Christ Church

“And the wall of the city had twelve foundations,
and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb”

The feast of St. Simon and St. Jude completes the parade of Apostolic Saints that bring us to the Feast of All Saints, the celebration of the Apostolic city and fellowship in the Communion of All Saints.  All that really can be said about St. Simon and St. Jude has to do with their apostleship. They simply belong to the company of “twelve poor men, by Christ anointed,” as the hymn (# 200) puts it. What more needs to be said than that?

Their names have been given to certain features of human life as patron saints, symbols, we might say, of some aspect or other of the virtues of Christ individually considered. St. Simon, the patron saint of zealots; St. Jude, more curiously, is the patron saint of lost causes, sometimes something with which I have more than a passing acquaintance, though there is nothing in the readings for their feast that suggests anything of these attributes or associations. Yet the zealous passion for a perfect political and social and spiritual righteousness often complements the despair at lost causes that often accompanies such worthy and necessary aspirations. Ultimately, such zeal brings us to the true righteousness of Christ, realized in the city of heavenly Jerusalem. What we have here is only “the unreal city,” as T.S. Eliot memorably puts it. For “here we have no continuing city” (Heb. 13.14).

“Zeal for thine house hath even eater me,” the psalmist says (Ps. 69.9). Yet through a myriad of lost causes, the deeper yearning for peace and righteousness is glimpsed, the deeper yearning which belongs to a peace, “not as the world giveth,” but as Christ gives.

The focus is on the Apostolic Foundation of the Church and the end of our humanity. Apostolic Foundation and Apostolic Fellowship are two realities which we badly need to recover and reclaim. Without them our parishes, our communities, our institutions become either the mental ghettoes of passive nihilism, empty, angry and in despair, or the activist sects and cells of active nihilism trumpeting any number of a myriad of the social and political agendas of the day at the expense of the spiritual vision of redeemed humanity which is ours to proclaim. We are too much with ourselves because we are not with God.

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“This is again the second sign that Jesus did,
when he was come out of Judea into Galilee”

Signs and wonders. Things said and done. What is the effect of God’s words on our minds? His word is proclaimed in our presence. His story is told in our hearing. It is told for us. It is even written out for us to read in Jesus Christ. We hear it. We know it. But what effect does it have on our minds and in our lives? Today’s Gospel is an excellent illustration of what Paul means by bidding us “put on the whole armour of God”… “taking the helmet of salvation” that has to do with our minds,  “and the sword of the Spirit,” which is nothing less than “the word of God” (Eph.6.10ff). Is this not what we see?

“This is again the second sign that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee,” John tells us. In telling us this, he reminds us of the first sign, the first miracle which Jesus did. Moreover, it is the second time that he is in the same place. What is that place? Cana of Galilee. It seems to have been the place of signs. At the very least what happens here in Cana of Galilee signifies something of the effect of God’s words and deeds on human minds and human lives.

God’s word causes delight. God’s word creates new life and new birth. God’s word causes healing and restoration to life in God. At the very least, we may say, these are the desired effects of God’s word upon our minds.

What was the first sign that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee? It was there at the Wedding-feast that Jesus turned the water into wine. The effect was to cause delight and wonderment. “They have no wine,” Mary said, articulating so simply the human predicament. We lack the means of joy and life in ourselves. We lack what we most desire and seek but which can only come from God. This is the point. Thus Christ gives not only wine but the best wine. Wine, as the psalmist says, “makes glad the heart of man”. The most excellent wine of Christ’s making belongs to the abundant life which he would give us, namely, our joy and our blessedness in his presence with the Father and with one another in the fellowship of faith. The effect of God’s word is our joy. Such is the purpose of God’s word in the first sign that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. The first sign and miracle signals the radical meaning of all the miracles. They intend our wholeness and our joy, our living and abiding in the truth of God.

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