No lone rangers

‘… apart from me you can do nothing’. (John 15:5)

John 15:1-8 (Year B: Easter 5)

Many of the images, stories and examples used by Jesus come from the natural world including the world of agriculture and the land.  Images of seeding, growth, pruning, harvesting, preparation, manufacturing, selling, buying, storing, giving, taking and keeping arise throughout all of the gospels. I wonder what images, stories or parables would be told today in a fast-moving and fast-changing post-industrial and increasingly digital society?  One key aspect, at least, of the stories told about Jesus and by Jesus is the presence of personal relationship as a core point of the story. Along with this we hear about organic development and not mechanical determination. Put simply, we hear stories about:

   -        Ordinary people;

-             their relationships and struggles; and

-             a whole-istic view of reality embracing, meaning, source, development, change, feeling, action and      will.

In other words, the Gospels are not a book of philosophical theory (although they can well inform such a theory). Neither are they a book of mechanical engineering and cosmic physics to explain how the world was created and developed. And they are not a political manifesto or tract (although they may and should inform such matters). The Gospels (note plural) are what they say on the tin: Good News. Good news to change lives, to change relationships, to change societies. We must work out what this means and what to do today, here, now. The Gospels are vital signposts and lighting paths. We can truly say:  ‘Your word is a lamp for my steps and a light for my path’ (Psalm 118:105).

So, the gospel writers told stories about Jesus or stories told by Jesus. These stories connect with the world of those hearing and telling and re-telling the stories. We need to hear these stories anew every time they are told. And, we in our turn need to tell them with a twist and relevance for today’s audience in today’s world whether it is a favela in Sao Paolo or a busy drop-in centre in Dublin. The stories echo down the ages.

Today, many people feel isolated, cut off, unsure, rudderless. This story is for them. Without God in our lives we are cut off from the living tree. With the God of life and love in our lives we are connected into a living tree and we can flourish and grow. But we grow with pruning. Note that the branches that bear fruit (because they are growing) are the ones that get pruned (or ‘cleaned’ to use the literal Greek word καθαίρ). We should welcome seasonal pruning!.  The point of our journey is not only to follow together with others but to bear fruit and to bear it in plenty. We are, each, no matter who we are or where we are at called to flourish and to bear fruit. That is the excitement, the mystery and the unknowing of Christian discipleship at the very outset. We cannot foresee where exactly it leads and how. We trust.

In the Christian journey there is no need for lone rangers.  Church is meant to be what it says: a gathering in and a sending out.  I would describe it as a hospital for the walking wounded. We needed help, support and healing on the journey but we also need to keep moving and reaching out beyond the boundaries of the hospital where others seek healing and relationship. We need to acknowledge the uniqueness of each branch on the tree. But, we need to stay connected in and nourished as branches of the one tree. We are made for one another and it is a joy to be welcomed into such a fellowship. Perhaps, nowhere is this unity best expressed than in the sharing of wine of the new covenant in the Eucharist when many Christians have the great privilege not only of eating but drinking as well. There, the ancient tradition, as testified in the 1^st/2^nd  century Didache recalls the ancient Jewish blessing over the bread and over the wine and sets it in the new testament and covenant:

We give thanks to You, our Father, for the holy wine of David Your servant which You have made known to us through Jesus Your servant.

By sharing the one cup of joy and fellowship and partaking in the spiritual food, life and joy of the blood of the risen Lord we are healed, set free, re-united and send out no longer as lone rangers but as gifted team players.  This 5^th Sunday of Eastertide was made by the Lord let us rejoice and be glad. Once again, let us rejoice (Philippians 4:4).

Voices and faces

‘… And I lay down my life’. (John 10:15)

John 10:11-18 (Year B: Easter 4)

A kind face..

Have you ever undergone a general anaesthetic? If you have, you might recall the face of the anaesthetist who kindly looked at you before you don’t remember anything.  And then, some time later, you remember first, a sound, a voice and then a face – this time a new face that looks kindly at you.  It is the recovery ward.

Faces, voices and sounds are important. We listen and look for kindness in the face of another.  The first face, or one of the first faces, a new-born baby sees is that of its mother. As a baby grows and develops the face and voice of its mother continues to be its safety and strength. Other faces and voices also arrive and are very important. 

At the other end of the life-cycle it is not uncommon that a person completing this phase of life is focussed on a face or voice. Perhaps, sounds are the last signals a dying person is aware of? Or, perhaps, they ‘see’ faces of loved ones long departed from this phase of life.  In our own case, we shall have to see!

Assuming that we have the gift of sight and hearing, knowing and recognising a face or a voice is central to how we connect to others throughout life.  In deciding how to live our lives and move onwards and upwards we listen out and look out. A kindly light leads us as a familiar poem-hymn says. We can recognise the voice of the Good Shepherd because it has three enduring qualities.  These are:

-       Kindness;

-       Gentleness; and

-       An inviting tone.

Tone and context are important. The eyes are the window of the soul and behind a wrinkled face and a few greys hairs may lie a very kind, gentle and wise spirit inviting others to peace.  The beauty is primarily within and from there flows kind actions and words.  A kind, gentle and inviting look and gesture says a thousand words. Sometimes, no word is necessary. Looks say it all.  When the Gospel of John reveals Jesus as the Good Shepherd it is reminding us that we are bound together and to the Good Shepherd because we are called, respected, affirmed, appreciated, cherished and loved as children belonging to the Good shepherd. 

The servant leader..

However, images of animal submission, passivity and docility may not sit easily for many modern-day readers.  We can understand the metaphor of the Good Shepherd and the sheep for what it is – a loving relationship founded on trust, mutual recognition and following. Our leader and shepherd is not a despot. He is the One who is ready to lay down his life for us (and the greatest love we can have is to lay down our lives for our fiends and not just those on Facebook ! – John 15:13). 

Servant leadership puts those served first. This is not the typical pattern of leadership in many organisations including at times, sadly, those professing to follow Jesus. What is it about such leadership and watching over us? It is the deep, deep care of the one who watches over us like a mother gazing at her baby. It is a gaze and a solicitude that says: ‘I care for you’.

Jesus our good shepherd guides our way forward (Psalm 36:23: ‘The Lord guides the steps of a man and makes safe the path of one he loves.’). The saying of Jesus on the good shepherd is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures that Jesus was all too familiar with. For example, the prophet Ezekiel (chapter 34) speaks of a covenant between the Lord who is Shepherd and his people Israel. He will take care of his people where the shepherds have failed. The latter never cared. What was it about the true shepherd of Israel that marked him out from the false shepherds? What model of shepherding is Jesus implementing in John’s gospel? Let’s take Ezekiel 34:3-6 and recall the characteristics of the false shepherds:

you do not take care of the flock.  You have not strengthened the weak or healed those who are ill or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.  So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.  My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

And best-practice shepherding..

So, the Good shepherd does 7 things:

1.      takes care of the flock.  

2.      strengthens the weak.

3.      heals the ill.

4.      binds up the injured.

5.      brings back the strays

6.      searches and looks for the lost.

O and not only that but

7.      gathers in sheep not of this flock (in other words all are welcome regardless of who the insiders think is worthy).

With room for others not like us..

Psalm 22 is very familiar to us: The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want ….’.  And in the prophecy of Isaiah there are a number of references to the role of a loving shepherd (Isaiah 40:11 and 56:8). We note that Isaiah (40:11) speaks of the Lord tending ‘his flock like a shepherd:’ as ‘he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart’. He ‘gently leads those that have young’. It is a matter of overwhelming loving kindness (hesed in Hebrew), gentleness and inviting. And, in 56:8 of Isaiah, there is mention of still others ‘besides those already gathered’. John 10:16 with its reference to ‘other sheep that are not of this sheepfold’ who will brought along and who ‘will listen to my voice’ so that ‘there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’ The Johannine vision of a united world and a single love uniting all peoples and uniting one another to the source of life, love and unity runs through that entire gospel from start to finish (John 17:20-22). God calls not just the religiously inclined or ritually pure elect but everyone – everyone.

And it is over to us..

We have a sure foundation in Jesus who cares for each of us deeply and continuously as a mother does for a new born baby and as a dying person does for those whom we have loved.  But, if we recognise the light and the life of God in the gentle, kind and inviting voice and face of Jesus who is the Face of God (another take on ‘Son of God’) then we, too, can be a gentle, kind and inviting voice and face for others who seek life and light.  We can chose to radiate kindness if we want and if we are serious about doing so.

A very ordinary extraordinary encounter

‘… ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?’ (Luke 24:38)

Luke 24:35-48 (Year B: Easter 3)

Something we saw and touched and experienced..

The story in this extract from Luke’s gospel follows on from the ‘Emmaus Story’ where Jesus walks along with two disciples and ends up staying the evening with them before disappearing. The Risen Christ turns up, unexpectedly, and departs similarly. A common feature in all four gospels, including that of John, is a strong emphasis on the physical risen body of Christ. There is eating together with displays of wounded hands, feet and sides (Luke goes for feet and hands, only). The gospel writers are anxious to dispel any notion that the Risen One is a ghost or a phantom of collective or individual psyche. Christ is one of us among us but in a way that is altogether new and that defies space and time limitations.  The disciples have entered into a new reality where Christ is present to them in their midst and within their hearts. We read in the Acts of the Apostles (thought to be written by Luke) that (Acts 10:40-41):

but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.  He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen – by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 

We have been chosen to eat and drink with the Lord. What a privilege. It cannot escape us that this places a huge responsibility on us to witness to that freedom, peace and joy that we have seen and touched and experienced. We, too, are witnesses. Let us open our eyes today and walk in this freedom without shame or further doubt. Christ walks with us, and behind us and before us. He has overcome our doubts and our fears. As it is written in the first letter of St John (1 John 1:1):

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

And today in 2015 we are witnessing these events.  What happened on the road from Emmaus as well as to Emmaus is that Someone walked into our lives – unexpectedly. It was a natural encounter, so it seemed. Then in conversation with this stranger our hearts were lit up and something sparked deep within us. Jesus spoke about the words of scripture. But in doing this he joined a conversation among the disciples. In other words, he spoke with them more than at them. This is how we learn from others – others who speak with us and not down to us, or up to us or at us. People who speak with us in active conversation bring out something new and old within us. And this is educare – to educate. Such was the joy and the warmth experienced by the disciples that they felt an irresistible urge to share what they had experienced with other disciples. And this continues today among us. ‘Joy and amazement’ (verse 41) together with ‘peace’ (verse 36) are the fruits of such learning and encounter.

Like the spring rains that water the earth..

There is something decidedly Hosean about this story from Luke. The prophet Hosea, writing in the 8^th century BCE declared (Hosea 6:1-3):

Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.   After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him.  As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.

Like the spring rains that water the earth the Lord will come to us. He will not fail us.

In this fallen world, trust is sometimes betrayed and promises broken as a world that we expected never emerged.  However, it is never too late for faith to be renewed, for hope to be affirmed and for love to be re-discovered.

A parable..

One evening shortly before the sun set in the west a soul walked a lonely and quiet road. The air was still and the warmth of the sun was resting on the green road. On the way, he met other disciples among whom the spirit of Joy resided. A conversation started and hearts were warmed as minds were opened. Food was shared and there, in the quiet of the evening, new hope and life was born. In that short interlude, when spirits lingered and stories shared, a new way was opened. Where will it lead?  Christ risen and crucified walks our path every day.

We have passed from doubt to trust and new hope..

From doubt we pass to faith and trust. There is no need any more to be troubled in spirit or to allow doubts to arise. We have met the Risen One on the way and He has nourished us and restored us.  He has overcome our doubts and shown us a way forward one step at a time under the gaze of his love. As it is written in Psalm 34:27:

‘"Great is the Lord who delights in the peace of his servant."‘

For God delights in our well-being, our happiness, our peace and our flourishing. His plans are for peace. The prophecy of Jeremiah 29:11 holds true today for you and for me and for others.

 For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

On the importance of doubt

‘… blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’ (John 20:29)

John 20:19-31 (Year B: Easter 2)

No doubt no faith..

Without doubt there is no faith. What? Read that again. To have faith implies to trust and to entrust. That means taking a step and making something of a leap. Put another way, it means trusting without full certainty. Doubt has an inevitable place in the act of trusting. We entrust our doubt in the act of trusting and that in which we trust takes care of our doubts. Sounds simple? Yes and no.  Life is always a struggle and the edges are not always so clear cut on a particular question or issue.

If what we believe in were certain, provable, ‘scientific’ in the usual sense of this term then there would be no need to trust anyone or anything. It would be a matter of certain conclusion. Because we are human we live in a reality of uncertainty, questioning, evolution, struggle, victory and growth. This is what makes us human. Now, my favourite definition of faith is what Paul wrote (using, in this instance, the King James version of the Bible in English) in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Bereavement as faith in doubt..

People passing through bereavement (it happens to all of us at some stage) feel a mixture of emotions. Sometimes, people of strong faith believe that their loved ones have left clues and signs – establishing a kind of benevolent and watchful presence as they continue to care for us.  Other times, the bereaved have such a strong hope and a strong love and a strong faith that they look forward to being reunited with their loved one after death. These emotions and insights should not be dismissed as mere psychological coping strategies or imaginings. Yes, we do need to cope and to find ways of dealing with realities. However, the seeds of faith – of trusting – are sown deep in the human soul. And we ought not to resist the natural growth of such seeding. What feeds such seeding is the rough soil of turmoil and doubt – never being entirely certain or sure of what it is that is growing in our hearts and minds. We look for clues, we look for certainties, we look to cling to something or someone.

Thomas – ‘the twin’ – was a very modern sort of person in our books. He was just trying to be honest with himself and others not taking on board whatever others told him to think or believe. He looked for hard evidence. Perhaps he has been misled more than once before in his life. Perhaps his companions, the disciples, were not above exaggeration. And Lazarus notwithstanding why should he have accepted this story about Jesus being alive again? God loves us in our doubts, in our questioning, in our anguish, and in our struggles to be honest with ourselves and others.

When John tells us that Jesus appeared to the apostles, including Thomas, ‘eight days’ later he shows them his wounds. However, miraculous his movements and however glorified his body, the risen body of Christ carries wounds. We should never forget this. Our peace is in his wounds and John emphasises, both in the story of Calvary and here, the source of life and renewal in the wounded side of Christ from which ‘blood and water’ flowed. As always, John is never far from the material because his gospel is steeped in mystery or, to use a Western term, the sacraments of Christ’s presence and action. Being highly sacramental (to continue with a Western term) means recognising the ‘fleshiness’ of what it is we believe in. References to body, eating, wounds, touching, seeing and feeling are not accidental. John – like the other evangelists – has news for us. Material is good. And we attain to the spiritual through the physical because the two are closely united. They are two sides of the one coin. An early Christian writer, Origen, writing in the second century understood resurrection as ‘a spiritual transformation without loss of individual identity’. He rejected a simplistic physical reconstitution (resuscitation) interpretation. At the same time, he rejected an interpretation that saw the material as evil and entirely separate from the resurrected body. The ideas system behind this view of material as evil was known as ‘gnosticism’ and like all heresies (i) it had elements of useful insight and truth and (ii) it never went away but lurks under other ideas systems in our own times.  For Origen, the resurrected body shares the same ‘form’ as the physical body. The tension between the now and the past; between the physical and the spiritual (however these terms are understood) is handled by an approach that can receive the mystery of rising as embodying different truths and not rejecting anything essential through a one-sided emphasis.

Material is good..

So, material is good.  Material and spiritual (which is not merely some non-material substance or reality) are part of an indivisible whole.  The notion of the soul being released from the earthly body which waits to be reunited with the soul on the last day is surely platonic.  The squeamishness about cremation in former times may testify to such dualist and physicalist notions.

Perhaps the metaphor we need to work with nowadays is one that tells a story about a seed (as outlined in the first letter to the Corinthians). The seed dies (buried in the ground) but transforms into new life. There is a continuity and what was perishable in some mysterious way ‘lives on’ except in an entirely way.  It takes imagination and a leap in faith.  The intellectual underpinning is informed by a critical examination of the evidence – or the lack of it – combined with  an attitude of ‘not knowing’ leading to trust. We hear the word, we do not know how, we believe.

 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 1 Cor 15:37-38

Our faith is 2,000 years old but not our thinking….

After all disputation, after all our striving, after all our pain and suffering –

‘if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith’ (1 Cor 15:14)

A sobering thought indeed! But, in rising Jesus breathes new life into us (literally ἐμφυσάω or emphysáō in the Greek in John 20:22 according to Strong’s Concordance). The word, or breathing, is the only place in the New Testament where it is used. In the Old Testament it is used in Genesis 2:7 where God created and formed human life breathed into it new life so that ‘man’ became a ‘living being’.

  

Resurrection whether we realise it or not..

Writing a number of years ago, the late Brother Roger of Taizé offered us the following insight:

A luminous Gospel insight has come to light after gathering dust for a long time: “The Risen Christ is united to every human being without exception, even if they are not aware of it.”

And prayed thus:

O Christ, you are united to every human being without exception, even if they are unaware of it. Still more, risen from the dead, you come to heal the secret wound of the soul. And for each person, the gates of a heartfelt compassion are opened.

And the fruit of trusting is joy – overflowing joy and everylasting joy.

The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord:

The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. (John 20:20)

Christ is risen and with us right now. Alleluia. Let us rejoice. Amen.

Not what or how but so what (Easter Sunday)

 ‘… Trembling and bewildered’. (Mark 16:8)

Mark 16:1-8 (Year B: Easter Sunday)

A most puzzling story..?

For such a joyful day the description of women who were ‘trembling and bewildered’ and who could not say anything ‘to anyone, because they were afraid’ strikes the hearer.  Anyone would be shocked and thrown into the opposite of calm on coming across something not only inexplicable but so extraordinary and out of this world that he or she would feel over-awed. What might happen next?  On life’s journey we encounter many surprises. Some of these surprises can disconcert and upset us and those around us.  Easter presents a huge challenge to people today – at least those who consider these matters carefully and thoughtfully.  Modern-day rational and empirical ways of thinking and dealing with the world finds the Easter story puzzling. Even well regarded theologians and clerics find it hard to imagine a type of ‘bodily’ resurrection. Refuge is taken in the ‘spiritual’ message of Easter implying new life and hope relevant to people today and not in the ‘actually happened’ event of an empty tomb, clothes neatly tied together (hint for those in a hurry in the morning!) and a person who turns up like a ghost and yet can eat fish and bread.  All very fantastical and mythological, some will argue or suggest in the act of theological dodging.

Dismissing the Easter story as fanciful post-death imagination and handed-on story telling by the early Jesus movement is easy but based, ironically, on a particular mind-Set that deals in a limited set of empirical possibilities. 

That Jesus rose form the dead in all the meaning that this entails is a foundational principle of Christian faith and living.  Writing in a letter to the church in Corinth some decades after the death of Jesus, St Paul had the following very relevant things to say about Jesus rising from the dead:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.    More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.    For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.    And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.    Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.   If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:12-19).

The passage speaks for itself and does need commentary here.

And a very different type of story..

In short, if the resurrection is just a ‘story’ on the same level as a fairy-tale or a piece of fiction then we might hang up our boots, spend some time on beach on Sunday mornings and find a life (not that Christians shouldn’t do such things as well on Sunday afternoons!).  Something happened on Easter Sunday that was so shocking, so profound and so capturing that the early eyewitnesses and disciples could only tell it the way they saw, heard and experienced it. Thus, Paul tells the brethren at Corinth:

 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1 Cor. 15:3-8).

A number of possible interpretations are on offer..

A number of possible understandings are possible including the following three (at least):

Uncritical realism – typified by a literalist, maximum reading of the resurrection narratives.  Some adherents of this approach insist on an objective approach that demands intellectual assent backed up – in case of any doubt – with historical ‘facts’.  Scripture is cited as in a law court and certainty with regard to ‘what really happened’ is part of the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’.  Moreover, great stress is placed on the physicality of the resurrection – not just spiritual rising but a resurrection of the ‘flesh’.

Scepticism – typified by some strands of radical theology that sees in these narratives little or nothing more than the early Jesus movement trying to make sense of the experience of defeat, exclusion and new life in the immediate aftermath of the life and ministry of Jesus.  The notion of someone ‘coming back to life’ after death is excluded as impossible. Instead, the focus is on the meaning of resurrection as a story that inspires the followers of Jesus.

Critical realism – falls somewhere between the above two ‘extremes’.  Critical realism does not shy from the highly improbable ‘historicity’ of many of the details in the resurrection stories. However, it does not exclude the ‘realism’ of rising to new life which entails accepting the idea that ‘there are no bones around because the one who died is now risen’. This sounds like physical resuscitation. However, at this point the critical realist accepts that something extraordinary – supernatural – happened in the immediate aftermath of the death of Jesus.  These extraordinary happenings were witnessed by many people. Something ‘real’, ‘objective’ and ‘historical’ happened and that something ignited a revolution in the minds and spirits of the first disciples of Jesus.  Exactly, what happened and how it happened remains difficult to access and explain – especially at a distance of 2,000 years and the intervening world-view sea changes.  Put another way, we are not sure what a CCTV outside the tomb, at the time, would have picked up.  No Gospel account actually describes what happened during the key moment or moments.

The core issues

Adhering to both an objective and subjective view of the resurrection leaves the open the following points of doctrine and belief that are mutually compatible and reinforcing:

• The impossibility of putting limits to the sovereignty of God and the world of rational, direct experience and observation.
• The weight of tradition and wisdom of Christians down the ages who received the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
• The importance of rising from death in the challenge to change an unjust world
• The importance of hope in life beyond this present sometimes beautiful, if very incomplete, world and with that the promise of fellowship here and now remaining and transforming into eternity.

In the words of the Nicene Creed, we say I or we ‘look forward to’ or ‘hope’ or ‘expect’ (expecto).  Not that I (or you) have seen, touched, proved, observed or established scientifically – rather I have entrusted my limited understanding to a higher order of truth. The point is that our faith may be two millennia old but our thinking doesn’t have to be.

To put it another way, I (note personal pronoun) think that when the authors of the Gospel report an empty tomb there really was a tomb and it was empty not because the body was stolen or imagined away but because something very extraordinary happened that goes beyond human explaining or witness. Even if many of the details of the narrative remain of unknown historical fact, they point to a deeper historical witness – that of individuals and communities resurrected, risen and transformed that the world may believe that Jesus is truly risen.

More to the point – writing in Eastertide 2015 – such experience has profound significance.  What is even more important than the historical question of the resurrection (important in its own right) is the significance of that event today. Hence, it is more important to say (while still passing the lie detector!) that We believe that Christ is Risen than merely ‘Christ rose from the dead’.  Christ is truly risen in me, you, us – if our lives shout out new life, freedom for the captive and bread for the hungry. Otherwise, intellectual assent to an orthodox formula is pretty dead – in a tomb somewhere.

And so what for us now?

For people held in captivity and who have been suddenly released, freedom can be a daunting prospect. Adaptation takes time. Reconditioning may be necessary. This may be captured in a few lines of a poem by Gerald McFlynn.

On the morning of the third day I went to the tomb and rolled back the stone. Out came the poor and destitute, the prisoners, Travellers.. the old and forgotten… blinking in the sunlight all ready for a new birth.

Therein lies a key to a living resurrection in today’s world. 

Not what or how but so what.

A Friday like no other

 ‘… But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed’. (Mark 15:5)

Mark 15:33-41 (Good Friday in Holy Week)

Thank God it’s Friday is a familiar phrase. And Christians celebrate ‘Good Friday’ once a year. What is so good about Good Friday when we read that it consisted of torture, abuse, cruelty and a slow and excruciating death hanging on the cross? This Friday is good because it is the day we were destined for freedom once and for all. The world would never be the same again. Our world with all its pain, anxieties and hurts would be placed on Calvary – not to disappear from our lives but to be transformed into a new life that moves through and, ultimately, beyond this pain.

How is Friday so special? Some strands of thought emphasise the ‘substitution’ of Jesus – the innocent one for everyone else (that’s us) who ‘deserved to die’ because of sin. This emphasis can give rise to extremes of practice and theory including – in some cases real life crucifixion in repentance (but such extremes ignore that Jesus literally took the hit for us). Other views under the heading of substitution emphasise view it as the ultimate sacrifice for sin once and for all and all we have to do is surrender in the here and now to Jesus as Lord and Saviour. In practice, the story is not always so clean and clear cut.  Theology is used (and necessarily so) to make sense of the oral and written story of what happened to Jesus in his life, in his ministry, in his dying and in his rising again.

One approach or emphasis which does not necessarily contradict other emphases (note plural of emphasis) is that Jesus is our role model and example who loved so much and so madly that he was ready to die for us. And that’s what he did. But, why should someone die especially if that person is the Son of God. Surely a less a painful and less gruesome method could be chosen rather than having to placate or impress or shock. Well, that’s God’s prerogative!  Who are we …..? Mark, Matthew and Luke report the cry ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34).  In Mark, there is a directness and brutality to the whole scene. Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. There is no mention of ‘Father into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46). Neither is there any mention of Jesus bowing his head and giving up his spirit after saying ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30). Instead there is raw death as if on the beach of Omaha in 1944. Matthew is much closer to Mark and in the former we hear ‘Eli, Eli’ (Matthew 27:46) and some scripture scholars think that Matthew is reporting Jesus in the Hebrew language rather than in Aramaic. Mark, it is suggested, is drawing on Aramaic. It is not often that the original Hebrew or Aramaic attributed directly to Jesus is cited in the New Testament scriptures. We may speculate that direct references to the language actually spoke by Jesus and recorded by eye witnesses who were present has a special force, directness and authenticity.

Mel Gibson, in his film ‘Passion of the Christ’ combines all Gospel versions and adds his own detail and colour (presumably in Aramaic) in the dramatisation of Jesus’ final moments here.

The truth is that Good Friday – for all its goodness was no picnic. It was horrific in the extreme. But, the horror of it all did not deter from the fact that it was necessary in the grand scheme of salvation and from this excruciating experience goodness, freedom and salvation flowed.  The answer to the question ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34 and Psalm 21:2) found on the lips of Jesus. This was the effective of answer of Jesus to Pilate’s question – ‘Are you the King of the Jews’ (Mark 15:2). God became one of us, shared our lives, died as one of us for all of us so that we might rise to new life in him and the whole of creation along with us. This is the hymn of Good Friday. It is good after all and it has a purpose and a meaning.

Psalm 21 moves on from what might seem like despair to hope and final vindication:

2 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.

3 O my God, I call by day and you give no reply; I call by night and I find no peace.
4 Yet you, O God, are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
5 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you set them free.
….

23 I will tell of your name to my brethren and praise you where they are assembled.
….
25 For he has never despised nor scorned the poverty of the poor. From him he has not hidden his face, but he heard the poor man when he cried."

On our knees (Holy Thursday)

‘… This is my body’. (Mark 14:22)

Mark 14:22-25 (Thursday of Holy Week/Holy Thursday/Maundy Thursday)

This is my body, or in Greek, ‘Touto estin to soma mou’ make up five words in Greek and are found in all four New Testament references to the eucharist (in addition to Mark it is found in Matthew 26:26, Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24).

At various times over the centuries and, especially, in the last millennium Christians quarrelled over the meaning and interpretation of these words.  

We should remember that the Last supper was a Jewish ritual meal with huge significance and impact as the head of the family led the prayers and the younger family members asked questions about why this meal was being celebrated in this way. We should also remember that, in all likelihood, Jesus spoke to his disciples in Hebrew or Aramaic. In that case, writers such as Karl Barth have suggested that the word ‘is’ would not have appeared in ‘This is my body’ as it does to us in English today (for example).

The author of ‘In the Imitation of Christ’ writing 600 year ago warns in the following terms: ‘Beware of curious and vain examination of this most profound Sacrament, if you do not wish to be plunged into the depths of doubt’ (Book 4).  

Psalm 130 reads:

O Lord, my heart is not proud nor haughty my eyes. I have not gone after things too great nor marvels beyond me. Truly I have set my soul in silence and peace. A weaned child on its mother's breast, even so is my soul. O Israel, hope in the Lord both now and forever.

When it comes to receiving I am a bit old fashioned. I like what the writer As Oscar Wilde wrote beautifully in ‘De Profundis’:

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy) should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.

Moreover, I have been deeply struck by the experience of kneeling in a row along with others very different from me in so many ways but all of us kneeling together – like beggars – to receive the King of the Universe. Such a view might not exactly sit easily with variants of modern-day positive psychology but some of us are old fashioned in these matters. And let it be said that there is nothing at all wrong with standing. As the history of Passover meals go – they started in standing position as the meal was eaten in haste (probably) see Exodus 12:11 and evolved into a reclining position by the time of the ‘Last Supper’ and then moved on to standing position (generally the practice in Eastern Christian churches today) to kneeling, standing or sitting depending on what denominational badge or local custom applies in your ‘parish’.

And the poet, John Donne (1572–1631), (or perhaps Queen Elizabeth I) is reputed to have said:

He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it; I do believe and take it.

And that’s enough.