“And it was night.”

These words come from St. John’s Gospel – and it’s worth pondering on these words this evening as we participate in this prelude to the Church’s longest day - the Triduum, those three days Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday that merge into one.

“And it was night.” These words mark a decisive shift on John’s narrative. They follow the prediction by Jesus of his death and betrayal. Jesus has just told Judas ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ Judas immediately leaves the room. And then John says "And it was night.” Most of the story of the Passion which will unfold in the next few days happens during the hours of darkness. The Last Supper, the agony in Gethsemane, the trials before the chief priests and Pilate – all these things occur in the bewildering and chaotic hours of darkness. John sets the scene for the passion narrative to unfold amidst the shadows of the night.

But just as Judas leaves the room, John records that Jesus says these words: ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.’ The words ‘glory’ and ‘glorification’ have special significance in John’s Gospel. It has a particular resonance in the Old Testament as a word which suggests the presence and the reality of God. To see the glory of God is to discover the reality of God. And for John, the place where Christians discover the reality of God is not in the kind of place where one might expect to find it. The reality of God is discovered among dark shadows in the disfigured body of a man on a cross. ‘Glory’ and ‘glorification’ point to the cross and resurrection. That is the place where God’s glory is revealed. As St. Paul puts it “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection. In him, we are saved and made free.’

Please come and join in the Triduum at St Mary’s this year. I hope you will join me in welcoming the Revd Canon Dr Jeremy Morris as our Holy Week preacher, and I hope you will join us in celebrating the joy of the resurrection on Easter Day.