This sermon is by way of a post-script, or add-on to last week's. There was a paragraph that I was going to put in there that I didn't have the space to reflect on, and that, if I'd included it, would have made last week's sermon long and unwieldy. Then I realised that the topic probably warranted its very own sermon. So here we are.

Last week, for those of you who weren't here, I talked about the idea of redemption – that is, making things right or whole – being linked into God's actions as Creator. Using the analogy of the artist working on their masterpiece over time, a potter shaping and re-shaping the clay, I suggested that God is continuously and permanently involved in the midst of all things, lovingly re-working and renewing those things that go awry, intermingling what we experience as good and bad into a new whole. And I thought about our role in God's redemptive process for ourselves and others – a role that involves us as pliable, responsive people who are able to be channels of God's Spirit in bringing newness to all situations as God guides us.

I mentioned in passing that I found this approach helpful as distinct from a narrow focus on redemption as a 'one off' event that happened on the cross, which has tended to be the emphasis of the Christian church.

However, it's not enough for me to leave it there. I do need to come back to the role of Jesus Christ in the great drama of redemption. Because as Christians, we have a particular response to the pain and evil that we humans experience as we live in this world. As Christians, we hold at the centre of our faith the redeeming work of Jesus Christ for the whole world. This gives us a unique way that we can participate with God in the greater creative work of redemption. And I say unique, not necessarily exclusive.

My starting point in all of this is to acknowledge the reality of evil, of appalling human suffering, of the suffering of the whole creation, and the truth that we participate in all of that by carrying within ourselves the seeds of our own destruction and the capacity to harm others. As humans, it just doesn't feel sufficient to say that in God's timing, this evil and this suffering will be woven in with light, given meaning, and transformed to become something beautiful...even if that may be true. As humans we need something more visceral, something that comes closer to our pain. Something that helps us to 'walk on' when things go very dark. And something that actually promises, in the end, to absorb, transform and eradicate evil completely.

This some'thing' is actually a some'one' – Jesus. And in his incarnation and his death and resurrection, in the symbol of the cross that is at the heart of Christian imagery, we glimpse a reality beyond words and beyond theology.

In the vulnerable coming of Jesus into the world, and dying here at the hands of brutal humanity, we have a God who suffers with us, dies with us, and more than that, transforms our suffering and dying into new life. Jesus' life and death is not 'just' a symbol, or an archetype that is always happening, and also not 'just' something that happened 2000 years ago in Palestine. His life is a sacrament – a real event involving real flesh and blood that made a 'once for all time' difference to the world... one that gives way into a spiritual reality of great and cosmic significance. As Cynthia Bourgeault puts it...'a sacrament does not merely symbolize a spiritual reality; it lives that reality into existence.' (The Wisdom Jesus)

These are big floaty ideas that are hard to put into any words at all, let alone make simple and clear. I guess what I am saying is that there is a channel, a mechanism, a means by which we can be confident that God's creative redemptive process is not only happening but has come to us in a way that we can access and grasp hold of for ourselves. And, that this process has genuine power over the awfulness that we encounter from time to time, or read about happening elsewhere in the world.

By saying yes to become vulnerable to human weakness and cruelty, by saying yes to betrayal and death and loss, by saying yes to self-emptying, derangement, dislocation and despair, Jesus shows us that there is no human suffering that lies outside his experience to suffer with, and transform. By entering after death into the bowels of estrangement from God that we call 'hell', Jesus shows us that there is no demon he has not already faced, no evil that he has not already met – and they did not claim him. The light has entered the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. And by rising again to visit his friends, and then ascending to eternal union with his Father, Jesus shows us that he was not destroyed or diminished by these encounters with horror and pain, but in fact restored, transfigured, and made more than whole. And that he holds out this promise to all of us who come after him.

And so what? Other than to be thankful and inspired, what are we to do with these huge affirmations that the Christian faith makes about our redeemer? We are to participate. We are to join in. Yes, Jesus' path was unique to him. None of the rest of us came from cosmic union with God, emptied ourselves to enter human form, and suffered and died on behalf of humanity. But this is still a trail that Jesus blazed intending us to follow, and if we are to see his life and death as sacrament more than merely symbol or history, then it is our task to step onto that path.

One of the ways we participate is being part of being Jesus' body here on earth, his legacy. And what holds that body together is the Eucharist, the sacramental meal by which we take into ourselves and affirm in our hearts and draw strength from the redeeming work of Jesus.

But on a day to day basis there is also the work of emptying, dying, opening, letting go, and suffering alongside, that is the model of our Master Jesus.

Essentially, there is one word that is important in all of this – it's 'Yes'. Which is interesting because we're more used to the religious life being framed in terms of what we say 'no' to. But the Christian way has 'yes' at its heart. In a fascinating passage from the Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault talks about the Latin word 'fiat', which is translated as 'let it be.' Or 'yes'. The first fiat is God's in creation – let there be...the whole created universe. Then there is the fiat of Mary that allows the whole saga of incarnation to unfold – let it be, I will give birth to this child. And then, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus struggles and sweats and weeps as he moves toward his own fiat – 'your will be done'... confronting his own fears and uncertainties and deciding to submit himself to a process that will lead to his own violent death, and beyond.

Only you can know what it is that God calls you to give your life's great fiat to. Nobody else can tell you. And we need to beware of church conditioning that calls us to pointless martyrdom. We can probably judge, from what we see in the life of Jesus, and in the wider story of the Bible, that our 'yes' will likely involve some pain, some loss of what we thought to be some necessary aspect of ourselves or our life, and some confrontation with temptation to grasp hold of power, security, or the esteem of others. And it will probably happen in the service of others, to bring more love into the world.

But on a smaller scale, we have the chance to say 'yes' every day, when situations arise that provoke a choice between holding on and letting go, between turning away and turning toward, between hardening and softening. It is by cultivating our 'yes' in the small things that we will learn how to say 'let it be' when it is our turn to experience the major life events that bring us closest to the path of Jesus the redeemer, or to walk with someone else through their pain.

There is nothing intrinsically redemptive about suffering. And I do not believe that God causes suffering. But there is redemption in saying 'yes' in the midst of suffering – 'yes' to going deeply into the learning and the transformation that God can bring from it. 'Yes' to letting go of the things we cling to in order to try and lessen our suffering, even if these things are precisely the things that are worsening our pain. 'Yes' to staying open to what we experience and seeking love there, rather than becoming bitter, hard and cynical.

Some of you have already gone through the major crisis or decision point that it was yours to walk in this life. Some of you have said your major 'fiat' to God's call for you. Some of you have that time ahead of you. Some have more than one of these moments, some seem let off comparatively easily! But everyone who wants to join with God in the vast and beautiful work of redemption that is healing this world and working all things together for good, will follow to some extent the path that Jesus has modelled – because that is what God has chosen as the Way of Redemption. God give us the grace to walk it, to find our 'yes' when it matters, and the companionship of Jesus and his friends as we do so.