Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after Easter.

“Woman, behold thy Son … and to the disciple, behold thy mother”

The seven last words of Christ on the Cross begin and end with the address of the Son to the Father in the Peruvian Jesuit Fr. Bedoya’s ordering of the words. Everything is gathered into the life of God as Trinity. This, too, is the point of emphasis in the Gospel readings for the third, fourth and fifth Sundays after Easter, all taken from the 16th chapter of John’s Gospel with the repeated refrain, “because I go to the Father,” on the one hand, and the explicit teaching of the Son about the Spirit as the bond of truth and love, on the other hand. In every way we are being opened out to the reality of essential life which is the triumph of love over sin and death.

This is profoundly transformative not in the sense of becoming other than who we are but in discovering the truth of our humanity and our world as grounded in the essential life of God. The resurrection stories show us how we are transformed from sorrow and suffering into joy and gladness. Today’s gospel provides us with a wonderful maternal image of that change. “A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world.” The analogy is made explicit. “You now therefore have sorrow” Jesus says to the disciples in anticipation of his Passion, “but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” It is joy known in the face of a world of suffering not in flight from it.

What does this mean for us? A new way of thinking that is the birth of new life in us. There is the possibility as the American writer and theologian Marilynne Robinson beautifully puts it, of “acknowledging the miraculous privilege of existence as conscious beings,” and thus a way of engaging the world not only in terms of the power and authority of kings and governors but most profoundly in honouring everybody as 1st Peter 2 tells us. The teaching is transformative and transcends the limited agendas of human rights and identity claims which privilege some at the expense of others and divide more than they unite. Instead we discover a way of seeing ourselves and one another in the embrace of divine love, the love which changes everything. Love gives of itself and is never exhausted.

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Sunday, May 7th, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, May 9th
7:00 Parish Council Meeting

Saturday, May 13th
1:00-3:00pm Mother’s Day Tea – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 14th, Fifth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

(The Currys are away for the burial of Marilyn’s mother, Bernice,
Thursday, May 18th to Saturday, May 20th)

Sunday, May 21st, Sunday after Ascension Day
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, May 28th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22

Artwork: Jan Henryk de Rosen, Last Supper, 1927-29. Fresco, Armenian Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Lviv, Ukraine.

Behind closed doors

The 20th chapter of John’s Gospel begins with the story of Mary Magdalene and ends with the story of so-called ‘doubting’ Thomas. In the midst is Jesus. To what end? That our hearts and minds might be opened out to the greater life of God, to the possibility of acknowledging what the American writer and theologian Marilynne Robinson calls “the miraculous privilege of existence as a conscious being,” a wonderful phrase.

The tomb becomes the womb of new life in spite of our griefs and sorrows. “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted;” the words of the Beatitudes take on a fuller meaning in these stories. Jesus appears behind the closed doors where the disciples are huddled in fear and uncertainty. He shows them his hands and his side and speaks of peace and forgiveness, and of a kind of knowing, faith, that says there is more though not less to reality than what can be seen and experienced. The two stories are a powerful reminder that we are essentially spiritual and intellectual beings in and through the limits of our knowing and experience. They are not everything but neither are they nothing.

The resurrection belongs to the idea of things metaphysical as the underlying principle of all life. It is a breakthrough of the understanding that frees us from the closed doors of our minds. We see this in both Mary Magdalene and Thomas. They are changed and set in motion but not through the negation of what belongs to themselves and the truth of their individuality. They do not become other than themselves but more fully themselves precisely through the awareness of their unknowing and confusion. This is the possibility of the greater transformation. It is neither a flight from reality nor a denial of creation. It is, to put it theologically, about the redemption of creation and of our humanity, individually and corporately.

In our post-Christian and post-secular world, religion is largely regarded, if regarded at all, as a matter of personal faith and identity, a matter of various agendas and interests. What, then, is the role of Chapel at the School? It cannot be the affirmation of personal faiths or non-faiths, or of the particular claims and assertions of identity for that would be impossible. Neither is Chapel about proselytizing, about forcing or coercing an agenda. It is really more about what we see in these stories: the encounter with ideas that may change us through our being opened to what is greater than ourselves whatever your interests and agendas. Education is about the exposure to ideas. What you do with them is another matter. In this sense, Chapel is simply part of education; the opening out of ideas.

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The collect for today, The Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark: Give us grace, that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:11-16
The Gospel: St. Mark 13:1-10

The author of the second gospel, Saint Mark is generally identified with John Mark, the son of Mary, whose house in Jerusalem was a meeting place for the disciples (Acts 12:12,25). John Mark accompanied his cousin Barnabas and Paul on their missionary journey to Cyprus, but Mark’s early departure to Jerusalem caused a rift between Paul and Barnabas, following which Barnabas took Mark on the next mission to Cyprus while Paul and Silas traveled through Syria and Cilicia (Acts 15:37-41).

Paul later changed his mind about Mark, who helped him during his imprisonment in Rome (Col. 4:10). Just before his martyrdom, Paul urged Timothy: “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).

Also, Peter affectionately calls Mark “my son” and says that Mark is with him at “Babylon”—almost certainly Rome—as he writes his first epistle (1 Pet. 5:13). This accords with church tradition that Mark’s Gospel represents the teaching of Peter.

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Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Second Sunday after Easter.

“Today thou shalt be with me in paradise”

The second word of the crucified Christ is to the penitent thief. It is a rather startling word. Paradise in the midst of the agony of the cross? The idea of the beauty and harmony of creation in the face of the ugly horror of sin and death? But is this not exactly what we have noted about the Passion and the Resurrection, namely, the opening out of eternal life as that which is prior and primary? And is it too much to see in this word something of the radical meaning of Christ the Good Shepherd who gathers us into his loving embrace even on the Cross? And is it possible to see in this second word from St. Luke its connection to the last word also from Luke’s Gospel, “Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit?” For the Eastertide refrain, as we shall see, is “because I go to the Father.” Everything is gathered into the love of God which is exactly what we see in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd.

We forget that the image of Christ the Good Shepherd is really a Resurrection image and one which conveys something of the ideas that belong to the Christian imaginary about paradise both biblically in terms of creation in Genesis and in antiquity in terms of Arcadia. They recall us to the ideas of a kind of peace and harmony between our humanity and nature and between our humanity and God. We forget the radical nature of this rather familiar and comfortable image of care though it is right before us. Jesus, who says he is “the good shepherd,” tells us that “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” In other words, the Good Shepherd is the Lamb of God.

As the Epistle reading from 1st Peter reminds us, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” and goes on to emphasize the sinless purity of Christ and his sacrifice for us. For “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” “For ye were,” he says “as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” Wonderful images that signify to us the deep love of God for us in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. This passage, too, is the part of the second lesson read at Mattins on Holy Saturday. Thus Christ, as the Collect teaches, is “both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life.” All under the embrace of the Good Shepherd.

The connection between the Passion and the Resurrection in terms of the image of Christ the Good Shepherd can also be seen if we consider what immediately precedes the gospel reading and what immediately follows it; in short, what frames the reading. First, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn.10. 10). That abundant life is eternal life found in our being embraced in the arms of the Good Shepherd. Secondly, what follows the reading: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father” (Jn 10. 17,18). Note too that the image of the Good Shepherd is seen in the context of bad shepherds, either thieves or hirelings, those who seek their own interest and not the good of others.

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Tuesday, April 25th
7:00 Christ Church Book Club: In God’s Path: The Arabic Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (2015) by Robert G. Hoyland & The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (2018) by Alexander Bevilacqua

Sunday, April 30th, Third Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Saturday, May 13th
1:00-3:00pm Mother’s Day Tea – Parish Hall

The collect for today, The Second Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:19-25
The Gospel: St. John 10:11-16

Artwork: Mateo Gilarte, The Good Shepherd, c. 1680. Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia, Spain.