Category: Sermons

“Trembling and astonishment had come upon them … for they were afraid”

It is known as the short ending to The Gospel according to St. Mark because some of the earliest texts of St. Mark’s Gospel end at verse eight of the sixteenth chapter rather than with the further aspects of the resurrection that take us to verse twenty. To be sure, the canonical gospel, the gospel that is authoritative for orthodox Christians, includes those additional twelve verses. The shorter ending does not mean that Mark does not believe in the doctrine of the resurrection or that the additional verses are somehow unrelated and disconnected to the rest of his gospel and unfaithful to it. Quite the contrary. The Gospels could not even be written apart from the Resurrection. It is the Resurrection that brings everything into a new light of understanding. It changes everything.

“Be not afraid” is the good news of the Resurrection, after all, in the shorter ending. The word for being afraid is more about a kind of amazement or wonderment. The women were amazed to find “the stone rolled away” and to see “a young man clothed in a long white garment.” He responds to their amazement. “Be not affrighted” – meaning ‘be not amazed’. “Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: his risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.” But this only adds to their amazement. They “trembled and were amazed”, literally, they were beside or outside of themselves. Here the word for amazement is ecstasy – ex stasis. The whole scene is about confronting a mystery, the great mystery of the Resurrection.

So what are we to make of that shorter ending? From a literary point of view, I think it is powerful and poignant ending, and serves to make the doctrinal point about the resurrection even more strongly. Only in the light of the resurrection does the story of Jesus makes any sense. The resurrection has captured the imaginations of the gospel writers and compelled them to see things in a new light without which the Gospels would never have been written.

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“This is the victory that overcometh the world; even our faith”

There is such a thing as being dead before you are dead. It happens when we give up on what defines us, sing the poor-me’s and succumb to despair. But it is really all about us. That has been the situation it seems to be for quite some time in our churches and our culture. “O ye of little faith,” Jesus upbraids us. One of the homilies in the sixteenth century Book of Homilies is about “liveliness of faith” which is only possible where one confronts a certain deadness of faith. I sense this problem in varying ways when people start talking about things like the Church and Parish dying though without distinguishing between the institutional church and the mystical Church universal, a distinction without which I certainly could not even begin to function. But that kind of talk about death and dying is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are dead before we are really dead because we have given up on the life of faith. We are dead because we have accepted what is really the world’s way of looking at things.

Numbers matter but they are not everything. And in fact they can become a kind of idolatry; measuring the truth of things quantitatively is an extremely limited and limiting way of thinking and living. It is a problem the Scriptures frequently address. There is even “the sin of David” in taking a census of the Israelites, as if to say that our strength and the truth of our being lies in our numbers. As such it is a denial of God and the truth and power of his life in us. Elijah the Prophet, too, laments in a kind of despair about the condition of Israel, thinking that he is the only one left! God rather drily and strongly reminds him that no, there are far more than he realizes who are faithful, indeed, “seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal” a passage from 1 Kings that Paul recalls in Romans 11.4. The problem, it seems, is perennial. We forget that where two or three are gathered there is Christ also. Our life and our joy are found in the gathering.

To my mind, the Gospel of the Resurrection speaks profoundly to the great question of our age which is about our common humanity. Because of the Resurrection, it is not an exaggeration to say, you are not and do not have to be a robot. You are already a robot, however, if you have succumbed to a kind of technocratic determinism and think that machines can think. In other words, you become a machine precisely because you have given yourself over to a certain kind of reasoning which is limited and limiting. It was interesting to see an article in the Chronicle Herald about a Professor from St. Mary’s talking exactly about the problem of big data and Artificial Intelligence which can only replicate human patterns of behavior but are incapable of mind and therefore ethical reasoning.

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

The words of the Prophet Joel provided the critical matrix through which to ponder the mystery of the Passion in Holy Week. They equally carry us into the mystery of the Resurrection at Easter. Why? Because neither the Passion nor the Resurrection can be thought about without each other. The accounts of the Passion can only be written and can only be considered because of the Resurrection. Easter, in a way, signals the great turning of God to us. Only so can there be our turning to him.

The Resurrection is radical new life. The turning is about the hope of transformation, a change in outlook and understanding, a change from death to life. Easter signals the triumph of life over death, of light over darkness, of good over evil. And that is all God in his eternal turning and all God in his turning to us. Christ goes into darkness of death and death is changed for evermore. “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” And this changes everything for us. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above”.

We are no longer to be defined by the dust of death and by our turning to the ground and to the emptiness of ourselves. We are turned to the Risen Christ and find in him the new and radical truth of our humanity. We are turned to God and only then are we alive. Death is swallowed up in life, the Life that has overcome death, which is to say that everything is not nothingness. Nihilism is the philosophy of nothingness, the sense of meaninglessness and the absence of purpose, the philosophy of despair and disappointment. The Resurrection of Christ counters the nihilisms of our world and day. It is all about the turning, the circling around and around of God to God in our humanity and our humanity in God.

We turn to the grave, like Mary Magdalene, seeking a corpse, a dead body, only to find “the stone taken away from the sepulchre”. The empty tomb marks the beginning of a change. She turns and runs to Peter and John with the report that “they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.” She assumes however that he is dead. It is merely a question of where the body is. Yet she has been set in motion to the other disciples who in turn run to the sepulchre and find it empty. It marks the beginning of a resurrection of the understanding, a new understanding about our humanity.

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

We turn to God in watching and waiting upon the great mystery of God’s turning to us in the Resurrection to new life. We turn expectantly to look upon the second great act of God. There is the going forth of the Word of God in Creation and now the going forth of the Word of God in Redemption. We turn to God in joy for we behold the transition from darkness to light, from death to life. For his are the times and the seasons. We are turned to Christ, the Alpha and Omega of our very lives.

We turn through the witness of the Scriptures to the story of Creation and to the saving acts of God in the Exodus, to the images of redemption and restoration that shape our understanding of the great mystery of the Resurrection. It is all about our being gathered into the eternal motions of God’s love. We turn to him who turns to us in love.

The renewal of our baptismal vows is an important feature of our Easter vigil. It is about our intentional turning to God in the great circling acts of creation and redemption, in incarnation and passion, in death and resurrection. We turn to face the altar and profess our Christian identity in God as Trinity precisely through the great acts of his Passion and Resurrection, themselves like great circles within the greater circles of Creation and Redemption and all within the greatest circle of divine love in the going forth and return of the Son to the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit.

On this most holy night, we rejoice in the great redire ad principia that is God’s turning us to himself in his turning to us and all in his great circling. We rejoice in the love which gives itself to us and in so doing gives us life. We only live in him who turns to live in us.

“Turn unto the Lord your God”

Fr. David Curry
Easter Vigil, 2017

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

In the quiet stillness of Holy Saturday, we turn to the grave and death of Christ. “It is finished”, it seems. All that remains are the quiet sorrows and griefs of our broken hearts in a broken world. And yet we turn to his grave. Such a turning is itself the beginnings of another motion, a seeking for something more in the honouring of what matters and is true about our loves and about our relationships with one another. We gather at the graves of our loved ones. How shall we not gather at the grave of Christ?

It is a borrowed grave given by another, by Joseph of Arimathea. That is fitting for Christ borrowed a death by borrowing a body, as Athanasius puts it, but he has made grave, death, and body his own precisely in his turning to us. And in giving us himself he gives us ourselves. Such is the turning.

The turning on Holy Saturday morning is about the fullest possible extent of reconciliation. It marks the further extension of the Passion. We turn to the grave in the disquiet of our souls but Christ hidden in the grave turns to the greater work of reconciliation. That greater work has to do with his Descent into Hell; his going down before his return in Resurrection and Ascension. It is all part of the circling. Such is reconciliation – our being returned to him from whom we have turned away.

He goes as Peter, drawing upon Zechariah, says to “preach unto the spirits in prison,” the prison of Sheol or Hades, the ‘place’ of departed spirits, the hell of our separation from God and Life. What does it mean? Simply that God seeks reconciliation with the whole of his sinful creation. Such is the radical nature of God’s turning to us in Jesus Christ. Literally nothing shall be lost but all shall be gathered up. The Epistle reading from 1 Peter points to this turning and circling, at once Christ’s Descent and then his Resurrection and Ascension. In those motions of going forth and return to “the right hand of God” the Father lies the redemption of the whole of sinful creation, past, present and yet to come. All is gathered into the eternity of God through the going forth and return of the Son.

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

The idea of turning reaches a certain completeness on Good Friday. Circles within circles, we might say, a richness of turning and circling back and towards and upon the very principle of everything, God. Good Friday. It is the day of the profoundest reflection upon the most profoundest of themes, the death of God. For that is the radical meaning of Christ’s crucifixion.

God wills to embrace the disorders of our lives to the fullest and most impossible extent. It is literally beyond our imagining and utterly beyond our doing. We have the hardest time even thinking this mystery. And yet, year after year there is the marvel and wonder, the marvel and wonder of our turning and contemplating Christ crucified. And yet that turning is altogether about God’s turning to us.

That is the real strength and virtue of the liturgies of Good Friday. The good of this day lies entirely in the turning of Christ to us in the seven last words of the Cross. And yet, it seems we do not have the stamina to stop and pause, to think and ponder the great mystery of the crucifixion. The paradox is great if not obvious. It is all about the turning and about our turning away. Christ’s words capture the real meaning of the idea of God’s turning to us and our turning to God in repentance. The paradox is heightened even more because there is our turning in violence and abuse, in short our turning against God in the very events of the crucifixion. The point cannot be stressed enough. We are those who cry out “crucify, crucify.” We confront the hideous horror of our sins. It will not do to try and sanitize our evil, the very thing our culture in its delusions constantly does, outsourcing evil, as it were, conveniently excusing ourselves.

The point of Holy Week and especially Good Friday, without which the idea of Good Friday is meaningless, is for us to confront the radical evil of our own hearts. The evil is not out there; it is in here, in us, in you and me. So there is a turning to ourselves through our turning to Christ. In the crucified Christ we confront the hideous spectacle of our own betrayals of truth, our betrayals of God. But even more, we confront the radical meaning of Christ’s crucifixion. It is the fullest expression of his turning to us to save and redeem. The radical meaning of the turning is love, a love that is a constant circling around the principle which defines our being, the being of all reality.

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

“Rend your hearts,” the prophet Joel bids us, “and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God.” Nowhere is that turning more concentrated for us than in the three great holy days of Holy Week, the Triduum Sacrum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Yet our turning to God is really only the effect of God turning to us.

“Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned” as the prayer in the Penitential Service in the Prayer Book puts it, a prayer shaped by Joel’s words. Redire ad principia, as Lancelot Andrewes remarks, a kind of circling, repentance is really about our turning back to him from whom we have turned away. How we have turned away is seen and made visible in the hideous spectacle of the Passion where we confront all of the various forms of the disorder and disarray of human hearts and our human world. But that turning is because there is a principle to which we can return, an active principle. Such is the will of God made visible in the events of these days especially.

“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another even as I have loved you.” This conveys the meaning of this day called Maundy Thursday. Mandatum is the Latin for commandment englished as Maundy. The events of this night concentrate for us the paradox of the double turning, God’s turning to us and our turning to God.

“He carried himself in his own hands”. In such a phrase, St. Augustine captures the paradox and the poignancy of the passion of Christ on this night, this very night.

“He carried himself in his own hands” who is delivered into the hands of his betrayers on this night, this very night.

“He carried himself in his own hands” who is delivered into the hands of his enemies on this night, this very night.

“He carried himself in his own hands” who is delivered into our hands on this night, this very night.

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

Tenebrae is the Latin word for darkness and shadows. The term is applied to the ancient monastic services of Matins and Lauds of Triduum Sacrum which in medieval times were celebrated in an anticipatory fashion on the preceding evenings. One dramatic feature of the service is the gradual extinguishing of the candles until only one candle remains lit, itself a symbol of Christ. Then, it, too, would be hidden, symbolic of Christ’s death and the apparent victory of the forces of evil. Finally, a very loud noise is made symbolizing the earthquake at the time of the resurrection. The hidden candle would be restored to its place and all would depart in silence.

Darkness and shadows. Holy Week is the pageant of the darkness of our humanity. Our hearts of darkness are fully on display. We turn to God in Christ to learn about the darkness and the shadows of our hearts. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are read as the lamentations of Christ, Christ sorrowing for our sins which are about our turning away from God and his will and his truth. That turning away is our life in the shadows, our life in the darkness as opposed to the light.

But Tenebrae is, above all else, about God turning to us in Jesus Christ, his turning to us to convict our hearts. Nowhere is that more graphically seen than at the end of The Beginning of the Passion According to St. Luke read on this day. It is the scene of Peter’s betrayal of Christ. Luke’s master touch, his painterly and dramatic touch, if you will, is to have Peter’s third betrayal and, then to say, “The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.” Light in the shadows, light in the darkness. That look convicts Peter. It is the look of divine compassion, not angry judgement. Peter confronts himself through Jesus turning to him at the moment of Peter’s third betrayal. He remembers in that moment what Christ had predicted. His own conscience is convicted. “He went out and wept bitterly.”

The Lamentations of Christ read tonight and also on Good Friday are seen through the lens of Christ turning and speaking to us just as he turns and looks upon Peter. The effect should be the same – the tears of repentance. The light of Christ illumines the darkness, the shadows of the human heart, our heart of darkness.

“Turn unto the Lord your God”

Fr. David Curry
Tenebrae
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

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“Turn unto the Lord your God”

It is Joel’s word to us, his word shaping our thinking about the Passion of Christ. Turn unto God but to do what? To be cruel and brutal? To do evil? What we contemplate today in the continuation of the Passion is the continuing brutality and folly of our humanity. It seems that we turn to Christ only to betray him in one way or another. We turn to Christ only to contemplate our own brutality and evil. Yesterday we had the picture of Judas’ kiss of betrayal and Peter’s bitter tears poured out like the precious ointment from the broken box of alabaster. And today? The further spectacle of the miscarriage of justice in which we see the whole pageant of the injustices of the world. We see the cruelty of mob violence and the brutality of abuse. Christ is mocked and beaten and led out to be crucified. Where are we in all of this spectacle? We are in the crowd in one way or another. We confront the darkness of the human heart, our hearts. If we have hearts, they shall be broken, and only so shall we be whole.

He goes the way of the Cross bearing the burden of our sins. No one comes to his aid. Everything is focused on the human rage to destroy; such is his crucifixion. When he stumbles under the weight of the cross itself, his persecutors compel – force – one Simon of Cyrene to bear his cross. He is completely abandoned. Christ is the object of all our discontent, our hatred and enmity, our will to destroy. Everything that belongs to the disorder and disarray of our human hearts is on display in his Passion.

The one word from the Cross in Matthew and Mark’s account is the word which voices the utter desolation of human evil. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It is a line from the psalms and yet it captures something of the real nature of human evil which is about our self-willed separation from the goodness and truth of God. Yet his word is a prayer, a prayer to God out of the depths of the reality of human sin. That is what is made visible to us. Only if we face the cruel brutality of ourselves can we learn something of the greater goodness of God. The lesson for us is learned by one who was part of the spectacle, a Roman centurion who looking upon the dying Christ says, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

We contemplate in the crucified Christ something more than just the brutality and cruelty of our hearts. We contemplate the God who seeks to make our hearts clean and new. We can only come to that through the spectacle of the Passion. We confront the evil of ourselves to learn the greater goodness of God. Such is the turning, our turning away and our turning back again and in the hopes of a deeper understanding of sin and love. Such are the deep and profound lessons of the Passion. If we will turn and see. Our turning is our repentance, at once moving us to contrition and confession even the confession of Christ as the Son of God. That is the only good of this spectacle.

“Turn unto the Lord your God”

Fr. David Curry
Tuesday in Holy Week
April 11^th, 2017

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