Palm Sunday
Sermon preached by the Revd Olga Fabrikant-Burke
The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
“I have set my face hard as flint.”
What is the image of Jesus that we find at the heart of the Passion? We often see the Passion, the final harrowing events of Christ’s earthly life, through the lens of Philippians 2, an early Christian hymn to Christ’s humility. It gives us images of humiliation and submission, gentleness and meekness, as well as patient endurance. “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Jesus dies a slave’s death.
But this Palm Sunday, Isaiah, in one of the so-called Servant Songs, adds another stark colour to the rich Passion palette. It is an image of unwavering determination. It is a picture of steely resolve as Jesus decisively embarks on his journey to the Cross to pay the price for your salvation and mine. “I have set my face like flint.”
Flint is a very hard type of rock, a form of quartz. From the ancient times, flint was renowned for its hardness. So hard is flint that it has been used for crafting weapons and tools that are capable of holding their edge against almost any substance, no matter how tough. The hard flint edge can even shave off particles of steel. Flint is unyielding and piercing. The Suffering Servant sets his face hard as flint.
He was not alone. The prophet Ezekiel was commanded to do the same: “Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” In his gospel, Luke, too, draws on similar imagery as he speaks of Jesus: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Instead of turning back and running away, Jesus sets his face like flint towards Jerusalem and stares down the suffering awaiting him there. Not even those hours of agony in Gethsemane could ultimately succeed in dissuading him from treading the path that he had chosen. Jesus remained adamant. “Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
So utterly stuck are we in our downward spiral of self-destruction that nothing less than the hardest flint could save us. We cannot extricate ourselves from ourselves. And so Jesus sets his face like flint in order to suffer and die out of love for us.
He knew precisely what you and I would cost him. He knew that our fickle hosannas would swiftly turn into vicious shouts of betrayal: “Crucify him!” He knew that palm branches would soon become thorns. He knew that what we desire, in our heart of hearts, is not a crucified Messiah, but a triumphant king. He knew that he would be subjected to many indignities, total contempt, and cruel mockery. He was expecting opposition and adversity. But such is depth of God’s love for us that he considered the pain and ridicule worthwhile. Still Jesus set his face hard as flint to enter fully and willingly into his mission. With gritty determination, he is about to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. The Servant has fixed his face like flint on his goal.
Flint is unyielding and piercing. It also has another extraordinary quality. When struck against steel, flint produces a spark—a spark that can ignite a flame. “Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, ‘Prophesy!’ The guards also took him over and beat him.” With every blow to Christ’s face, his face of love, hard as flint, sparks fly. And those sparks become our light and our salvation. Even when we do our worst, God’s love, as hard as flint, does not flinch.
And those sparks, transformed by God’s love, will start a fire. They will start a fire in our hearts, and our hearts will burn. Our hearts will burn within us come Easter, as we walk on the road to Emmaus with the risen Christ. But our hearts burn within us even now, this Palm Sunday. As we enter Holy Week, as we behold the one who set his face like flint for our sakes, our hearts burn with grief, even to death.