Christ Church

The collects for today, Thursday in Holy Week, commonly called Maundy Thursday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also he made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O GOD, who in a wonderful sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us so to reverence the holy mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
The Continuation of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke
The Gospel: St. Luke 23:1-49

Artwork: Dirck van Baburen, Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet, c. 1616. Oil on Canvas, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

The collect for today, Wednesday in Holy Week, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Hebrews 9:15-28
The Beginning of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Luke
The Gospel: St. Luke 22:1-71

Artwork: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1737-38. Oil on canvas, Chiesa di Sant’Alvise, Venice.

“All the people hung upon his words”

It isn’t really a very pretty picture. There is very little good that can be said about our humanity in The Continuation of the Passion according to St. Mark. We are forced to contemplate the hideous realities of human sin in a variety of forms ranging from the miscarriage of justice by Pilate, giving into the machinations of the chief priests who manipulate the crowd, to the mockery of Christ by the soldiers in the Praetorium and, then, to the cruelty of his Crucifixion, reviled at once by those who looked on and even by the two thieves who were crucified with him. Perhaps, Simon the Cyrenian might serve as the only counter to this negative picture of ourselves but even he has to be compelled to bear Christ’s cross to the place of crucifixion. This stands in stark contrast to Christ’s freely willing our redemption.

In this picture of Christ we behold the spectacle of the ultimate good and righteous man whose very goodness is the occasion of our rage and spite as the lesson from Wisdom suggests. Yet, as Isaiah indicates in the Matins’ lesson, “this is my servant, my chosen … in whom my soul delights,” the one who “bring[s] forth justice to the nations,” the one who is “a covenant to the people, a light to the nations,” the one who “open[s] the eyes of the blind” and “brings out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison.”

Here in the continuation of Mark’s Passion, we see the meaning of another one of the servant songs from Isaiah, the meaning of Christ as the one who wills to bear all of the injustices of our sinfulness, the one who gives his “back to the smiters” and who “hid not [his] face from shame and spitting.” We hang upon the words of Scripture which present the unvarnished picture of human cruelty and meanness, on the one hand, and the picture of the suffering Christ, on the other hand. Nowhere is that image of the suffering of Christ more disturbingly presented to us than in the horrifying cry of dereliction. “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?”

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The collect for today, Tuesday in Holy Week, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 50:5-9a
The Continuation of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Mark
The Gospel: St. Mark 15:1-39

Artwork: Caravaggio, The Flagellation of Christ, 1607. Oil on canvas, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.

“All the people hung upon his words”

There is hanging and there is hanging. What exactly does it mean to hang upon the words of Christ? It means at the very least to ponder the wonder and mystery of the readings of Scripture in the pageant of the Passion. Today we begin the reading of the Passion according to St. Mark, and what a powerful and poignant beginning that is!

We begin with the woman who “having an alabaster box of ointment, very precious” breaks that box and pours the ointment upon his head. It is a powerful image and the reading ends with what pours out of Peter when “he called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him.” Tears. Tears of compunction. Tears of contrition. Tears that signal the beginnings, perhaps, of confession. Tears flow as plenteously and as efficaciously as the precious ointment from the broken alabaster box. There are few images more compelling and touching than this: the conjunction of the broken alabaster box of precious ointment of spikenard and the precious tears of Peter when he recalls the words of Christ.

That is what it means to hang upon the words of Christ. It is to be effected by what we hear and by what we remember of what we have heard. Therein lies the wonder and the power of the liturgy. We are constantly exposed to the words of Scripture. In a deeper theological understanding of things, they are all the words of Christ; that is to say, they all belong to a theology of revelation, however neglected, ignored and utterly absent from the mind of the contemporary church such a concept may be.

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The collect for today, Monday in Holy Week, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 63:7-9
The Beginning of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark
The Gospel: St. Mark 14:1-72

Artwork: Mateo Cerezo the Younger, Ecce Homo, c. 1665. Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

“All the people hung upon his words”

Here is the place from which our text for today and this week comes. It is Luke’s account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and about the reaction to his coming. You will note the paradox. Luke’s phrase about all the people “h[anging] upon his words” is the reason for Jesus’ not being taken captive immediately by those who “sought to destroy him”, namely, “the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people.” Because “all the people hung upon his words,” he is protected by the people. And yet, the contrasts of this day reveal how he is betrayed by all of us. Somehow we have to hang upon his words which name our sins and betrayals and without which we ourselves are lost.

The lesson from Isaiah presents what is known as The Fourth Servant Song. The passage is rich in its allusions and associations. It is not hard to see how the images of Israel portrayed as an individual and as a righteous servant “afflicted” and “wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities” comes to be associated with the figure of Jesus Christ. Isaiah’s imagery enters into the pageant of the passion. The suffering servant is not simply Israel; it is Jesus Christ who wills to suffer for us all, “pour[ing] out his soul to death,” being “numbered with the transgressors,” “[bearing] the sins of many” and “ma[king] intercession for the transgressors,” indeed, “mak[ing] many to be accounted righteous”; in short, the theological images of atonement and reconciliation.

The parallels between the Isaiah’s suffering servant and Luke’s account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover are unavoidably and richly suggestive. It is really a matter of how we see Christ and that depends entirely upon our hanging upon his words. Only so shall we be saved for we shall find ourselves enveloped in his love.

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“All the people hung on his words.”

It is a Palm Sunday word, a text from the second lesson at Evening Prayer, and yet one which expresses so much of the meaning of this special day and week. In a way, Luke’s comment captures the intensity of Holy Week – but only if we hang on the words of Christ.

That is where it all hangs, as it were. Holy Week, in the essential catholic understanding of classical Anglicanism, is about the fullness of the Passion of Christ. Hanging on his words is about paying attention to the accounts of his Passion as presented by all four Evangelists. Nothing expresses so concisely and completely the essence of reformed Catholicism.

Nowhere is it more concisely and completely expressed than in the pattern of Scriptural readings for Holy Week in The Book of Common Prayer. That is the challenge of this week: to enter into the Passion of Christ in all of its fullness. And so today, we have The Passion according to St. Matthew. On Monday in Holy Week, we begin the reading of The Passion according to St. Mark which we complete on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we read The Beginning of the Passion according to St. Luke, which is continued and completed on Maundy Thursday. On Good Friday, we read The Passion according to St. John. And, in and through it all, are the various liturgies that complement and reinforce the deep Scriptural logic of the reading of the Passions: Tenebrae and the Liturgies of the Triduum Sacrum, the three great holy days, that concentrate the meaning of the Passion so powerfully and so wonderfully.

The intensity of Holy Week is nothing less than the intensity of the Passion as seen through the lenses of all four Gospels. No other Church provides such a fullness.

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There is a mysterious intensity to Holy Week that begins with Palm Sunday. It is the intensity of Christ’s Passion. In the Passion of Christ, our humanity is on display in all of its varied array and disarray, in all of our faults and failings, in all of our sins and foolishnesses. And yet there is a great good that is shown as well, a great good which ultimately speaks to human dignity restored. Holy Week shows us nothing less than ‘the height and the depth, the length and the breadth’ of God’s love for us. How will we respond? With indifference or with devotion?

I encourage you ever so strongly to make the effort. The fullness of the Passion is set before us this week from all four Gospels. This week, in a way, is one continuous liturgy. What kind of Easter can there be without Good Friday, without the fullness of the Passion, which this week presents us? “Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.”

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The collect for today, the Sunday Next before Easter, commonly called Palm Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11
The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. Matthew
The Gospel: St. Matthew 27:1-54

Artwork: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem, 1401-25. Gilded Bronze, Baptistery, Florence.