Filling all things.

A Sermon for Palm Sunday

April 13, 2025 at Holy Communion with Palms

“Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

The Passion we have just read comes to a dramatic climax in its final paragraph. At the moment of the death of Christ, “curtain of the temple was torn in two, … the earth shook, and the rocks were split, … and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27:51–52). Then, “when the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly this was the Son of God!”

The climax of the Passion—in fact, the climax of the entire Gospel according to Saint Matthew—is the confession by the centurion, in light of “all that had taken place” in Jesus’ suffering and death, that Jesus is the Son of God.

How did he know?

There’s no doubt that he was moved by the Spirit of God to make a confession which would echo down the ages, interpreting the Passion as a revelation of Jesus’ sonship to the Father. He “knew” because the Holy Spirit granted it to him. So perhaps the question is this: how does Jesus’ suffering and death reveal that he is the Son of God?

We are tempted to think of Jesus’ suffering as a revelation of his humanity, the moment when he allows his human weakness to take centre stage. And there’s no denying that Jesus experiences pain every minute of his Passion just as anyone else would in the same circumstance. But Jesus doesn’t suffer the way that anyone else does.

Here are two verses from the hymn “My song is love unknown,” which we will sing in just a few moments:

Why? what has my Lord done?

What makes this rage and spite?

He made the lame to run,

he gave the blind their sight.

Sweet injuries! yet they at these

themselves displease, and ‘gainst him rise.

They rise, and needs will have

my dear Lord make 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.

Jesus faces “rage and spite” for his healing and blessing. Jesus who raised the dead is exchanged for a murder. “Yet,” we sing, “cheerful he to suffering goes, that he his foes from thence might free.” He goes voluntarily to his suffering, submitting to the yoke with humility, never to the end even for a moment withdrawing his acceptance of the Father’s will or his blessing on his enemies. He forgives his torturers. He is dying for them, sacrificing himself for the sin they commit even by killing him.

And so the centurion confesses that he is the Son of God. Only a God among men can suffer this way.

Jesus reveals the mystery of life in death. Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said that “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Clinging to life, resisting the inevitable pull of death, trying to secure your life against the threats of your neighbours and of your world—it’s all futile. You will lose your life despite your best efforts; but, more importantly, you will miss out on the life you could have had if you had lived open-heartedly. But if you give up your life, if you refuse to secure yourself through ego and isolation, you find a life which even dusky death can’t take from you.

The centurion sees the Giver of Life suspended from the cross. He sees Life trampling down death by death, unconquered by suffering because he does not resist suffering, but instead embraces death as just another way to give life. He sees God entering even death.

At funerals we read Psalm 139, which says,

Where can I go then from your Spirit?

where can I flee from your presence?

If I climb up to heaven, you are there;

if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,

and the light around me turn to night,”

Darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day;

darkness and light to you are both alike. (v 6–7, 10–11)

There is no place which God’s presence does not fill. God is not only in the radiant heights, but also in the murky depths. It does not make a difference to God whether it is a dark day or a luminous one: he is there. The difference is that we expect God to at home in days of peace and joy; we do not imagine God weeping with those who weeping and dying with those who die. But then here he is, climbing a hill, being hoisted into the air, giving up his spirit.

God’s purpose is to fill all things, to be All-in-All for his world as he has intended from the beginning.

In our Epistle reading, St Paul describes in poetic form the descent of God the Word from the throne at his Father’s right hand, into human life, and even further down to the abasement of a shameful death (Philippians 2:5–8). The point of all this—”therefore,” he says—is that “every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (v 10). The realm of the angelic choirs know the presence of Jesus and offer him unceasing worship. On earth his ministry culminates in triumph, as he rides into the holy city as the long-expected King finally present with his people. But if he stopped there his mission would be incomplete. He must also visit the place of the dead, fulfilling the word of the Psalmist: “if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.” God must be All-in-All. He must be the God of the dead as well as the God of the living (Matthew 22:32). He must both descend to the depths and return to the heights so that he can, as St Paul says, “fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10).