Holy Tuesday: Is 49.1-6; J 13.21-33.36-38At the end of today’s first lesson from the Prophet Isaiah (49.1-6) we read, ‘It is not enough for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back the survivors of Israel; I will make you the light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth’. This passage is found in the so called ‘second Isaiah’, a portion of the book expressing a hope of the restoration of Israel. The prophet speaks out of the experience of exile, following a complete destruction of the Jewish world in 586 BCE when Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed by the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, and most of the city’s population deported to Babylon. The people were scattered and disorientated, caught up in the events they couldn’t control. Perhaps this is something we can relate to during this difficult time. Although not exiled, we too are scattered, not able to gather to socialise with the people we love, or even to worship. We might be in the comfort of our homes, but even our homes may sometimes feel like prison cells if we are not able to leave them to enjoy what the world has to offer. We have found ourselves in a strange land so deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many more people die every day, many more people are hospitalised, including the Prime Minister now in intensive care. It really is a strange land. The weather outside may be beautiful, but the experience of coronavirus continues to be deeply unsettling for our families, friends and communities. However, we shouldn’t let it overwhelm us. What the liturgy offers us today is the word of comfort. The Second Isaiah (ch. 40-55) is often called the “Book of Consolation”. Today, God offers us reassurance that his light will never entirely depart from us. Through his prophet God says, ‘I will make you the light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’We know that our Lord described himself as ‘the light of the world’ and said that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life (J 8.12). During Holy Week we are reminded that Jesus, the light of the world, knows what our darkness and confusion feel like. In the gospel we find Jesus ‘troubled in spirit’ (J 13.21). Betrayed by his friends, he found himself in a strange and lonely land. He didn’t die surrounded by his disciples, but by a hostile crowd. At the foot of the cross only a handful of his loved-ones kept watch, including his mother, Mary, and John, his beloved disciple. The Son of God took upon himself our human experience of isolation and pain so that when we experience these things we may know that we are never alone, that God walks alongside us and that his light of hope shines even within the darkest of nights. So, today, on this Holy Tuesday, let us pray that the light of Christ may shine upon our dispersed communities living under the shadow of coronavirus. May the light of Christ shine within our hearts and encourage us to be a people who are always ready to share that light with others. With St Paul, let us pray: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ’ (1 Cor 3-5). Amen.
Holy MondayJohn 12.1-11: Anointing at BethanyIn today's Gospel we hear the account of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus' feet with an ointment of pure nard. The oil she used for anointing was worth hundred denarii, an equivalent of nearly a year's wages for a worker. Mary’s gesture could have been read as little indulgent and wasteful - as it indeed was by Judas. But Judas completely missed the point. What he didn’t realise was that Mary possessed a deeper understanding of who Jesus was. While Judas, obsessed with money, was constantly calculating benefits and losses, Mary was responding to Christ’s presence with all candour of her heart. She worshipped him with all she had, without worrying about finances or about what would others think of her or how they would judge her. Her strange and unusual action was an expression of her love for Jesus. Love was all that mattered there. What she did focused the attention of everyone present in the room on Jesus which then allowed him to speak of his impending death. Mary’s worship pointed towards the sheer extravagance of God’s love we discover in the Cross and Passion of Christ. Is it very fitting that we hear this story at the start of Holy Week as it reminds us about that one essential thing it would be good for us to discover afresh as we journey towards Easter – the love of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus. As we spend this Holy Week confined to our homes, not being able to worship in church buildings, perhaps today we could think of a few creative ways in which we can imitate Mary’s action and worship Christ in our homes? How can we be a little bit more generous and even extravagant in showing our love for him? We read in the gospel that ‘the house was full of the scent of the ointment’. How can we make our houses smell of love? Perhaps there is someone we haven’t paid enough attention to? Someone we love and care for but in all the hassle and bustle of life have almost forgotten about? If that person happen to live with us, perhaps we could spend more quality time together, forgetting about what distracts us from love (e.g. arguments about who is right or wrong, finances, etc.) and really focusing on each other instead? Or if we cannot meet with them in person, perhaps a phone call or a skype conversation could be arranged? Can we, by our actions, show to others how much they matter to us and to God? May this Holy Week be a time of discovery of what really matters in our lives while so much of what we normally take from granted is no longer available to us. Jesus, our Saviour and Friend, teach us how to love one other as you have loved us. Amen.
Today, we begin our journey through the most holy of all weeks. Holy Week is going to feel strange this year. We won’t be able to take part in any of the familiar rites and ceremonies which allow us to reconnect with the deepest roots of our life of faith. We will walk this spiritual journey in isolation, physically separated, but at the same time united in our shared faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our saviour, brother and friend. No one must be alone during this time, or at any time. One thing that no human or natural barrier can ever separate us from is the love of God we continue to discover in the cross and passion of Jesus (Rom 8.38-39). This journey through Holy Week towards the joy Easter is an invitation for each and every one of us to discover afresh the love God has for us. It was love that took Jesus to Calvary. It was love that made him die for us on the cross. It was love that raised him from the dead. When we reflect on the excruciating suffering of Jesus, we may find ourselves baffled by the sheer evil and cruelty he experienced. We may want to ask, ‘Why all this suffering? What is it really necessary for God to create such a horrific spectacle? Couldn’t God have done it differently? But then if God did walk into the world with a giant broom to swipe all the dirt of our sins away from a surface of the earth, would we still be able to relate to him as our Father? Wasn’t it essential for our redemption to happen in a way of this world, the only way we can really relate to? Wasn’t the suffering of the Son of God, his wholesome experience of a human condition, fundamental for us to be able to understand that God truly cares for us and treats us not as strangers but as his children? This Sunday is known as Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord. In normal circumstances, if our churches were open for public worship, we would gather to hear the Gospel of the Passion solemnly proclaimed by a whole liturgical assembly, with a congregation and individuals inhabiting various dramatic personae. We would do that not because we enjoy hearing about suffering, but because we know that the story of Jesus’s passion is the story of God’s love. When we walk the Station of the Cross, for example, we don’t do it to dwell on the horrific pain inflicted on Jesus, but to remind ourselves that in all difficulties of life, in our own experience of isolation, anxiety and fear, God doesn’t abandon us but is present right there in his Son.In the reading from the Letter of S. Paul to the Philippians we are told, ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 2.5). Paul then shares with us some wonderful words of the poem describing what the mind of Christ was. It was the mind of the suffering servant.Jesus wasn’t forced to accept suffering. After all, his equality with God could have provided him a way out of it all. But he didn’t grasp this divine power for himself. Rather, he used it in order to save us – he who was both God and man ‘became obedient to the point of death – even death on the cross’ (Phil 2.8). His mind was that of loving obedience and of trust in God. The mind of Jesus couldn’t have been more different from the mind of those who cared only for safeguarding of their own power and influence. The words of today’s Psalm help us understand the contrast between the attitude of Jesus and that of his opponents: For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; fear is all around; they put their heads together against me; they plot to take my life. But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord, I have said, ‘You are my God. My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me. Make your face to shine upon your servant, and in your loving-kindness save me’ (Ps 31.14-16).Jesus’ enemies wanted to stay in power and control. Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t trust in what the world had to offer. He knew that the reason why he was in the world was love. This is how the English Medieval mystic, Lady Julian of Norwich, described the mind of Christ:You would know our Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it you? Love. What did he who you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more. But you will not know anything else – ever! (Lady Julian of Norwich, “Revelations of Divine Love”)I think we will do quite well if in our minds we will understand this one essential thing – love. When during this difficult time of pandemic, we hear our ourselves pronounce the cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mt 27.46), let us not forget that this lament came out of the mouth of the Son of God in the hour of his agony on the cross.Let us take comfort in the truth of our faith that in the cross of Jesus we find both the assurance of life eternal and utter solidarity of God with our own human weakness and sense of abandonment. ‘For nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’. Amen.
Lent 5 29th March 2020‘Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!’ (Ps 130.1a)This Sunday morning is unusual. The coronavirus pandemic brought our daily lives to a halt. It has also stopped all public worship and caused our churches to close. We’ve been asked to stay at home, unless what we do is absolutely necessary for our lives to continue; and this is why we are now meeting online - I at my home and you at yours - physically separated but at the same time united in the shared hope we all have in the living Christ. Thanks to the wonders of technology we now have this precious and much needed time to worship together, and I for one am grateful for it. Although the fact that we can’t meet in church causes us pain, this experience reminds us that church is not simply a building but a living community of faith, hope and love. The church is where people gather around the living Christ and are fed with his word and body. The Church is where Christ is, and no door can lock him out. Christ is in our homes, on our streets, in our hospitals, and even in the supermarkets – and so the body of Christ, his Church, is everywhere where God’s grace can enter and give life. This includes the world wide web. We have come together in the “virtual” church because our hearts are united in the desire to receive this life-giving grace of God. We are here not because we like “playing” church but because we long for being together once again, and we long for Christ’s healing and comforting touch to reach and embrace us during this frightening time when human touch has the potential for becoming our mortal enemy. We live through the time of crisis, the time of war with an invisible enemy of the deadly virus. It is a world war fought by people everywhere, with health workers of all nationalities and backgrounds positioned on the front line of our hospitals. It is out of this time of crisis that we want to cry to God with the Psalmist, ‘Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication’ (Ps 130). Our prayer this morning comes out of the depths of the experience of confusion and fear, of isolation, of being at war against Covid-19. We cry out of the depths and we find ourselves out of our depth. In order to cope with it all we need the skill and expertise of medical scientists and health workers, but we also need God’s help. Our prayer, our cry for God’s mercy, should never cease, especially right now. With the Psalmist, we pray, ‘I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope’ (v. 4). The word of God we hear in the readings set for this Sunday is brimming with hope. But a hope of which it speaks is not one of naïve optimism. Rather, it is a hope rooted in our human experience of desolation, death and grief. In our first reading, we are given the passage from Ezekiel describing his vision of the valley of dry bones and how God’s breath brings the bones back to life. Ezekiel was both a priest and a prophet, and he was called while Israel was in exile in Babylon. His ministry (approx. 593 – 571 BCE) fell during a harrowing time of fear and anguish when Israel had neither temple to worship in nor the promised land that could provide a visible sign of God’s presence among his people. Ezekiel’s name means “God strengthens”, and it was his task to preach this truth to a discouraged nation of Israel. In the vision, God said to Ezekiel, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely” (Ezekiel 37.11). The people were ‘lost among the dead’ (Ps 88.5), they were crushed and didn’t know where to turn for help. But God never abandoned them, God’s breath brought a new life out of the rubble of destruction and put the people back on their feet. We are assured that no one is ever lost to God’s mercy. God’s spirit remains present even within the darkness of a grave.‘To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace’ (Rom 8.6), writes St Paul in his letter to the Romans taken from today’s second reading. St Paul reminds us about what is essential in our lives of faith. It is the life of Christ within us: ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells within you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells within you’ (Rom 8.11). We might be wondering how we are going to keep Holy Week and Easter without being able to worship in our churches? Are we still going to celebrate this great Paschal mystery of our faith, the greatest festival of all, or should we just give up and postpone it until the more appropriate time? Of course, that we are still going to keep the Feast! Christ is risen! And this proclamation of the hope of Christian faith needs to resound even louder than ever. As St Paul reminds us, because Christ is risen, death has lost its sting (1 Cor 16.55), and, ‘We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 6.9-11). While the form of our Easter celebration is going to be different this year, its content will stay the same. Today’s gospel reading might help us to understand how this can be done. Jesus, when faced with the death of his friend Lazarus, did not despair but kept his faith. We know Jesus loved Lazarus and so we might be taken aback by these strange words he spoke on hearing that his friend was gravely ill: ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it’ (John 11.4). Lazarus did die and, when Jesus arrived at Bethany, his friend was already in the tomb for four days. On the one hand we see Jesus being very focused on his mission to help his disciples believe he is the resurrection and the life (11.25), and that is why he appears so methodical and maybe even cold in what he says and does. On the other hand, however, we find Jesus among his friends, engaged in passionate conversation with Martha and Mary. ‘Greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved’ (v. 33b), Jesus weeps (v. 35). He weeps out of love for his friend. He doesn’t ignore the seriousness of the situation. He shares in the suffering of the people around him, but he doesn’t despair. He knows that death is not all powerful, that it doesn’t have the last word – only God has; and he shows it to everyone by raising Lazarus back to life. I hope that during this dark and uncertain time we will be able to encounter the life-giving presence of Christ. Holy Week begins next Sunday, and we are invited to accompany Christ on his way to Calvary until we reach the joy of the day of Resurrection. This joy may not be felt in the way it has been in the past, the desolation of Good Friday may indeed stay with us for much longer than we would have liked, but we can be sure that God will never abandon us. May the celebration of Holy Week and Easter help us understand that Christ suffers and weeps with us, but also takes us by the hand and assures us that in him no one will never be lost, even in a grave illness and death. God doesn’t want us to remain locked in a grave. He longs to breath his spirit upon our dry bones and give us a new heart beating with faith, hope and love. ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, says the Lord. ‘Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11.25-26).
