This sermon was preached on the 19th of April 2025, Holy Saturday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie, preceding the Flowering of the Cross

Texts:

Today, Jesus descends into the underworld, into the ground, to be with the dead. Today, Jesus harrows hell. Today, Jesus liberates the captives, offering to them his outstretched hand. And all who take grasp of it, he lifts up to freedom and eternal life.

This is an old understanding, an old tradition of the church. It finds its starting point in Scripture, but its entirety is not found there. In his letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul recounts a tradition of the early Church:

“When [Jesus] ascended on high, he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”

And then Paul adds a note of explanation:

When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things. (see Ephesians 4:1-10)

Saint Peter’s first letter also references this understanding. He writes:

For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does. (1 Peter 4:6)

Who could have proclaimed the Gospel to the dead, except Jesus Christ himself?

The Bible is the bedrock of our tradition, literally the library of our faith. Its human authors were divinely inspired. And yet our Christian tradition extends far beyond the Bible itself. And we cannot read the Bible apart from that tradition, the living tradition of the Church, the living tradition of the Body of Christ.

Those of us who were raised in the Church were taught the tradition from an early age, by those who cared for us and taught us… our parents, our youth leaders, our fellow children, our deacons and priests and bishops.

And those of us here who are new to the Church: you have still been taught the tradition. The tradition of the Church is woven into the very fabric of our society, the very fabric of the stories we tell. If you’ve watched Star Trek, you’ve been taught something of the tradition; if you watch Star Wars, the same has happened; Battlestar Galactica; Babylon 5… and don’t even get me started on the Lord of the Rings, or the recent (and fabulous) series Ted Lasso.

Can you tell I like science fiction, and watch too much TV?

Most of the authors of those television shows and movies, as well as the authors of many contemporary poems and novels, know that they draw on the tradition of the church. But fewer and fewer of them explicitly state that they do contribute to our continuing tradition.

It would be easy to argue that the creative people of our society have turned their backs upon the Church: that Tolkien, and C S Lewis, and that generation were the among the last to openly own their Christianity, and state aloud that they sought to add to the tradition of the Church.

But I don’t think that’s the case.

I think the Church itself has become uncomfortable with the very idea of tradition… with the idea of divine inspiration and revelation, and especially with the idea of ongoing revelation to lay people.

The Church has often been afraid of the reality that God through the Spirit can and does choose to speak Truth into the hearts of ordinary folks. The Church does not control God.

This Holy Week I’ve been reading from the words of Julian of Norwich. She is the first woman known to have authored a book in the English language. She was a theologian, and a mystic. These are her words, reflecting upon the descent of the Blood of Christ into Hell:

“The dearworthy blood of our sweet Lord is as plentiful as it is sacred. Behold and see! The precious bounty descended to the depths of hell and burst the bonds that ensnared all beings there, lifting them to the holy halls of paradise. The precious bounty flows over the whole of the earth, bathing all beings in grace, swiftly cleansing the impurities of every creature of goodwill, now and forever. The precious bounty ascended to the heights of heaven and merged with the blessed body of our Lord, where it continues to circulate inside him, and he keeps bleeding and praying on our behalf to the Creator of all that is, for as long as we need it. It flows and flows, throughout every level of paradise, rejoicing in the liberation of the whole of humanity, until we reach our final number and are all set free.”

(trans. Mirabai Star)

Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love are her visions granted to her by God: but put into words, perhaps even put into narrative, put into imagery and metaphor and allegory, through her own, God-given imagination and creativity.

Her contribution to the tradition is a co-creative act: a human being, a lay woman of the medieval Church in England, using the creative faculties given to her by God to serve her God.

And that’s what we’ve come together to do today. To be co-creators. To dress the Cross with flowers. And in so doing, use our creativity, our imaginations, our bodies, to disclose something of the Divine to the world.

As we dress the Cross with flowers, we will express our love for Jesus who has died for us. And we will also express our hope as we wait for the Easter dawn. We will express the hope we have in Jesus.

And maybe we will say other things: things that will surprise me, things that I do not yet know, that I cannot anticipate. I welcome that.

Almost all of the tradition of the Church remains to be written, or painted, or sung.

You will be its authors.

God created humanity in their image that you might have the power of creativity, and of reason: that you might search for God, and that God might make Godself known to you, and take joy in you.

Seek after God with joy in your hearts.

Take joy in your God, and write from that joy, paint from that joy, sing from that joy.