Do we (really) turn to Christ?

Sixth Sunday in Lent _ commonly called Palm Sunday. 13th  April 2014 Readings of the Eucharist are: Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31:9-16 Philippians 2:5-11 and the Passion according to Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

I have made a number of complex trips in the last few years

Europe, Israel, the Far North of South Australia

A few years ago when I thought about this particular cycle of reading (Year A) 

I had just been to Europe a few months 

before so I had done some thinking about what did 

and what did not work when you plan a complex trip.

And then later that year my wife and I took another journey

when we made a decision to journey separately.

That was difficult and sad.

We all make

all sorts of journeys.

And journeys require tenacity

they need planning

and they change us.

Last year I journeyed to the Hawaiian Islands

for a period of ministry there

that had all sorts of insights and complexities.

I say again, journeys change us.

As Holy Week begins we take  a journey

it is undergirded 

by the story of Jesus's  last days before his death.

We mirror this  journey through Lent,

in these weeks we have been thinking about what it means to be Christian

we have been trying to hear the voice of Jesus

(chiefly through the witness of John's gospel)

about how we might try to live faithfully 

in the spirit of the promises we made

or which were made for us at Baptism.

How do we continue the journey begun at our baptism

when we were asked :

Do you turn to Christ?

and indeed the consequential questions

Do you repent of sin?  Do you reject selfishness?  Do you renounce evil?

These promises are reaffirmed on Easter Day

We have also reflected on the mystery of life and death
and we hear that there is a great overshadowing promise of Jesus:
"I am the Resurrection and the Life!"
It is the promise which breathes life back into our deadness.
And which open the eyes of the blind heart.

The reading from the letter to the Philippians this week

addresses this journey, this transition, this growth,
in a more poetic and philisophical way

St Paul writes

Philippians 2:5-11

2:5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
2:6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
2:7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,
2:8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.
2:9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
2:11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The purpose of the journey is that we may become like Christ.
Not presuming on our Godly nature

but acting out of it.
It is a journey of suffering
a journey of challenge
which will transform us that we may be like him

Such journeys require tenacity

they need planning

and they change us

as we enact it liturgically

the real goal is to pursue it

in reality