on peace

 

‘When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’’

John 20.19

‘Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’’ John 20.21

‘A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’’ John 20.26

Twice, just three days after he was tortured and executed, and again seven days later, Jesus says to his apprentices, ‘Peace be with you.’

This would appear to be important, the heart of his message. The word ‘peace’ means wholeness, to be at one with (within) yourself. How can someone so recently and so thoroughly broken apart proclaim wholeness?

It has been said that trauma is not what happens to us, but what happens within us in the absence of empathetic witnesses. (This is why doctors’ bedside manner matters so much in emergency care.)

Jesus went through unimaginable pain, but—contrary to popular belief—was not alone. We know that several of his female apprentices and at least one of the men were at the foot of the cross. The others stood at a distance, looking on, as much as they could bear. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will lower Jesus’ body from the cross, wash it and anoint it with spices, and lay it in a tomb. Several of the women saw where they laid him. When the women later return and find the tomb empty, Peter and another apprentice—traditionally identified as John but perhaps Lazarus, who himself had walked out of a tomb and would have a particular interest in witnessing that again—ran to the tomb to see for themselves. That they were not taken there by the women, but ran straight there, implies that they, too, had been participating witnesses in Jesus’ burial.

Most of all, it has been claimed that on the cross, God—the Father—could not bear to look. Songwriters have penned words, describing the Father turning his face away. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the text. When Jesus cries out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ he is not describing his experience but praying a psalm, Psalm 22, exploring the appearance of abandonment, precisely to reach out and hold fast to the God who is, in fact, there with us and for us. As he hangs from the executioners’ scaffold, the sky turns black. When God descends, as on mount Sinai, he cloaks himself in thick darkness, so that the people do not die of fright. The sky turns black because the Father has come to hold his Son’s outstretched hand and look upon his beautiful face.

Jesus does not suffer and die alone, but surrounded by empathetic witnesses. And he returns, showing his wounds, not simply to prove that it is he and not some other, but, in a safe space, to take his apprentices back to their own place of unbearable suffering, where each one of them felt abandoned and without empathic witness, and therefore experienced trauma.

Jesus takes them back, right into that place, so close, so real, that they can reach out and touch his wounds. And in revisiting that place, not alone but with the one who has died and been raised to life again, they, too, are empowered to let go. To lower the defences they have thrown up to protect themselves. To experience healing. To be brought back to a place of wholeness.

This is what Jesus does for them.

This is what Jesus wants to do for us, too.

To stand alongside us in the place of our deepest hurt, and speak the word we most need to hear, ‘Peace be with you.’

This is a process, not a one-off event. It is the process that Jesus’ apprentices, the Church, are called to participate in. To be a community that is becoming whole, moving from trauma to peace, as we see one another’s wounds—and his—with love.

 

John 20.19-31

‘When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

‘But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’

 

on the raising of the dead

 

If we accept, even hypothetically, that God can raise the dead, a question arises about timing. Why is Lazarus raised on the fourth day, and Jesus on the third day, after their respective deaths?

In the epic poem that opens the book of Genesis (and, therefore, the library we know as the Bible) the fourth day is the day on which God calls the sun, moon, and stars, conferring on them a vocation to mark night from day, and season from season. (To ask how there could be days before there was sun or moon is to miss the point: this is not creation, but vocation. A day is a day, and a night is a night, even when the sun, moon, and stars are totally obscured by cloud cover.) In his account of the good news of Jesus, or Gospel, John makes much of the symbolism of deeds done during the day and deeds done at night; between the things Jesus does to bring freedom to others, and the things his enemies plot to take him prisoner. In this, Lazarus is the moon to Jesus’ sun, marking the arrival of Jesus’ ‘Passion,’ of the time (night) where he is ‘done to’ (paschō) rather than ‘doing’ (poiō).

The third day is the day on which God draws land—the soil from which God will draw out the human being—from the flood of sea, which, in the poetic imagination of the Bible represents chaos and death. This is also the day on which God calls forth the first vegetation—the first fruits of the fruit-bearing plants. Jesus’ resurrection is presented as the return of human beings from death, not as a never-to-be-repeated event but as the first fruit of something that will, at some future point, become universal.

So not only raising from the dead, but also the specific timing of these events, is significant; makes a statement concerning the story in which we find ourselves.

 

Easter Sunday

 

This Easter Sunday at St Nicholas Church, we celebrated the resurrection with the ancient practice of baptising someone who has joined our church family since last Easter.

Whenever I speak at a baptism, I try to make a connection between the candidate’s name and the story of faith found in the Bible. And today, with Roxanne, it was easy. Roxanne means radiant, or bright (and she really does live into her name) and in our Gospel reading an angel descends from heaven, ‘His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.’ Radiant. Now, ‘angel’ means ‘messenger,’ sent by God, sometimes a heavenly being, sometimes a human being. Today we commissioned Roxanne to be a messenger sent by God.

The angel, and then Jesus himself, have the same message for the women: do not be afraid; go and tell.

Do not be afraid, or do not fear, is the most-repeated Instruction we are given in the Bible—which says something about being human. And I wonder who or what you are afraid of?

Some of you might be here today because you know and love Jesus, but you are afraid to tell others about him. I want to say to you that there are half a dozen or more adults who have become part of our church who weren’t part of any church a year ago. If you tell someone about Jesus, they might have been waiting for you to do just that. Even if they aren’t interested, what’s the worst that can happen? Easter tells us that the worst thing that can happen does not get the last word, and God will honour those who trust him with their fear.

It may be that you are afraid of God. Many people are. Many people have been taught that God is quick to disapprove, quick to get angry; that if we step out of line, he will strike us down with a lightning bolt. This is blasphemy. God reveals himself to Moses as full of loving-kindness, slow to anger—and even when he does get angry, he is not violent but moved to pity; faithful to his nature even when we are faithless.

In our first reading this morning we heard Jesus’ friend Peter proclaim, ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ The point is not that if you want to be acceptable to God you must fear him; but that if you are afraid of God, you need to know that you are acceptable to him.

In the Wisdom section of the library we call the Bible, we learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Everything else described as ‘of the Lord’—the arm of the Lord, the mountain of the Lord, the angel of the Lord—belongs to God, not us. The fear of the Lord is giving what we are afraid of to God and saying, this is yours now. That is what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Of all the things we might be afraid of—some with good reason—God isn’t meant to be one of them. Jesus comes into the world so that we might know that, in him, God is with us, and for us.

Finally, some of you might be afraid of death. We live in a society that is petrified of dying, that is in total denial of death. It is almost a civic duty to Botox, to not allow yourself to visibly age. But denial is never healthy. The will of the Father is that the Son should become human; should live, and die, as humans do. The Father glorifies the Son for this faithfulness by raising him from the dead. And so we can face our own mortality, because Jesus says to us: Do not be afraid; I have walked this way ahead of you, and I will walk this way again alongside you. I know what lies beyond.

Do not be afraid. That is the message of Easter. That doesn’t mean that we won’t ever be afraid of anything or anyone; it means that we are instructed, again, to place that fear in the hands of Jesus.

That is the message I want you to hear today. Do not be afraid. Go and tell.

Acts 10.34-43

‘Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’’

Matthew 28.1-10

‘After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’’

 

Maundy Thursday

 

In the Church calendar, we are in the days leading up to Easter. These are among the holiest—that is, set apart for a special purpose—days of the year (this is where we get our word ‘holiday,’ days set apart as special, different from everyday days). On Thursday evening, I will be speaking about Jesus with his apprentices on the night of his betrayal and arrest. You can read the text, from John’s biography of Jesus, below. My attention is caught by these words: ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.’

I don’t know how often you have a bath, and for what purpose. I have a bath about twice a year, not to wash my body—I do that in the shower, and also have a basin in my bedroom—but as an act of self care, running the bath as deep and as hot as possible, and soaking in it.

In the Instructions of Moses, we find that there are certain states of being that cause a person to be ritually impure, and that their restoration to the wider community requires a ritual bath.

Being ritually impure has nothing to do with moral wrongdoing. It is, rather, a codified way of engaging with the reality of death. Certain states of being are, psychologically, rehearsals for death, including ejaculation and menstruation—not because these things are ‘dirty,’ or even shameful, but because in both instances, the person loses mastery of their bodily life-fluids. Contact with a corpse, and being a corpse, also result in ritual impurity. Ritual washing marks the restoration of purity, symbolising the limit to which death cuts us off from life.

Dying made a person ritually impure; but the community handled the corpse in such ways as to make the person ritually pure again, ready to meet their Maker. In Jewish tradition to this day, this begins with gently washing the body, removing anything that is not a natural part, such as jewellery or nail varnish, while saying certain prayers and psalms and other passages of Scripture (holy writing). Then the body is fully washed, either by submerging it in a mikvah (ritual bath) or by pouring a large amount of water (the equivalent of 48 pints) over the corpse. Finally, the body is dressed in linen, ready to return to the earth from which it came.

We should not assume that contemporary Jewish tradition is the same as first-century Common Era Judaism; but neither are they unrelated.

When Jesus says that Peter has had a bath—in fact, not washed himself but that he has been washed—he is referring to the washing of a body after death. Though this is not described, in relation to Jesus’ blood-streaked corpse, in the Gospels, it is implied. This practice is mentioned by the church historian Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, where he notes that the deceased Dorcas is washed by the women of her community, and also that Paul and Silas have their bloodied backs washed by the jailer in Philippi immediately before he himself is baptised.

Jesus is saying that his apprentices have been joined with him in his death. They have been washed, made ritually pure again, in preparation to stand before God—symbolising the real but temporary separation from God that death demands. Having been full-body washed, all that remains needful is to have their feet washed. In Genesis, God visits Abraham in human form (that is, in a form Abraham can see, and relate to) and Abraham welcomes God by washing his feet. An act of welcome and hospitality. The tradition later arose that Abraham welcomes the dead into Paradise (and Jesus tells a parable, or micro story that gets under the skin, where Abraham does exactly this). So, Peter is already made ready to enter Paradise, and Jesus now takes the Abrahamic posture of welcoming him.

This is what we enact in baptism, the candidate dying with Christ (Jesus, the One sent by God to rescue his people), united with him in his death and in his mighty and glorious resurrection.

This, then, is the drama of both our baptism—a one-off, unrepeatable event—and the Thursday of Holy Week—to which we return annually—that we rehearse our physical death, that, when it comes, we might die in the confidence that this parting is temporary; that the community of faith, and the God whose faithfulness we look to, will take us in their hands and hold us with dignity and love. As we, in turn, are to do for our brother's and sisters.

By such love, confident in the face of death, we shall be known.

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

‘Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

‘After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

‘When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’’

 

Holy Wednesday

 

Wednesday of Holy Week

Today, the Wednesday of Holy Week, is sometimes known as Spy Wednesday, recalling the contract between Jesus’ apprentice Judas and the chief priests, by which he becomes a double agent for them.

Money has been a recurring theme across the week—whether or not to pay the tax due to the emperor; whether to pour out fragrant ointment or sell it and give the money to the poor; and now thirty silver coins.

Thirty silver coins is the worth placed on a slave in the discussion of recompense in the Instructions of Moses:

‘If [an] ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slave-owner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.’ Exodus 21.32

This transaction makes Jesus Judas’ slave, and the chief priests the owners of the ox that gored him to death—that is, responsible for the actions of the Roman auxiliaries who would torture and execute Jesus.

And Jesus is, indeed, Judas’ slave, for he comes not as master but as slave of all. Even of Judas, who will prove to be a wicked master, one who would trade his slave’s life for money. ‘Jesus, you are a worthless slave; worth more to me dead.’

And here, again, Judas is right; for Jesus is better to him dead than alive—having absorbed and neutralised he sting of death; having descended into hell, broken its doors from the inside, and returned victorious, never to die again. For Judas will deeply regret his betrayal, and take his own life; but Jesus will go looking for his lost sheep, even through the darkest valley, the shade-realm of the Dead, and—surely—bring his torn-limb-from-limb lamb back on his shoulders.

 

Matthew 26.14-16

‘Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.’

 

Holy Tuesday

 

Tuesday of Holy Week

Holy Week continues, as we walk the way of the cross with Jesus. Yesterday, I reflected on Jesus’ handling of money, of the difference between the coins that bear the image of the emperor and the human beings who bear the image of God.

On this day, Jesus’ biographer Matthew tells us of a woman anointing Jesus’ head with a very costly ointment. From his perspective, she was preparing his body for burial. From her perspective, it is perhaps more likely that she was acting as a prophet, symbolically anointing a king. Both are true: he is the king who comes to lay down his life.

But the disciples—Jesus’ apprentices—were angry at the waste of money, which they would have given to the poor. Elsewhere we read that Judas was the keeper of the purse, and helped himself from it; but Matthew does not mention this, and, rather, records that all the disciples were angry at the woman. In effect, they were saying, how we would choose to act is more important than how the woman has acted. In effect, they are saying, we are of more value than she is.

What monetary value do we place on a human life? Certainly, the world works not on the basis of everyone having what they need, to life a good life, but on the idea that I am worth more than some and less than others. Wealth breeds wealth, and with it, worldly value.

The woman does not play the game. She relinquishes her stake in it. In this, she does not only prepare Jesus for his burial, but united herself to him, to his death, and to whatever may come after.

Matthew 26.6-13

‘Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’’

 

Holy Monday

 

On what we call the Monday of Holy Week, the biographer Matthew tells us that Jesus spent the day in the temple in Jerusalem, teaching, and being confronted by different factions from among the religious leaders of the people.

One such encounter focused on taxation. Noone liked the Romans, but some wanted to see them driven out, while others owed their position of power and authority to Roman patronage. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as the saying goes. So however Jesus answered the question, he was likely to spring the trap and alienate people.

I have in my hand a coin bearing the image of a woman. She is dead now, but for most of my life, she was Queen. Over the course of her reign, five images were made to represent her on coins, from youth to old age: this coin happens to bear the fourth of the five, the coin being made the year before the final image.

I cannot tell how many hands this coin has passed through, from person to person, some of whom might have known each other, others who will never have met before or since. But this coin can be exchanged for something else, anywhere in the United Kingdom—even now, after the woman is dead. It has no currency in the USA, or France, or other places: there, we must enter into a negotiation, establish an exchange rate, what it is worth.

Most people pay little interest in the coins in their pocket; they are more interest in the things the coin can be exchanged for. But for some, coins have a value in and of themselves, are collectable, have a story to tell.

Jesus replied, give to the emperor the things that belong to the emperor, and to God what belongs to God. The implication being that human beings bear God’s image. Not the image of one woman, at different stages of life, but countless faces, male and female, young and old. Not just within one realm, but all across the world. Not simply exchangeable for something more valuable, but of inherent value.

What might it mean to give such images (back) to God? It might look like prayer, bringing people before God, asking God to bless them. People we know well, people whose paths have crossed our path today, people we have never met and in all probability never will.

How might we hold other people in our hand, behold them? Whose image might we see reflected there—the devil? some sub-human creature? or, the God who longs to be One with us?

Matthew 22.15-22

‘Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.’