Month: April 2012

“Be it unto me according to thy word”

Mary’s word opens us out, quite literally, to the words of the Incarnate Christ, “the word made flesh,” but most especially and, perhaps, most tellingly to the words of the Risen Christ. It is not too much to say that the words of the Risen Christ inaugurate the most dramatic change in human outlook and understanding that there has ever been. The effect of the presence and words of the Risen Christ on the disciples leads to the intense recollection of all the details of the Passion of Christ and, by extension, to the accounts as well of all the other words and deeds of Christ including his nativity that comprise the Gospels and, then, the other writings that make up the New Testament.

In other words, there is something dramatic and compelling about the Resurrection. Death and Resurrection are two of the foundational themes and principles of Christianity, though not entirely unique to Christianity. There is, in late Judaism, the idea of the resurrection and resurrection, too, is a feature of the Islamic religion. But for Christians the focus is on Christ, on his death and resurrection. And Christ is the primary teacher of the Resurrection.

What is that teaching? That we are more though not less than our bodies, which is probably good news for some of us. That we are not the “slave[s] to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,” as John Donne puts it, the mere pathetic victims of the fatalistic determinisms of our social, economic, political and therapeutic culture. No. We are freed to God in whom we find the very truth of our being and life, the God in whom we become who we are truly called to be and in whom we are more and not less than ourselves.

This is, I think, pretty amazing and quite profound. It is the case historically and theologically that the Resurrection effected the greatest sea-change in human culture imaginable. It quite literally changed the world. And it changed the world because it changes our outlook. It changes our minds and it changes our thinking.

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“Be it unto me according to thy word”

Mary’s word to God at her Annunciation is found in Luke’s Gospel. Readings from Luke’s Gospel also provide the Gospel readings at Holy Communion on Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, the story of two resurrection appearances by Jesus: the one, on the road to Emmaus; the other, the story we have heard this morning about Jesus appearing “in the midst of his disciples” in Jerusalem. It serves as a complement to John’s account of Jesus appearing behind closed doors in the second lesson read at Evening Prayer on Easter Day and in the Gospel for the Octave Day of Easter, “the same day at evening” as we shall hear next Sunday.

In both accounts, there is this twofold emphasis on the Word explained and interpreted and the presence of the Risen Christ who teaches us about the reality of the Resurrection. “Behold, my hands and my feet, that is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and blood, as ye see me have.” That direct encounter is not the end of the story here, however, for two more things follow. First, Jesus asks if they have any food. “And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honey-comb.” Somehow, the holy tradition of the Church avoided turning this moment into something ritual and sacramental! Just as well.

But secondly, and importantly with respect to our Marian theme of letting the words of Christ define us, Jesus says, “these are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me.” Then, as on the road to Emmaus, “opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.” The Greek words emphasize the opening of their hearts and minds and the idea of comprehending something thoroughly. There is something intense and intentional about the teaching. Beyond rumour and report, beyond fantasy and fabrication, beyond even the evidence of the senses, there is this primary emphasis on understanding the Resurrection through the pageant of the Scriptures, explained and interpreted.

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“Be it unto me according to thy word”

Mary’s response to God at the Annunciation informs our learning about the Resurrection, too. The actual feast day of the Annunciation more often than not coincides with Lent and Passiontide but occasionally, the 25^th of March can be Easter Day itself and whenever that happens or when the Annunciation coincides with days of Holy Week, the commemoration is transferred to Eastertide. There is a wonderful sense in which Mary’s word belongs to the lessons of the Resurrection, especially when it is the Risen Christ who teaches the most and most clearly about the Resurrection.

One of the most powerful lessons about the Resurrection appears in the Gospel for Easter Monday. It is Luke’s marvelous account of the events on the Road to Emmaus. It is an extraordinary scene and one which ultimately focusses on the interpretation of the Scriptures and even more poignantly on the complementariety of the Word spoken and explained and the Word enacted and performed. It is Christ who teaches. Christ is the exegete of the Scriptures of the Old Testament that reveal the meaning of his Passion and Resurrection. We are opened out to a new and radical understanding of our life with God in Jesus Christ.

The Risen Christ runs out after the disciples who are fleeing from Jerusalem in fear, their hopes and expectations having been utterly destroyed by Christ’s crucifixion and death. They had “trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel,” they say. Such words say a lot about their expectations and their understanding of the nature of redemption. Christ is the redeemer of the world, the redeemer of Israel in a new and radically transforming way, not in a political or social way, but spiritually and theologically. There is a radical transformation of the understanding of redemption. It can no longer be confined to the hopes and expectations of politics and power.

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