by CCW | 19 May 2022 16:00
‘It happened one Friday afternoon.’
‘You mean Friday the thirteenth?’
‘No, no. Not that.’
‘Oh, you mean our marching through the town and into the Church this afternoon?’ ‘Well, in a way, I suppose, but only because of what happened one Friday afternoon long ago.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Just look at the center window above the altar.’
‘What do you see?’
‘The picture of Christ crucified?’
‘Exactly. That is what happened one Friday afternoon and why we are doing what we are doing this Friday afternoon.’
It happened one Friday afternoon. The image of Christ crucified is the dominant icon or image here at Christ Church. The dominant icon or image at the School Chapel is Christ the Good Shepherd. They go together and complement each other. They belong to the intimate connection between the Passion and the Resurrection.
Christ Church has played a large role in the life and history of the School. It has been three years since we have been able to have the Church Parade and to be here in this sacred space. This service and space remind us of the history and life of the School and its connections to the community of Windsor, to the military, and to the Church. It means having to think about dark and difficult things such as war and conquest, about suffering and sorrow that are part of our disordered world both past and present. We can only do so because of what happened one Friday afternoon.
For years upon years, since the late 19th century and throughout most of the twentieth century, students from King’s Collegiate School and from Edgehill Church School for Girls marched down to Christ Church on Sundays for service. In rows of two by two, they entered and sat on opposite sides of the Church. No doubt, like Bassanio and Portia in Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, they looked across the aisle to one another signaling with their eyes “fair speechless messages” of love (or mischief!). There were no devices and so no texting. A different age.
To this day a box hangs at the back of the Church near the entrance specifically designated to hold prayer books and hymn books for the use of the Schools. It recalls the connection between the School and the Church in the community of Windsor.
It happened one Friday afternoon. To understand the image of Christ crucified means appreciating the different ways in which the crucifixion has been depicted in art and devotion over the centuries.
The earliest image is that of Christus Rex, Christ the King. Christ is depicted as a king, robed in royal robes and crowned with a crown of gold. It is a powerful symbol of the triumph of life over death.
But later the emphasis turned from the victory to the agony, the agony of suffering. Christ was depicted in terms of his suffering humanity. The focus is on the body, on the sufferings. Christ identifies with the forms of human suffering, sometimes in very grotesque ways, especially after the black death in the 14th century which had such a devastating effect on European culture and life.
It happened one Friday afternoon. The outstretched arms of Christ crucified are the arms which embrace us in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd. It is a familiar Christian image but one which connects to a rich tradition of reflection in other religions and philosophies about the principle of essential life. Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita sits down in despair and confusion between two competing armies which are made up of family and friends. He wonders why he should fight. In his confusion, Sri Krishna, a divine figure, an emanation of Vishnu, teaches him about what it means to be a self in the Hindu understanding. He bids him to follow his dharma, his duty or essence of character, but to act without attachment to results. It teaches us, too, that we are more though not less than what we do, more though not less than what happens to us.
We are like sheep who have gone astray. This brings us face to face with human sin and failure; not just of others but of ourselves as well. Rather than fleeing from the world as something evil and threatening, we are given a way to face the difficult things of our world and day as well as ourselves.
Christ the Good Shepherd is a Resurrection image because it is about our being gathered to God and to one another. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. We are loved and embraced in the love of God who loves us in spite of ourselves and in spite of our differences. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” as Paul puts it (Gal. 3.28). We are loved by God in spite of ourselves.
The story of Jesus as the Good Shepherd which Gabby read is complemented by the lesson which Will read from the great love-song of the Hebrew Scriptures, The Song of Songs. We meet in the valley at the time of the greening of the year, the time of things blossoming and bursting into new life after the harshness of the winter. We meet in a garden to hear the voice of love. The image of the garden belongs to both the Passion and the Resurrection; the garden of Gethsemane and the garden of the tomb, which becomes the womb of new life, the Resurrection. Such is the love which gathers us when we are most scattered and lost in ourselves.
It happened one Friday afternoon. The School is gathered here today as a corps, a body. It is not a corpse but a living body composed of students from a multitude of nations, cultures, ethnicities, religions, and languages. From the late 18th century and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, students from King’s and later, Edgehill, went out into the global world to serve in war and in education, in nursing and in commerce, in church and in politics. They were part of the clash of empires and the collision of cultures which has defined the modern world in all of its confusion and disarray, in all of its sin and evil, in all of its grandeur and misery.
The cadet corps, and its programme, is not about glorifying war. It is more a sombre reminder of the sad reality of division and animosities, on the one hand, and a way of thinking about what service and leadership might mean in the face of such things, on the other hand.
The School’s mottoes speak to a sense of purpose and vocation in the face of the world’s confusions past and present. Deo Legi Regi Gregi – for God, for the Law, for the King, for the People – and Fideliter, faithfulness to the principles of an education which challenge us to think beyond ourselves but which also allows us to face ourselves in our own confusions and disarray.
We are gathered here today after a hiatus of over two years because of Covid-19, a global and modern pandemic. We contemplate a world of conflict and wars in many places such as between Ukraine and Russia which affects us all. How do we face such things? In fear and judgment? Or with care and compassion? In fragility and weakness? Or with courage and resilience? Or with compassion and patience?
The Canadian novelist, Timothy Findley, in his novel, The Wars, observes that the challenge is “to clarify who you are by your response to when you lived.” We are struggling to learn, as the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, puts it, that “we have no right to freedom if exercising that right harms the freedom of others.” It is not about ourselves in isolation from one another.
It happened one Friday afternoon. In our fragmented and broken world of conflict and confusion we are, perhaps, only beginning to think about ourselves and our histories in all of their complexity and to confront ourselves in the madness of crowds.
The image of Christ crucified recalls us to the Passion of Christ where we are not the victims but the persecutors. We are meant to confront ourselves in the madness of crowds. This is the counter to the culture of victimhood. To do so is part of the gathering captured in the images of Christ crucified and Christ the Good Shepherd.
We live in apocalyptic times with the spectre of a kind of ‘endism’ hanging over us. “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine,” as the rock band, Great Big Sea memorably sang, only we don’t feel fine. Nor should we. “To those who do what lies within them God does not deny grace” was a late mediaeval moral maxim (facere quod in se est). To do the best you can. Yes, but that is not enough, as Luther realized. Why? Because it doesn’t fully acknowledge our limitations and sinfulness and our need for grace. It limits us to ourselves in our limitations and hides the radical need of our humanity for the grace which perfects nature. That is about being part of something greater than ourselves.
“What if this present were the world’s last night?” John Donne asks in a powerful sonnet about how to face death whether collectively – ‘now is the end of the world’ – or individually – our own deaths. The sonnet bids us to look into ourselves and call to mind “the picture of Christ crucified” and to ask ourselves what it means. Can that face of the crucified in all of its pain and agony frighten you? Fear? Can that tongue which on the Cross prayed forgiveness for his enemies condemn you? Judgment? These are rhetorical questions to which the answer is a resounding “No, no.” No to both fear and judgment. In confronting ourselves in the modern madness of crowds we may learn something more and greater. We can be more than our fears and our hatreds, more than our divisions and differences, it seems.
What seems so ugly and grotesque in the image of the crucified Christ becomes something wonderful, even something beautiful, and something comforting in the older sense of strengthening. “This beauteous form assures a piteous mind,” the sonnet concludes. It is an awakening to essential life, not in flight from the world and one another in fear and judgment, but to one another in love and service.
Christ the Good Shepherd gathers us because his Passion and Resurrection is the love which is in the midst. We are the sheep who are scattered and have gone astray but who are gathered into the endless love of God. And all because … It happened one Friday afternoon.
(Rev’d) David Curry,
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
My thanks to the Readers of this Reflection at the Church Parade at Christ Church on Friday, May 13th, 2022: Will Larder, Vincent Armstrong, Jessica Etou Nkaa, Polet Sanchez Garcia, Lucas Martin, Okechinyere (Adaoma) Ukaegbu, and Sean Hurley.
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