Author: CCW

“They shall look upon him whom they have pierced”

This text from Zechariah concluded the reading of the Passion in Holy Week in John’s account of the Passion read on Good Friday. And yet, this text also provides us with a way to think the mystery of the Resurrection. We see that wonderfully today in the second story of the Resurrection that Luke tells.

Yesterday on Easter Monday we had the amazing story of Christ and the disciples on the Road to Emmaus; the point is that the disciples’ hearts “burn[ed] within [them]” as Jesus talked with them on the way and opened the Scriptures for their understanding about the logic of his Passion and Resurrection. In other words, they are pierced, as it were, by what they have learned in the encounter with Christ who provides an interpretation through things said and done. “He was known of them,” specifically “in the breaking of the bread.”

Here Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples. That alone is an intriguing concept. In the Christian story, God is in our midst in Jesus Christ as the Crucified and as the Risen Lord. As an image it captures the central dynamic of the Incarnation. In the Gospel reading for Easter Tuesday Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples who are shocked with joy and disbelief. Their confusion and uncertainty becomes the setting for learning about the Resurrection from the Risen Lord. Beyond the empty tomb of Easter Morn, beyond the report of Mary Magdalene and the other women, beyond the words of an angel, beyond the report of the other disciples, there is the whole matter of Christ making himself known to us in the truth of his Resurrection.

We cannot know this ‘scientifically’ in any kind of empirical sense; paradoxically, though, the Resurrection is one of the strongest concepts that makes science possible. Why? Because it affirms the intelligibility of the material world. We cannot know the Resurrection of Christ experientially only spiritually and imaginatively, intellectually, we might say. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” as the old spiritual puts it; the point of the rhetorical question is that we are there not literally but symbolically and really in terms of our sins being the cause of his being pierced. But ask the question about the Resurrection. Were you there when he rose from the dead? And the answer is both yes and no. How do we know the Resurrection? Through the power of these accounts that show us how the idea of the Resurrection takes hold of human minds and changes human lives.

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“They shall look upon him whom they have pierced”

Zechariah’s text carried us through the intensity of our meditations upon the Passion of Christ in Holy Week. His word is literally the last word of The Passion According to St. John read on Good Friday. But as we saw on Easter Day, his text also carries us into the understanding of the mystery of the Resurrection. We look upon him whom we have pierced and learn above all else the love of God for our wounded and broken humanity restored to love and by love in Christ Crucified.

To learn the Resurrection is to be pierced as well. It means to have our hearts and minds moved by what we see and hear. It means to contemplate the mystery of the Passion and the Resurrection for they are inseparable. No Passion, no Resurrection; and paradoxically, no Resurrection, no Passion. We can only make sense of the Resurrection through the Passion of Christ. This is what the Gospels show us both in Holy Week and in the pageant of the Resurrection which is before us in the Octave and through Eastertide. We are meant to be pierced into love and understanding by what is given to be seen and felt in the accounts of the Resurrection. Those accounts show us the ways in which the idea of the Resurrection comes to be known and believed.

On Easter Monday we have the Peter’s address about the Resurrection from Acts and the powerful Gospel story from St. Luke about the Road to Emmaus. Peter’s testimony bears witness to the bodily reality of the events of the Resurrection. Jesus “whom they slew, and hanged on a tree: him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” The word after is most telling. Christian witness is always about the Resurrection and that in turn is unthinkable without the Passion and the deeper meaning of the forgiveness of sins with which Peter ends his sermon in Acts. The Resurrection is proclaimed as made known to chosen witnesses “who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” A pretty powerful statement and one which is rendered even more powerful by Luke’s Road to Emmaus story. In both, the idea of looking upon him whom we have pierced is a critical part of the learning.

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“They shall look on him whom they pierced”

What? We look upon Christ who is pierced? That sounds like Good Friday. Is this not Easter? It is. Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia! Perhaps our text should be what we see above our heads on the Chancel Arch. “I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore,” words from The Book of the Revelation of St. John Divine (1.18) that speak directly to the themes of death and resurrection. Yet we can only read such words because of our “look[ing] upon him whom [we] have pierced.” Only through the Passion of Christ can we make sense of the Resurrection. For this is no spring time carnival, some playtime in the park to amuse ourselves. No. Easter celebrates the radical new life of the Resurrection. It is about new life and new birth, even as this morning we have seen the new life and new birth in the baptism of Liam Patrick Gregory Paradis.

Baptism is itself a new creation. Every baptism is about the Resurrection in us as a community of faith and in those who are baptized. The only question is whether we will live out what is proclaimed and given here this morning. It is the question for our age. We have so domesticated divinity that we find ourselves bereft and empty of any real understanding of God. As a consequence we are lost to ourselves. It is the current dilemma of our culture both within and without the Christian Church. We betray the very truth that gives us life.

The good news is that this is part of the old news which the Gospel of Christ has overcome and so is there for us to reclaim. The great good news is that we are not simply left to the barren realities of our human claims to excellence or goodness, to the specious claims about moral and cultural relativism, to the impoverished ideologies of our humanism which reveal only our inhumanity. If we want to know what it means to be human, the reality is that it cannot be found in the laboratories of science or social constructs and conventions; it cannot be found in the economic, social and political programmes to which we so desperately cling. There is a profound unease in our culture and world but there is as well as profound reluctance to face our problems. Why? Because it means two things which we would rather not face: God and ourselves.

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“They shall look on him whom they pierced”

We can only watch and wait. That is the nature of our looking upon him whom they pierced. It is actually in some real sense the meaning of our Christian lives. We watch and wait upon God. We “look upon him whom we have pierced,” looking for the redemption of our souls and our world, looking for what is accomplished in the events of the Passion.

What we look for we also celebrate. All of our looking upon Christ crucified this Holy Week is only possible through the fruit of his passion in the Resurrection. We look upon him whom we have pierced and “behold, it is I, handle and see, a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see that I have.” Christ is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia! The Resurrection makes possible the Passion even as the Passion helps us to understand the true joy of Easter. No Passion, no Resurrection but paradoxically, no Resurrection, no Passion!

The events of Holy Week concentrate our attention on Christ crucified but only through the optic of the Resurrection which gives those events meaning and significance. Tonight we have watched and waited for the great and grand act of Resurrection. And what is that except God making something new and wonderful out of the nothingness of our sins and folly?

At Easter and throughout Eastertide we shall look on him whom we have pierced and contemplate in his wounds the very nature of divine love, the love which restores and redeems, the love that makes us lovely. Without that we are nothing. The Resurrection is about the something more of God’s love seen on the Cross but is more than the Cross. That is the point. Easter is about a new and greater creation, about redemption, about a reality that is more than the mundane experiences of our everyday lives. We live for God and with God because of his Passion and Resurrection.

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