Sermon for Wednesday in Holy Week
“Thou art the man”
Luke’s account of the Passion has a certain literary quality and a certain inner intensity to it. It takes us into the heart of Christ, on the one hand, and reveals to us our hearts, on the other hand. With Luke we see Christ’s interrogation of Peter at the last supper, itself a scene in which Luke provides a deeper understanding of the new covenant that his Passion and Resurrection accomplish. The interrogation of Peter serves to highlight the more dramatic form of Peter’s betrayal at the end of today’s Gospel reading.
With Luke we feel something of the intensity of Christ’s agony in Gethsemane, the real struggle of the will of man with the will of God, “nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” The prayer of Christ is pictured in its intensity with the graphic image of his sweat being “as it were, great drops of blood.” The heart of Christ is opened to view.
But our hearts too are on display in the kiss of Judas – our betrayals of Christ, graphically signalled in Christ’s gentle but firm and haunting words, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” Our hearts are on display in the smiting with a sword of the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear – our violence in the intensity of the moment which is immediately countered by Christ’s word and act, “suffer ye thus far” and “he touched his ear, and healed him.” The contrast is powerful and telling between the disorders and violence of our words and deeds and the gentleness of Christ’s words and deeds.
The drama reaches a crescendo in Luke’s account of Peter’s betrayal and most especially in terms of how Peter confronts himself in his betrayal. In a masterly and almost painterly touch, Luke tells us that after Peter’s third betrayal not only does the cock crow but “the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.” With Luke, it is the look that convicts Peter; “and Peter remembered the word of the Lord.”
What is that look? In keeping with the inner intensity of Luke’s portrayal of the agony of Christ and the gentleness of Christ, it is a look of compassion and love. Such a look convicts us far more than words of angry condemnation, far more than looks of judgement. “Thou art the man,” Christ’s look says to Peter, a look that recalls us to the truth which we have betrayed. In so doing, we are being recalled to the truth of ourselves as found in Christ’s love. It is over and against our sins but is accomplished through our encounter with ourselves. “Thou art the man,” indeed.
Such is the light of Christ which illumines us even in the shadows and the darkness of our sins. And such too is the meaning of Tenebrae in the intensity of the Psalms. They call us to account. They call us to Christ.
“Thou art the man”
Fr. David Curry
Wednesday in Holy Week, Tenebrae, 2022
