Month: April 2019

“Be ye not troubled”

Mark’s feast day fell within Easter Week and so is transferred to the first Tuesday after that week. There is something sacrosanct about the special readings and spiritual focus of Easter week that brooks no other considerations even when, as in the case of Mark, they provide a certain commentary upon the mystery of the Resurrection.

Mark is the saint of Eastertide. The Collect for his day of commemoration draws upon both the epistle reading from Ephesians and upon the Gospel reading taken from Mark. Rather than being “carried away by every blast of vain doctrine,” as the Collect colourfully and profoundly puts it, building upon the Paul’s more modest phrase of “every wind of doctrine,” we seek to “be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel.” And that means being not troubled even in the midst of troubling times and circumstances that pertain to the meaning of the coming of Christ’s kingdom. In other words, in difficult times of persecution when there is every reason to be troubled and to be afraid, we are exhorted to “be not afraid” as Mark’s account of the Resurrection at Easter wonderfully puts it. Here, too, we have the recollection of Christ’s words to Peter and James and John and Andrew, a kind of inner circle, it seems, about the times of wars and rumours of wars, of natural disturbances and troubles which are, Jesus says, “the beginnings of sorrows.” It is in that context that we are not to be troubled. Why? Because such things like persecution and suffering are the occasions for witness and testimony, for “speak[ing] the truth in love.”

I like to think that this is the real fruit of Mark’s Gospel and witness. His Gospel ends, at least in terms of what is called the shorter ending, with the words, “they were afraid,” even though the angel told them not to be afraid. Mark, I like to think, confronts himself in his fears and troubles, perhaps as the young man who runs away naked from the scene of Christ’s capture. Mark is aware of his own limitations and shortcomings. Christian faith is not about human heroism, a kind of willpower on our part for that would be to miss the whole point. The real point is that the Resurrection is God’s doing. The real point is about our utter and complete inability to do the good that we would and our utter and complete ability to do the evil that we would not, to use Paul’s words, words which resonate for me about Mark.

He has realized as few have with such perspicacity that what we want we cannot of ourselves achieve. He points us as few do so wonderfully, so clearly, to the grace of the Resurrection. The point is that it is all grace, all the grace of God, and yet all the grace of God at work for us and in us. To begin to grasp this is to begin to be defined by an overwhelming sense of joy and wonder which nothing, absolutely nothing in our worldly vale of tears can possibly counter. It is the peace and the joy that passes understanding. We need not be troubled. We need not be afraid. Let the good news of Christ’s Resurrection establish you upon the truth which Mark in his life and Gospel opens out to us.

“Be ye not troubled”

Fr. David Curry
Eve of St. Mark (transf.), 2019

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“Jesus came and stood in the midst”

It is like one continuous story from the same book, chapter after chapter. The same book is John’s Gospel. In the spirituality of the older eucharistic lectionary tradition found in the Book of Common Prayer, John’s Gospel contributes greatly to the essential theological understanding of the Christian Faith, especially, it seems, in Eastertide. We see, as it were, through the eyes of John.

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early,” we heard last Sunday. “The same day at evening, being the first day of the week,” we hear today. As if time were magically stopped and we are mystically present at that day, that day that never, never ends. The Day of Resurrection is just like that. And so, too, for the meaning of every Sunday.

The Resurrection is not something which we celebrate in a moment, for a day or for a season. It runs through the whole of the year and through the whole of our lives in Faith. The Octave Day places us in that endless day, the day of Easter, to show us the Resurrection in motion. It shows us something of the meaning of the Resurrection for us and in us. The symbolism of being “on the same day,” the day of Easter, becomes the meaning of our Sunday worship. It is always a celebration of the Resurrection. We are always in the presence of the Risen Christ and never more so than in the Easter Season when the Resurrection itself is our principal consideration. The only question is whether we are alive to his presence or dead in ourselves.

“Jesus came and stood in the midst.” They were behind closed doors. They were in fear and great anxiety. The world of their hopes and expectations had been shattered, perhaps like ours in contemporary culture. Then “Jesus came and stood in the midst.” Suddenly all that was shattered begins to come together into something new; a new understanding. His presence changes everything. The nature of that change is the Resurrection in us.

What is the significance of the closed doors? The closed doors are the closed doors of our minds. Our minds are like tombs. We are dead to the idea of the Resurrection, to its power and truth, until it presents itself to our understanding. We couldn’t invent it. It breaks through only so as to break out in us. The Risen Lord comes into our midst to break us out into a new and radical understanding of himself and what he is for us. Out of the chaos of fear and confusion comes peace and forgiveness.

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“What mean ye by this service?”

This has been our text throughout the Passion of Christ and one which now carries us into this day and to the proclamation of this day: Christ is risen, Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord is risen, indeed, Alleluia! Alleluia! Now that’s a greeting! And one to be shouted out. It says a bit more than “Happy Easter” which might just as well mean, “May the bunny be with you!” Maybe even a chocolate bunny. Just saying. The great and ancient Easter greeting on this day is the proclamation of the Resurrection. Christ is risen. Alleluia! Alleluia!

And yet, the real meaning of this day, paradoxically it might seem, is that we are dead! For if we are not dead, then we shall not be alive. “You have died,” Paul tells us, “and your life is hid with Christ in God.” What this means is sacrifice in its deepest and truest meaning. Holy Week is about the Passion of Christ in all of its intensity but only so as to bring us to this day, the day of Resurrection, itself the fruit of the Passion and thus utterly meaningless without the solemn events of Holy Week and especially Good Friday. There can be no Resurrection without the Passion.

Bronwyn’s baptism is our Easter joy. Her baptism is a reminder of our vocation and calling, a reminder of the realities of death and life, a reminder of the radical new life of the Resurrection precisely through our dying to ourselves in order to live for God and for one another. She died and now she lives. And all because of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. That is the meaning of this service. We are dead so that we may live. Our life is not in ourselves. It is all Christ and all Christ in us. His sacrifice is love, a love made visible on the Cross and in his Resurrection.

The Resurrection is radical new life because it grounds us in the only life there is, the life of God in Christ. The Resurrection is the new and greater creation, the making of life and joy out of the nothingness of human sin and evil and of suffering and death. That is its radical meaning. God and God alone makes out of nothing both in creation and in redemption. The Resurrection is the greater creatio ex nihilo, the greater act of making new. The Crucifixion is not a gothic horror tale, a Stephen King shocker. It is graphic, to be sure, but it is the graphic portrayal of the nature of all sin and evil. We kill God. At least that is what all sin attempts, the attempt to deny the very principle of life upon which our being, our knowing and our loving completely and utterly depend. The Crucifixion makes that reality visible even as the Resurrection makes visible the overcoming of all sin. Both are the graphic lessons of love. Such is a new beginning just as Bronwyn’s baptism marks a new beginning, a new life, one made visible to us in the act of baptism.

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