What is the Trinity and why is it important?

As a former youth minister I was always talking about rules. Things the youth group could and couldn’t do, where they could and couldn’t go in the church, and any time we did an overnighter  at the church or with the Diocese we would have the students sign a covenant. In this covenant there is a list of rules that the youth must agree to in order to be able to participate. In a sense as members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we have a list of covenants that we agree to in order to be part of this particular body of believers.

We are reminded of this covenant every Sunday when we say the Creed and we renew this covenant several times a year when a new member is baptized. We renew this covenant by saying the creed, and despite all of this happening in every almost every church across the country I have found an increasing number of members of certain Christian Denominations that are flat out denying some of the most basic fundamentals of Christianity, and what’s even more alarming is some of these people are our priests and bishops.

This week I was on the Episcopalians on Facebook page on Facebook where I saw a member say that she has to cross her fingers every time she says the creed, in the same group several days later many of the members were promoting reincarnation as an idea that is completely compatible with Christianity. When I questioned them and offered scripture to counter their ideas I was accused of being a fundamentalist.

Last year when I wrote my Trinity Sunday sermon it was in response to my post on the fact that I was preaching on Trinity Sunday. It was a reply with a link to an article. This article was written by a Christian, but a Christian who did not believe in the trinity, and at the end of the article, the author posed the question: why in the modern day church should we believe in a doctrine that does not make sense and has no bearing on how we live our lives as Christians, and most importantly, how we take the words of Jesus out into the world? Well that’s a good question; why do we need to believe in the trinity? Does it really matter?

More and more in the Church I am finding that I have to defend the doctrine of the Trinity and answer the question of is the doctrine of the trinity essential to what we believe as Christians?

In the book Episcopal Questions, Episcopal Answers: Exploring Christian Faith, Ian Markham the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and C.K Robertson, Canon to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church answers this very question. They Ask Why Do Episcopalians (and all Christians really) believe in the Trinity? The answer: Belief in the Trinity is a defining characteristic of all Christians. There might be moments when an individual Christian struggles with the doctrine, but the faith of the church remains resolutely Trinitarian.

Today we mark the celebration of the Holy Trinity. The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. But what is the Trinity? Is it a symbolic reference? Is it an outdated or unnecessary doctrine that we hang onto because we are a people who love our tradition, and that’s what our parents believed so that that’s what we are going to believe? The answer to all those questions is NO.

From the beginning of the New Testament Church, and the celebration of Pentecost, there has been much misunderstanding surrounding the Trinity. This is in part because of the fact that the word Trinity does not appear anywhere in scripture. However, that does not mean that the early church did not believe or teach that the trinity was real. All throughout the scriptures we see the Trinity being spoken of, from the very beginning of the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation we see the Trinity, the three persons who make up the Trinity, their specific functions and their personalities, all of these are given to us in scripture. Because of this, it is safe to assume that when the church was born on Pentecost, and they started to live out their call as Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity was being taught.

However very early on there was a group of people who did not understand the Trinity for what it was and tried to explain it away in terms of what they could understand and comprehend, these people were known as Arians, and this became known as the Arian Heresy.

Arianism is a nontrinitarian Christian belief that asserts that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is entirely distinct from and subordinate to the God the Father. Arianism is defined as those teachings attributed to Arius, which are in opposition to current mainstream Christian teachings on the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ. It was first attributed to Arius (c. AD 250–336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist, but was created by—and is therefore distinct from—God the Father. This belief is grounded in the Gospel of John (14:28) passage: “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”

The Arians hold to that one scripture to define what they believe, completely ignoring the rest of the scriptures that affirm the Trinity. To address this, there were two ecumenical councils that were held to clear up any questions that the early church had in regards to the trinity. The first ecumenical council that was held in 321 at Nicaea and the second was subsequently held in Constantinople.  From these two councils we have the creed that we say today affirming our belief in the Trinity.

So what is the Trinity?

To answer that, I would like to use a quote from the Didache. The Didache is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century. It was the very first ever catechism, and in it the early church was given the following instructions:

“After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”

Simply put the Trinity is the The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, week after week we are also reminded of what the trinity is when we recite the Nicene Creed.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Trinity three distinct beings yet one in essence. This past week I was speaking to an Anglican Dominican of the very subject of the Trinity, and he reminded me of Saint Augustine’s defense of the Trinity, which is that:

All persons that we know of are, or are at least describable in terms of, fundamentally relational in a Trinitarian way. As human beings we have a primordial seat of awareness which is in some sense immediate and pre-conceptual, a conceptual awareness of and picture of ourselves as situated in the world (what you might call a logos) and a sense of relation between the two. Critically, all of these elements of our being share in a single consciousness, although they might be considered to be, at least conceptually speaking, separate modules or modes thereof.

Or to put it in my terms, we are all trinities. We all have a body, soul and spirit. Each of those three parts serve a different purpose, yet they are all one in the same. I like to use this example when people say that the trinity cannot exist because three beings cannot occupy the same place simultaneously, while they are correct in the physical sense, they are incorrect in the spiritual, and the human trinity is a great example of that.

Why is the Trinity important?

Some could and do argue that the belief in the Trinity is not necessary… that is more important to reveal the teachings of Jesus, and to make sure we don’t force our doctrinal beliefs on others, because it might offend them, and while they may be correct that it might offend people that we have that belief, especially in the Muslim community, as they believe that we are polytheistic because we believe in the Trinity, I would argue that to deny the Trinity is to deny the very essence of God. If it were not important, we would not see the Trinity all throughout scripture, we would not see Jesus teaching and Paul reaffirming it. The doctrine of the Trinity is the very fundamental basics of what we believe as Christians.  But with that being said, if one does not grasp the trinity that does not mean that they are any less of a Christian than you or I, it just means that they have not yet received the grace yet to understand it.

Biblical Proof for the Trinity.

In Bible school we were always taught that in order to make a strong case for our argument, that we need to give scriptural proof, as a matter of fact in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he instructs us that it is in the testimony of two or three witnesses that truth is established. Earlier I spoke of how scripture is filled with references to the Trinity, so I am going to share some of those with you.

Genesis 1:26 ²⁶ Then God said, ^o“Let us make man⁸ in our image, ^pafter our likeness. And ^qlet them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 3:22 ²² Then the Lord God said, ^q“Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand ^rand take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

Genesis 11:7 ⁷ Come, ^dlet us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Isaiah 46:18 ^{16  y}Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,

from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now ^zthe Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.

Matthew 3:16-17 ¹⁶ And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, ^othe heavens were opened to him,² and he ^psaw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; ¹⁷ and behold, ^qa voice from heaven said, ^r“This is my beloved Son,³ with whom I am well pleased.”

I was reading a text for my course work last week, Christianity: An Introduction and the author was talking about the Trinity and he said, “ At one level, the doctrine emphasizes the sheer immensity of God. There is no way that the fallen and finite human mind is going to be able to comprehend the fullness of God. At another, it provides a framework both for making sense of, and deepening the quality of Christian worship. Christians pray to the father through the son in the Holy Spirit.” I believe this gives us the best understanding of how and why the Trinity is important.

For those of you who have never struggled with this doctrine, I hope that this sermon has been a great reflection for you. I hope that it has been a way for you to renew your faith. For those of you who have struggled or are struggling with this doctrine, rest assured you are loved and cherished by God just as much as anyone. We as the church are here to walk with you in your moments of doubt.  We have all been there at some point in our lives on some issue. To me these struggles are the very foundation of who we are as Christians. The Trinity is a great mystery, no one really knows the ins and outs, we can do our best as ministers to provide a road map of how we think the Trinity functions. Much like many things in the church, the belief in the Trinity takes faith. We must place our faith in the teachings of the early church fathers, we must place our faith in the words of the scriptures that try and shed light on the subject, and sometimes we lack the faith necessary to believe. We have doubts on the hows and whys. But I have found that when we have the doubts, and with an open heart, and an open mind, we approach something that we don’t understand, that once we understand it, once we grasp that concept that we struggled with, we come out on the other end firmly believing it.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal
Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in
Trinity of Persons: Give us grace to continue steadfast in the
confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.

Reading 1: ZEP 3:14=18A or ROM 12:9=16

R psalm: ISAIAH 12:2=3,4BCD,5=6

GOSPEL: LK1:39=56 (NABRE)

Mary set out and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

And Mary said:  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.”

Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

If we picture the scene in today’s Holy Gospel reading, we find great joy. Great joy because Mary who was carrying the Lord inside of her, went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also expecting John the Baptist. Joy because the Unborn John the Baptist leapt for joy when Mary arrived, because John knew it was the Lord inside Mary’s womb. Mary was puzzled but no doubt was rejoicing to be chosen as the earthly mother of our dear Lord and Saviour, Jesus.

I can almost imagine this scene in my mind. How wonderful it truly must’ve been.

But just as John leapt for joy as he knew that our Saviour was within Mary, We also can have a share of this rejoicing.

Although we don’t have our Lord physically inside us the same way that the Blessed Virgin Mary did, we like the Unborn John the Baptist, can leap for joy as we indeed know that the Lord our Saviour is inside of us as Spirit, and that we are also inside of Jesus. We are one body in the Lord, so just like John, Mary and Elizabeth, we who truly love and follow Jesus within our hearts and lives, should leap with joy and rejoicing knowing the Lord is ever present to us.

How wonderful it is that we get to share in such joy!

Let us pray:

Wonderful Lord, on this the Feast of of Mary`s visit with Elizabeth, we are reminded that you are a God of joy and that you always fulfill your promises. We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for us when we feel discouraged, so that our souls may always magnify you, Our Lord. May Mother Mary remind us of your premises and your faithfulness when difficulties of life cover us with darkness. Give us a spirit that rejoices in you, Our Saviour, for all the great things that you have done for us and will continue to bestow upon us, simply because you love us.

We thank and praise you for all you have done and also for all that you will do.

Blessed Mary, pray for us.

Amen.

What’s in a name?

There is a lot in a name. A name holds the essence of the person, said the ancient philosophers, and can affect many things. A name can evoke fear: “Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself” (Hermione Granger, Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone). A name can evoke feelings of pride or honor: “She was the bravest person I ever knew” (Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird). A name identifies us: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:23). A name draws us into community within a family.

The change of a name can hold significant meaning. For centuries and in countless texts, change of a name usually indicates a change in mission, in outlook, in journey; it symbolizes something that is new in the person while acknowledging all that has come before. In Scripture, Jesus changes the name of Simon, a humble fisherman disciple, to Peter because, He says, “on this rock [petrus or Peter] I will build my Church” (Matthew 16:18). The change of Peter’s name changed his mission, his outlook, his journey. He was now the rock on which the Church was to be built, all the while not forgetting who he was as a fisherman along the shores of the Sea of Galilee not long before.

In our Gospel reading for this 7^th Sunday of Easter, we hear Jesus pray these words:

“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.
They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
because the words you gave to me I have given to them,
and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,
and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.”

Jesus tells the Father that He has revealed His name to those whom He called. He reveals the name of God to the disciples, to all of us throughout the centuries who have called upon His name and have desired to follow after Him. He has revealed, in a sense, God’s very self, in revealing His name, in giving us the words that He has to give to us.

What is it about this name? What is it that has made kings fall to their knees and the most raucous grow silent? What is it about the One who created the heavens and the earth, and who formed us in our mother’s womb? What is it about this name? In revealing the name of God, Jesus reveals God’s true desire: to live in relationship with us. What a beautiful thought! That the Lord of all creation, the all-powerful and ever-living God, desires us to know His NAME. He desire us to know His name that He might teach us about who He is, that we might know Him, and grow closer to Him day by day. He reveals to us His name, so that we might love Him, trust in Him, and keep His commandments. This is not found in the name of Buddha, or in the name of Mohammed, or the name of Bahaullah, but in the name of the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “I AM WHO AM,” the Creator of the world.

The Lord of all creation reveals His name to us. In our modern day, it is hard for us to reveal even the most minute piece of ourselves to anyone else, for fear of judgment, condemnation, to be labelled as a “fanatic,” a “liberal,” a “conservative,” a “broken person,” “unworthy.” In the midst of this, Jesus reveals to us the most intimate thing about God that He can, His name. Let us this day open ourselves to the Father, who reveals His name to us, that we might draw closer to Him. Let us show Him all that we are, all of our sins and failures, and let us allow Him to heal us, to cleanse us, to raise us up to live and love in His name.

Let us pray.

Father,

I am scared of revealing myself. I am worried that if I let a piece of myself be seen and known, that I might be ridiculed or that I might be hurt. Father, help me to open up to You, who have revealed Your name, Your very self, to me. Help me to enter into relationship with You, to love You, and to glory in Your presence. Then, help me to draw closer to others that I might join them in the saving work of the Gospel mission.

In the name of Jesus,

Amen.

Holy Saturday. Sabbatum Sanctum. The day after Good Friday and the day before Easter.

As children, we were taught that on this day, Jesus went down to Hell. It is in the Creed as “He descended into Hell.” As a child myself, this day was one of sadness, fear, and anticipation.

In Sunday School (where we who did not attend a parochial school were forced to go), the nuns depicted this day to us as the time during which Jesus freed all the righteous people who had lived before his time from bondage in darkness and distance from God. We were told that everyone from Adam and Eve was unable to enter heaven because Jesus had not opened it for them.

You can imagine what went through my mind thinking about this day. The nuns in my parish did not always do a good job of explaining what was going on this day and how it affected people in hell. So we kids made up lots of interesting stories. I always thought back to the hymns that sang about our longing for Christ to save us from our sins and the “sins of the world.”

Still, what were those people doing in hell before Jesus came to free them? We were assured that they did not suffer the same fate as sinners, who were tormented by the devil and the fires of hell. Eternal hellfire. That was a pretty scary concept.

It was only later as a youth that I found out about the “harrowing of hell.” Growing up in rural Maryland, I knew what a harrow was. To me, it was always a disc harrow, a bunch of metal discs in a row used to break up clods of dirt after ploughing. And so Jesus used this instrument to open up the soil of hell to let the dead ascend, finally, into heaven. Of course, this was always done in a dark, murky atmosphere suitable to that part of hell that wasn’t on fire.

Holy Saturday…that was quite a fearsome day!

Back then, in the 1950’s, we either didn’t have Easter Vigil as we do today, or my parents never took us to it. Easter Sunday was always THE day for us and Mass was always THE most important ceremony of the year. So from Good Friday to Easter Sunday was a time of agitation.

Of course, the agitation and anticipation was all about the Easter Baskets with colored hard-boiled eggs, candy, and especially jelly beans. And the fact that the solemnity of Lent was at last gone, and maybe the nuns would let up on us…

What must have been going through the minds of the Apostles and the women disciples? I never heard this discussed growing up, but in my adult life, it became one of the things I thought about on Holy Saturday. We know it as anticipation. They experienced it as the utter destruction of their whole world.

Their Teacher was tortured and died a horrible death on a cross. Now what?

For all of the Apostles but John, there must have been intense shame. They had all deserted their Teacher and his mother and had gone into hiding. Imagine their feelings on this day.

What we know today was all taught to them, so there should have been no surprise. But we can say that from the distance of two millennia and the evidence of the empty tomb. This group of grieving souls had none of that.

“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31

Written many years after Holy Saturday.

Now what?

Although all of this was presented to them by Jesus, they really didn’t know what was happening.

They weren’t anticipating Easter eggs, baskets, jelly beans, the solemn joy of the Easter Sunday Mass.

They were deserted, bereft, scared, ashamed, and deeply sorrowful.

We get some or all of these feelings at times of crisis in our own lives. I’ve had them during and after a crisis, and believe me, the sinking feeling in my stomach is quite real and quite frightening.

But wait. We were told the Gospel stories so that we might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. The disciples thought they had nothing. We have the Word. They had despair. We have triumphant anticipation.

It’s probably a good thing we were never taken to the Vigil. I can’t imagine I’d have done well sitting through all those readings.  Seven readings, six psalms, an Epistle, the Gospel…it just goes on forever, doesn’t it?

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.”

Now I know that the Vigil is actually the most calming lullaby God could ever sing to me. It tells our whole story, from the beginning of time to the Resurrection. Everyone is created, everyone goes through bad times, everyone sees glimmers of hope, everyone in some way gets through the troubles, everyone can pray these words from one of those psalms:

O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!

You are clothed with majesty and glory,

robed in light as with a cloak.

Because we know that while now we may shed tears, dawn will bring incomparable gladness.

We have Holy Saturday to teach us how to live through all our times of despair and fear. We have salvation history in all those readings, we have the stories of a small group of terrified disciples who on Sunday will experience that incomparable gladness. We have the anticipation we remember as children and the delight we see in our own children’s eyes on Sunday. And we have the words of John, the disciple who stayed with his Teacher through all the horror and who was told to care for the Blessed Mother:

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

We have come through the dark nights of our souls and we will be able, finally to say Alleluia.

Lord, help us to remember that your son suffered, died, and was buried for our sakes. Help us to remember that even as we face crisis and trouble, the next day will bring incomparable gladness if we trust in you. Help us to remember that Easter comes after Holy Saturday.

Amen.

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion 2017 Reading: John 18:1 – 19:42

The Great Redeemer Died!

He died; the great Redeemer died,
And Israel’s daughters wept around;
A solemn darkness veiled the sky,
A sudden trembling shook the ground.

 Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
For him who groaned beneath your load;
He shed a thousand drops for you,
A thousand drops of precious blood.

 Here’s love and grief beyond degree,
The Lord of glory died for men:

                                                                                (Isaac Watts)

Today, we stand at the centre of the holiest week in the Christian calendar, and of the most important event in human history. Today we remember not only the death of the man Jesus, not only humankind’s rejection of God, but of the opening of the way for all of humanity to a full relationship with God.

In less than 24 hours we have seen Jesus betrayed by one of his closest followers, interrogated, beaten and humiliated, and finally brutally murdered upon the cross of Calvary. At this point, the disciples would have been despairing; their master, who had seemed to promise so much, was gone. What were they to think of his message? Was he really the messiah or were they wrong? I’m sure that doubt and fear would have been at the forefront of their minds as they grieved for their spiritual leader. However, for us, with the hindsight that distance brings these events take on a different meaning. We should be able to see in the events of Good Friday a different message, not one of despair and fear, but one of hope.

On Thursday night, Jesus left the relative security of the Upper Room where the Eucharist had been instituted and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. The gospel reading today makes it clear to us that Judas, the betrayer, was well aware that this was a place that Jesus and His followers frequented, so why go there? This action is the start of a number of signs in today’s reading that point out for the keen observer that Jesus was totally in control of the events surrounding His passion.

Jesus knew very well that Judas would be able to find him and yet still went to the Garden. When the betrayer and the soldiers appeared Jesus didn’t run, He stood his ground. When approached He asked the mob who they were looking for, to which they responded “Jesus the Nazarene”; and it’s here that we see the first miracle of the Passion. Jesus responded with the words “I AM”. These words were so powerful that they caused the mob to turn away and fall to the ground; but why? Jesus was revealing to the mob, to His disciples and to us his true identity; I AM is the very name of God! When God appeared in the Burning Bush to talk to Moses what name did he give? I AM…Jesus was revealing through the power of His name that he was the Lord God and that no matter what was to follow we shouldn’t fear, but have confidence that all was in His control.

When the mob had recovered Jesus handed himself over to them and it was at this point that Peter leapt to his aide and cut off the ear of the servant; was Peter arrested with Jesus? Surely he should have been for such a violent crime? However, we know that he wasn’t; why? The answer is simple, the Lord of the Passion didn’t allow it. Before handing himself over Jesus said to the soldiers, “…so if you are looking for me, let these men go”; and instead of ignoring the “Nazarene criminal” the soldiers obeyed; the Lord of the Passion exerted His will to control the events.

If the Apostles and Disciples were able to see these events through our eyes their attitude towards what followed may have been totally different. Instead of seeing the acts of brutality performed against their friend, their Master, and their Messiah degrading Him and diminishing Him they may have been able to rest in the knowledge that Jesus has revealed himself as the Great I Am. They may have been able to stand firm knowing that He was in control of events and was truly Lord of all that was happening. They may have even had the foresight that in some way, the Messiah would overcome whatever seemingly earth shattering events were overtaking them.

And thus it should be for us; we should mourn, we should feel grief at the rejection of the Saviour of the whole human family however, we should also rest firm in the knowledge that Jesus is the Lord of the Passion and it is all part of the great plan for the redemption of humanity.