Month: April 2012

“He showed me the holy city Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven from God.”

The Ten Commandments are given to us both in the Book of Exodus and in the Book of Deuteronomy. In Exodus, of course, they are given to us twice because of the idolatry of Israel in making the molten calf which resulted in the tablets of the Law being smashed; only in the mercy of God are they remade, and while they are not recounted in their fullness the second time in Exodus; nevertheless, we are given to understand that they are exactly and precisely the same words. But, really, what are we to make of this evening’s readings about the Law in its fundamental aspect as the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy and the wonderful vision of the City of God in Revelation? What do they have to do with the joys and the delights of the Easter season of the Resurrection?

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“A little while and ye shall not see me;
and again a little while and ye shall see me.”

What on earth does it mean? Peek-a-boo with Jesus? What kind of game is this? Well, it is a profound and important part of our thinking about the meaning of the Resurrection. It relates as well to the various forms of human knowing and the way those are challenged by the God who creates and redeems; in short, by the Risen Christ.

Seeing is believing, it is commonly said, and surely that point-of-view has ample confirmation, it might seem, in the story of doubting Thomas. And yet, the whole point is that the truths of religion go far beyond the physical and the material yet without denying them; the whole point is that human experience, too, cannot be reduced to the empirical, to the sensuous and experiential. Perhaps, no thought is harder for our church and world, and, yet, perhaps, no thought is more necessary.

The stories of the Resurrection are full of the questions of wonderment and awe. There is confusion and uncertainty, to be sure, like the disciples huddled in fear behind closed doors or fleeing in dismay and terror from the Jerusalem of their crushed hopes. There is sorrow and grief, like Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb in the early morning. There are the stories of strange things, like the suspicion that the disciples might “come by night and steal” the body of Christ away, like the empty tomb with the stone rolled away, like the rumours of angels, like the report of the women; all the strange, strange dawnings of an awareness of things seen and unseen.

The Gospel readings for the remaining Sundays of Easter are full of a different sort of questioning. They are taken from the so-called Farewell Discourse of Jesus in John’s Gospel. In a way, Jesus is preparing for his going from them in two senses: his crucifixion and his ascension, itself the culmination of the meaning of his Resurrection. The meaning of these gospel readings is captured for us in the memorable mantra, “because I go to the Father.” Through the images and the reality of the physical and material world, Jesus opens us out to the greater reality of God, of things spiritual that embrace but cannot be reduced to the physical and the material. This is the great teaching and central idea of the Christian faith: the Incarnation gathers us into the mystery of the Trinity.

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“Christ is risen from the dead”

The Resurrection changes everything. But only if we will be changed, only if we are open to its truth and meaning. But what kind of change? The Christian religion is the religion of the hope of transformation, the hope that we can be something more than our dead and deadly selves. And all because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It changes how we look upon our selves, how we look upon our humanity and how we look upon our world, and, certainly, it changes how we look upon death.

But the change that is the Resurrection requires death. Only so can death be changed. The death that is required is not only our physical death – none of us get out of this alive, after all – but more importantly, it requires our dying to our selves. The Christian religion is, in so many ways, the counter to the culture of self-fulfillment and entitlement. It is the religion of love and sacrifice, the love that is sacrifice without which there can be no resurrection, no life. The paradox of change, here, is that we can only live if we are dead, dead to the illusions about ourselves, dead to the deceits and mistakes which are the sad and sorry tale about ourselves, dead to what the Church simply calls sin.

To be dead to ourselves is to be alive to God. The accounts of the Resurrection show us the transformation of the understanding, the transformation of the understanding that changes lives, that sets lives in motion. In a way, it is very simple. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb in the early morning. What she seeks is not there. She tells Peter and “that other disciple” and they both run to the sepulchre. “That other disciple” runs faster and looks in but does not enter. Simon Peter comes and enters in and is followed by “that other disciple”, who then sees and believes. What do they behold? Simply the empty tomb and the discarded burying clothes, described in terms of exactly where they were found.

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“And they came to the Valley of Eshcol,
and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes,
and they carried it on a pole between two of them”

This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the traditional Gospel reading at Holy Communion on this day about Christ the Good Shepherd. It is a familiar and a comforting image but I fear we overlook its radical meaning. It is one of the great images of God’s providential care for his wayward and wandering sheep, meaning you and me. It is an image, too, which belongs to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ bears us in his arms. The same arms that are stretched out upon the cross are the arms that have embraced our humanity, the arms which gather us into the love of the son for the father. He carries us into the hands of the Father.

The great image of God’s care, its greatness lies in the cure it provides. The cure is the triumph of God over human sin and death. Christ the Good Shepherd, after all, is the “Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world” as we pray constantly in the Liturgy. The Good Shepherd is the one who has laid down his life for the sheep, for you and for me. The image is rich in meaning and quite powerful in its symbolism.  We live in the care of the Good Shepherd who has triumphed over human sin to carry us home to the Father.

But the image is even stronger because we live in that care now in the power of the Risen Christ. God’s providential care is the active principle which sustains and maintains creation redeemed and restored, the active principle which sustains and maintains our redeemed humanity. In a way, so many of the biblical images of God’s providential care meet in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd. As I Peter 2 puts it, we “are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls.”

We live in the care of the Good Shepherd. Yes, but how do we relate to that care? Are we grateful and alive in the joy of redemption as the community of the redeemed? Or are we a pack of complainers? Do we rejoice or do we murmur? Do we give praise or do we mock? These are the questions which are also set before us, the questions which speak directly to human freedom and dignity. I fear that the therapeutic culture which, on the one hand, calls us to take care of one another and wonderfully and rightly so, yet, on the other hand, creates a culture of dependency, a culture of the depressed and the walking dead. Which will we be?

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“Jesus said, I am the good shepherd”

It is a familiar and a comforting image but I fear we overlook its radical meaning. It is one of the great images of God’s providential care for his wayward and wandering sheep, meaning us. It is an image, too, which belongs at once to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ bears us in his arms. The same arms that are stretched out upon the cross are the arms that have embraced our humanity, the arms that gather us into the love of the son for the father. He carries us into the hands of the Father.

The great image of God’s care, its greatness lies in the cure it provides. The cure is the triumph of God over human sin and death. Christ the Good Shepherd, after all, is the “Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world,” as we pray so often in our Liturgy. The Good Shepherd is the one who has laid down his life for the sheep, for you and for me. The image is rich in meaning. We live in the care of the Good Shepherd who has triumphed over human sin to carry us home to the Father.

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