God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have purposed to save us from our sins and all evil.

When we celebrate Holy Communion, often the prayer of consecration concludes with the acclamation “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”, with the people responding “Therefore let us keep the feast”. Why does Jesus identify himself with the Passover? What does this tell us about his death?

As we enter Holy Week on Palm Sunday, a jarring pivot is about to take place in Jesus’ ministry. The acclamation “Hosanna” today will become an angry, bloodthirsty shout by Friday; “God, save us!” (the meaning of the word Hosanna), will become, “God, damn him!”; and within a week, palm branches will become the rough wood of a Roman cross.

The poignant and dramatic juxtaposition of triumphal entry and crucifixion in the lectionary readings seeks to prepare us to live out the Holy Week ahead—and hopefully the entirety of our lives—in the shadow of the cross of Christ.

In this week’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus get’s a visit from some Greeks in Jerusalem for Passover. It’s significant; a real turning point in John’s story.

We’re not told exactly what it was that they were seeking, but what they got was definitely not conventional wisdom.

In 559BC Cyrus becomes King of Babylon where the people of God had been carried off as exiles. In a single day he ends their captivity.

How does this king who is called “God’s anointed” foreshadow the King of Kings who was to come into the world?

The church where I grew up regularly hosted traveling music groups. They’d always have their LPs (yes, LPs) and other stuff—their “merch”—to sell, but at my church they weren’t allowed to do this. At least not in the target-rich environment of the foyer where everyone entered and exited.

The rationale came from this week’s Gospel reading. Jesus clearly didn’t like it when folks hawked their wares around the Temple, and therefore we shouldn’t sell stuff around the sanctuary.

To be sure, the place of worship in first-century Israel and the auditorium of a small independent church in Southern California don’t correspond exactly, but true to Jesus’s words, my church didn’t want the place of worship co-opted as a place of commerce. Which is good.

But is merch in church really the heart of the issue…or is it something more invisible and insidious?

Just about everyone knows the punchline to the classic joke that begins, “Hey buddy, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

It's not just a classic joke, though, it’s exactly how reality works.

You’d never say, “If you want to be a great athlete, go snowboard a double black diamond, or run the mile in under four minutes,” or “If you want to be a great musician, go play the Beethoven Violin Concerto.”

No. In the words of Dallas Willard, “...we advise young athletes or artists to enter into a certain kind of overall life, one involving deep associations with qualified people as well as rigorously scheduled time, diet, and activity for the mind and body.” Virtually everyone knows this is the path, and it’s true for every single area of life.

So, reality would dictate that if we desire to follow Christ—to really walk in his way with him—we have to do exactly the same thing. “How do you follow Christ?” “Practice, practice, practice.”

The Church knows this. That’s why, since around the third century, she’s practiced Lent—a season of prayer, study, fasting, and alms-giving—originally undertaken as a way to inculcate those who would be disciples into the normal life of Jesus.

Modern brain science affirms the reality the Scriptures have always taught: when the heat is on, by the time we ask “What would Jesus do?” it’s too late. The better question is, “What did Jesus do?” when the heat wasn’t on, then enter into that life. It’s a distinction with a radical difference.

In the stories we tell, our most beloved fables, there will often be a moment in the story where the main character is shown a vision of some greater reality, one far beyond their imagining. This encounter leaves then transformed and ready to face the trials ahead.

But when Jesus shows his disciples his glory, they are left profoundly unchanged.

That’s because the Transfiguration is a true story.

Since its beginning, world mission has been at the forefront of the Anglican Communion…to the point that today a new chapter in our story is being written.

There was a time when people associated Anglicans almost exclusively with the West, but that’s no longer the case. Although it started in England, Anglicanism has become one of the world’s most multicultural and multi-ethnic churches, having grown into a worldwide body.

There are more than 80 million Anglicans from 165 countries, making it the third largest body of Christians in the world. We speak numerous languages and hail from many ethnicities and cultures, united by our love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and use of the Book of Common Prayer.

If trends continue, according to some missiologists, by 2050 the global total of Anglicans will be approaching 150 million of whom only a tiny minority will be of European descent.

The Global South—the continents of Asia, Africa, and South America—represent by far the greatest growth in the Anglican Communion. And today it’s the churches of the Global South who are largely leading the future direction of the Communion.

This Sunday we’ll give some focus to the global mission of our Church.