with the horses or the one with the donkey?  The one built on fear or the one built on love?  It also asks: will you just watch, or will you join in?  It’s tempting to be a spectator, to wave the palm on Sunday and then drift off.  But discipleship means stepping off the pavement and walking behind the donkey, following where Jesus leads.  It’s not glamorous.  It may cost us something.   But it’s where life really is.
 
The stones would cry out, but God has chosen us, the living stones, to cry out instead.  Our lives become testimonies.  Our actions become hymns.  Our choices become psalms.  Every time we stand with the hungry, every time we offer forgiveness, every time we speak for justice, we’re letting the stones cry out through us.  We may feel small.  But as Mother Teresa said, “We can do small things with great love.” Small things done with great love have a way of changing the world.
 
Palm Sunday is just the start of the story.  By Friday the crowd will have vanished.  The cloaks will be trampled.  The donkey returned to its owner.  And Jesus will be hanging on a cross outside the city walls.  But God is still at work.  Another stone will appear, rolled across a tomb.  And another stone will be rolled away.  And the world will never be the same again.
 
Palm Sunday leads to Good Friday, but Good Friday leads to Easter.  The rejected stone becomes the cornerstone.  Life comes out of death.  Hope out of despair.
 
Maybe our 2026 lives feel a bit like that Jerusalem crowd: noisy, crowded, full of competing voices.  Maybe we’ve been tempted to stay silent.  But Palm Sunday says: God’s kingdom is still on the move. Christ still comes, humble and riding on a donkey. We still have a choice which parade to join. Even if our voices are weak, the stones will cry out.
 
Our job is not to be perfect.  Our job is to show up, wave the palm, step off the pavement, and follow.  Our job is to let our lives echo Psalm 118: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  May we follow this King on the donkey all the way to the cross and beyond, until our lives sing, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
 
Hymn       Ride On, Ride On, the Time Is Right
John L Bell (born 1949) and Graham Maule (1958-2019) © 1988, 1996 WGRG, c/o Iona Community OneLicence No. # A-734713 Sung by the Choir of Peninsula United Church, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
 

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark, all the tribes ‘Hosanna!’ cry;
O Saviour meet pursue thy road
with palms and scattered 
garments strowed.
2 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, your triumphs now begin
o’er captive death 
and conquered sin.
3 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
look down with sad 
and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.
 
4 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne,
awaits his own anointed Son.
 
5  Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, 
your power, and reign.

Blessing
 
As you go into Holy Week, may our loving heavenly Father, bring us by faith to his eternal life; may Christ, keep us steadfast as we walk with him the way of his Cross; may the Holy Spirit, set our minds on life and peace.
Go into this Holy Week with the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, upon you, and all God’s people, now and forever.

Saturday, 28 March 2026

St Matthew 27: 3 – 10
When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders.  He said, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’  Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.  But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, ‘It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since they are blood money.’  After conferring together, they used them to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury foreigners.  For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.  Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price,  and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.’

Reflection:   Blood money. Dirty money.
Even the chief priests, who already had metaphorical bloody hands on the issue of the betrayal of Jesus, felt a bit ‘icky’ about this money. They got rid of it for the purpose of another dirty task – burial of unclean bodies.

Judas was probably directly handed his 30 pieces of silver and then witnessed the effect that his acquisition of this money had on his one time friend. The arrest and brutalising of an innocent man.

Have you ever handled dirty money?

I’d like to think that I hadn’t.  I never really see money. It’s all digital and I rarely see the affects the decisions I make about my digital money have. But the more I think about it, the more I am concerned about how dirty my money is.

What is my money in the bank doing? Where are my taxes going? Somewhere in the global capitalist system, money that has been mine, or will become mine will have passed through the hands of weapon manufacturers, corrupt governments, organised crime, fast fashion brands, those using cheap labour, fossil fuel firms etc.  I am sure many of you have had the same thought and as a denomination it is something we have thought carefully about. But how can we exist outside this system?

Judas’ stark exposure to the outcome of his monetary dealings caused him to repent. We are so often shielded from the outcome of our monetary dealings that the knowledge of our need for repentance can become blurred. This story is a reminder that post resurrection, repentance is not death, but new life, creativity, problem solving, standing against the system.

Prayer 
Generous God,
there’s a saying that money talks.
an idea that it can manipulate and persuade us.
But we confess that we know better.
We so often choose money over a pricking conscience,
and in so doing manipulate and persuade ourselves 
of our helplessness on this issue.
Lord in your mercy, and in the light of the resurrection,
turn us around, open our eyes, and make us creative in our response.
Amen

St Matthew 26: 69 – 75
Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant-girl came to him and said, ‘You also were with Jesus the Galilean.’ But he denied it before all of them, saying, ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’ When he went out to the porch, another servant-girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, ‘This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ Again he denied it with an oath, ‘I do not know the man.’  After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, ‘Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you.’  Then he began to curse, and he swore an oath, ‘I do not know the man!’ At that moment the cock crowed.  Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: ‘Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.

Reflection
Yesterday we reflected on integrity and duplicity, especially in those who give witness. Today we think about Peter – does he act with integrity or is he being duplicitous?

As the story moves from courtroom to courtyard, we encounter a bustling scene with servant girls, bystanders and (in Luke’s account) a bonfire. Peter is at first sitting down, but after being accosted, he moves into the shadows of the porch, eventually retreating into the street and making off.

On the face of it, Peter behaves like a coward – denying he knows his friend, cursing him and running away, metaphorically and physically. Indeed, William Barclay† sets the discussion of this passage in a section of his commentary entitled “The collapse of Peter”. But Barclay himself admits this is too simplistic. After all, Peter was the one who kept close to Jesus in and after the garden, sat with the guards, went into the courtyard and later re-joined the others in the upper room. He must have recognised the possibility of being recognised, and it is no doubt significant that it was servants who did so, those who had probably been attracted to Jesus as he taught.

It is not unreasonable that Peter was actually acting with courage and integrity until it all became too much for him when he realised that Jesus knew him better than he knew himself.

The story is an aside in the Passion narrative, showing weakness in one called the Rock, suggesting that the author of the Gospel wanted to tell the story of Jesus “warts and all”. If one accepts the ancient tradition (highly disputed) that the Gospels of Matthew and Mark both derive directly from Peter’s own memories, then the motive for its inclusion could be to demonstrate that no matter how Peter (and we) failed, redemption is always possible.

†  W. Barclay, Daily Study Bible, Matthew v2, ISBN 0-664-24101-8

Prayer
God of compassion and succour,
when our courage fails
and we want simply to run away and hide,
just put your hand on our shoulder
and gently guide us
to where we should be. Amen

St Matthew 26:  57 – 68
Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and the elders had gathered. But Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest; and going inside, he sat with the guards in order to see how this would end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward  and said, ‘This fellow said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.”’  The high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?’  But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, ‘I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.’  Jesus said to him, ‘You have said so. But I tell you,

From now on you will see the Son of Man
    seated at the right hand of Power
    and coming on the clouds of heaven.’

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy.  What is your verdict?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death.’  Then they spat in his face and struck him; and some slapped him,  saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who is it that struck you?’

Reflection
The Holy Week passages in the Gospels are so familiar to those who are steeped in years of church going that we might simply scan them assimilating the well-known rhythms and pictures, missing some of the detail. Unless one of course uses one of the deeper techniques such as Lectio Divina. 

It was therefore somewhat of a surprise to me when one such hitherto overlooked phrase leapt out at me as I thought about this passage. “They found none, though many false witnesses came forward”. Who are these people? Where did the council members find them? What were the council members actually looking for? If the witnesses were unable to come up with the so-called evidence the council members were seeking, why were they false ? Was it because they did not/could not/did not want to collude in this scam? Were they false because they were honest?

So many questions as I spiralled down this rabbit hole!

It is right that when we read short passages such as those in Daily Devotions, that we read them carefully and critically, seeking to understand the truth that lies within them. Sometimes we need to question what lies behind the words – the back stories and cultural assumptions. But we must not let this become the prime motive for our reading which is seeking to understand the truth as we discern it, guided by the Spirit.

This passage is about the contrast between integrity and duplicity. The integrity of Jesus, the duplicity of the high priest and the council. We know little or nothing about the integrity or duplicity of the witnesses – including the final two. After all, they spoke the truth.

Tomorrow, we shall reflect on how this relates to Peter in the courtyard.

Prayer
God of all truth and light
you are to be found
where we let you Spirit lead –
even in rabbit holes.

For you have yet more light and truth
To break forth from your Word.*

May we always be aware of when
our actions and words
might border on the duplicitous.
May we strive to act with integrity,
seeking and speaking the truth.

And limit not the truth of God
to our poor reach of mind.*

*cf. G Rawson, Congregational Praise 230

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; with him was a large crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people.  Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.’  At once he came up to Jesus and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ and kissed him.  Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you are here to do.’ Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him.  Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?’  At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me.  But all this has taken place, so that the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled.’ Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

Reflection

I am struck by the trauma that must have accompanied the events that Matthew narrates. Judas greets Jesus as  “Rabbi” (one to whom, in first-century Palestine, someone devoted themselves body and soul). The intimate kiss that should have denoted that devotion is perverted into the very sign for Jesus to be surrendered to a weaponised mob. He who simply used reasoned words in the Temple, peaceably, day after day is going to be subject to shadowy violence, perverted justice and public humiliation. 

Then we have the chaotic response of Jesus’ loyal followers. They fight back in kind – actual bloodshed. Realising  this is not a response their master endorses they can only desert the scene in confusion. What raw emotions must have been unleashed. What chaotic despair. 

The scene resonates with much of the world’s current division with civic and political chaos, retreat from reason to violence, justice abused, anger in gloomy corners (and sadly, openly on display). Many are tempted to respond in kind, others feel a numbing sense of powerlessness when constrained from doing so.

The calm presence at the centre of this storm is Christ himself. Certainly able to misuse his power but resisting the temptation. Well aware that violence will have inevitable consequences for those who use it. Still teaching the right response even if it means people distance themselves. Trusting that Scripture has foretold that people will “…do what they are here to do”, that things “…must happen this way”  

The mystery of the Cross is that it is a place where both God and Satan’s purposes were accomplished – in the very same time and space! Can we trust that, even when things are at their worst, God, in the crucified Christ, is right there with us in the human mess? Can we be a calm presence, trusting God’s purposes and strengthening hope and peace in others?

Prayer

Lord, we praise you that you are with us – 
present in even the most difficult moments. 
We rejoice in the mystery of your will. 
Your purposes are being accomplished, 
even in, even through, 
the many difficulties we see around us. 
Help us to trust you, our true Rabbi,
example and guide, 
and respond to others with peace and hope – 
calling even those who let us down 
and sometimes betray us: “Friend” – Amen.