Year: 2023

“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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“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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