A Song of Redemption
A sermon preached by Revd. Maggie Guillebaud
Sunday 30 August 2026
Colossians 1: 13-18a,19-.20a ; John 12: 44-50
‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ That great affirmation of our faith from Messiah is surely the most well-known song in this great work. Its message is clear, simple, and unforgettable.
Because that is what music does: it tethers an idea in our minds because it is embedded in music. How many of us can still remember all those hymns we learnt in childhood? If we had learnt them as poetry, I bet we wouldn’t remember half as many as we do. (I have seen that deep memory at work in old people’s homes, when nearly everything is gone, but not the hymns. Music captures our minds at a profound level.)
So during our summer exhibition ‘ Joyful Noise’, it is apposite we remember that what we have been preaching about in this Summer Sermon series is song, the Secret Songs of Scripture. And today we have Canticle 62, The Song of Redemption, the word canticle coming from the Latin word canticulum, or little song.
The Hebrew Bible, particularly the Psalms and those other hidden songs we have heard about this summer, reminds us just how much music there is in the Hebrew Bible. We may not now know exactly how these songs were sung, and instruments have changed over the millennia, but we know King Saul was soothed by a harp played by David, that the walls of Jericho were brought down by the sound of trumpets, and that the psalms were sung regularly in Jewish worship at least from the time of the Ark of the Covenant. Sacred songs carried the history of the Jews with them as they travelled from Egypt to the Promised Land, perhaps filling the desert air as they moved from camp to camp. Collective singing binds together a community after all. Why otherwise do we sing hymns?
Our Canticle today however is tangentially linked to that ancient Jewish tradition in that it builds on the old tradition of Jewish song, but with a new twist: Christology, that is early Christian theology about the person of Jesus.
The canticle is based, scholars believe, on a Christological hymn, the original of which is lost. That is, it is Paul’s version of a hymn already in circulation at Colossae before his letter to the Colossians was written, on which this canticle is based. Could this have been the first Christian hymn?
It is a profound statement of our understanding of Redemption, a Pauline interpretation of a key building block of our faith, not just for the Colossians but for all of us.
The idea of redemption runs throughout the Hebrew bible, but is quite different from what we as Christians understand by Redemption with a capital R.
In its ancient form its basic idea involves doing something on behalf of others because they are unable to do it for themselves, for example redeeming a debt on behalf of someone who has had their property confiscated, or paying a ransom for a prisoner, or seeking revenge for someone who has been murdered. But it is a one way process: I am in a position to do what you can’t. When I have done you this service I leave, and that is that.
These ideas set the framework for Paul’s understanding of Christ’s work of Redemption, and is completely revolutionary.
Because Paul dramatically subverts the idea of Redemption into a cosmic event centred on the figure of Jesus.
Jesus the Redeemer scoops us up into a new kingdom, given to him by his Father, delivering us from darkness into light. Remember that next time you participate in our stunning Advent Service, From Darkness to Light.
Not only that, but Paul tells us that Jesus was there from the beginning of creation, the image of the invisible God, the source of all creation, the one who holds all creation together, the one who reconciles all things, including us, to God .
And further, Jesus is now the head of this tiny community, or Church, of Christians, scattered all over the Middle East and in Rome, those Christians Paul so assiduously visits, encourages, and reproaches in his letters, those Christians who are now beginning to face persecution, banishment, and uncertainty.
Redemption is freely given, and includes everyone. Jesus becomes our route to God. He does not go away after his work of Redemption is finished, but conquers death and remains with us to the end of time. Jesus reconciles us all to God because that is something we cannot do for ourselves. He reconciles the whole of creation to God, because creation cannot do so for itself.
Those of you who know me will know my interest in art and art history. So where in the visual arts is it possible to find this idea given visual form? I believe it is in the images of the Crucifixion.
The earliest representation of the Crucifixion in Western art is on the doors of the C5th church of Santa Sabina in Rome. Those of you who went on Pilgrimage to Rome will I hope remember Santa Sabina and this little carving. It is in a small carved door panel, one among many, and has a simple representation of the crucifixion of three men, Christ appearing larger than the others. He has no expression; he is simply depicted as a fact: Christ crucified.
By the C13th century Giotto began to introduce a greater sense of realism into his work, for example in Assisi Christ’s head droops as his mother faints and Mary Magadalene kisses his feet, the angles in heaven wringing their hands as the cosmos witnesses this awful scene.
And by the Baroque period the spiritual consequences of the Crucifixion are more pronounced as artists, on behalf of their Roman Catholic patrons, sought to inspire strong spiritual emotions in their viewers as a way of countering the more austere approaches of the Reformation with its emphasis on the Word as being the only path to God.
I generalise, of course. But I hope you get the general idea.
So what depictions of the Crucifixion do I feel most accurately reflect the act of Redemption? For me it is the understated depictions made in the early Christian centuries, such as the beautiful C5th ivory casket of late Roman design in the British Museum. Do go and see it if you possibly can. Our Redeemer hangs on the cross as a statement of fact. He gazes steadily at us, upright, triumphant, Redemption achieved.
In a so-called post-truth society where increasingly we speak of ‘my’ truth, ‘my’ way of seeing things, in a society centred on human feeling and autonomy rather than on rigorous thought and interrogation of evidence, it is as well occasionally to step outside this solipsistic bubble and read again what our scriptures have to tell us, the startling yet simple truth: that we are redeemed, loved, and saved. Our Redeemer’s steady gaze from ancient crucifixes tell us all we need to know, as does Handel’s great song.
In both Matthew and Mark we are told that Jesus and his friends, on the night of the Last Supper, sang a song after they had finished their meal before going out into the night. Song bound that group together before they set out on the path that led to the Cross. I wonder which song they sang? Whatever it was, I suspect they made a joyful noise. Amen.