In the Litany of The Book of Common Prayer Anglicans hear the priest pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, Incarnate Son of the Father Almighty:

By thine Agony and bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension’ and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.

And they respond:

Good Lord, deliver us.

What the Litany presumes, what the dogma of the Ecumenical Councils affirms, and what the New Testament declares is that for our deliverance (redemption) it was Jesus, called the Messiah and confessed as Lord and the Son of God, who both suffered and died, was raised from the dead and exalted into heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father and sent from there the Holy Spirit as his Paraclete (Advocate, Comforter and Representative).

The Gospels of the New Testament provide a large proportion of the content of their texts to the seven days from Palm Sunday to Easter Day. The reason for this is that the heart of the Gospel is neither the ministry nor the teaching of Jesus (important as they are) but what God achieved, did and does through his passion, death, resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit.

The Incarnation took place in order for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God as truly Man, to enter the earthly city of God, Jerusalem, to weep over it, to enter it and its Temple, to proclaim the Gospel, to suffer in mind, spirit and body there, and then to die as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world and be raised from the dead in order to be the head of a new Creation and Covenant and the maker of a new Temple, wherein people are given the gift of eternal life through the presence of the Holy Spirit, to worship, adore and serve the Holy Trinity.

During Holy Week, Easter, Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide we can and do view Jesus from a variety of different but complementary angles. For example, we can look at him through the titles from the Old Testament which he takes into himself and fulfills; we can look at him through the dogma, the Christology, framed by the Early Church; and we can read and follow the narratives in the four Gospels using meditative and imaginative powers of our soul to enter into this holy drama of salvation.

Jesus means “The Lord our salvation” and we can see this meaning unfolding as Jesus is totally identified with the human race, and the Jewish people in particular, as he suffers, dies and is raised from the dead. While he dies on the cross as if he were he common criminal – but dies for us and for our salvation – he is raised as the Lord of all.

Jesus knew that he was the Messiah (Christ) and he told his apostles often and solemnly that it was necessary (required by God’s will) for the Messiah to suffer and to die in order for salvation to come into the world and for the new covenant of grace to be established. In Holy Week we hear his submission to this holy vocation as with “bloody Sweat” in Gethsemane he prays to the Father: “Nor my will but Thine be done.” Here Jesus is fulfilling the prophetic content of the Servant poems in the book of Isaiah, especially the last one in Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12. The only way that salvation can come into the world and become the content of a new covenant is through the offering of a bloody sacrifice to wash away the sins of the world. Forgiveness, full and free, is now possible – “Father, forgive them…” he cried.

As Jesus is nailed to the Cross and as, by him, the perfect and sufficient offering and the perfect expiation and propitiation for the sins (original and actual) of the world is/are offered to the Father for the reconciliation of God to man, he dies as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Yet his death is agony of body and soul, for bearing the curse resting upon mankind, he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.” When he died and his sacrifice was accepted on the heavenly altar, all the sacrifices of the old covenant, required by the law of Moses, become unnecessary and obsolete. “It is finished” was his cry, as he handed over his pure spirit to the Father, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

Jesus also died and was raised as the “Son of Man” a title from the Old Testament that portrays both his manhood and his exaltation to the Father’s right hand (see Daniel 7:xx and Psalm 110). When Jesus was gloriously raised from the dead and exalted into heaven, he was raised as “the Son of Man” in fulfillment of prophecy and as “the Lord” of the new race of man to be created by the new covenant of grace, sealed by his bloody sacrifice.

As the unique Prophet of God, Jesus proclaimed to the very end the word, will and purposes of God, and in death, he entered the sphere of the departed to proclaim to them his finished saving work; as the unique Priest of God, Jesus prayed for God’s elect people (John 17) and then offered himself as the final Sacrifice for the sins of the world, as he pronounced Blessing upon those who believe; and as the King of kings Jesus told Pilate what kind of king he was and then as King of all creation, invisible and visible, he rose from the dead, was exalted into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.

In less moving, but yet in necessary terms, according to church dogma, it was Jesus as the One Person made known in two natures (divine and human) who by his “agony and blood sweat…precious death and burial…and glorious resurrection and ascension” truly brought reconciliation between God and man, redemption and salvation for man, and the gift of forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe on his name and receive his Gospel. The fact that Jesus was/is the Incarnate Second Person of the Holy Trinity, means that to everything that Jesus as perfect Man and Messiah did there is added, as it were, the infinite and eternal value of his divine nature. For though he suffered and died in his human nature and body, yet he suffered and died as the One Person of the Son of God incarnate. Obviously he did not die in his deity and divinity as the divine Son but he did most surely die in his manhood as the Incarnate Son, the Man of Galilee, Jesus the Christ. His pain, agony, blood sweat and death were real!

Not surprisingly the message that resounds through the Acts of the Apostles is the Gospel that in the Name of the Jesus, who died for our sins has been gloriously raised and exalted as the Lord, there is full, complete and free salvation from sin, death and hell into holiness, everlasting life and heaven. And such has always been the message of the Church down the ages proclaimed in many languages and many places but always with the intent of bring people out of darkness into the marvelous light of God the LORD, who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.