Calling us by name

Easter Day – Eucharist – 31.iii.2024

(Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18)

“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…”

Today we have a choice of Gospel readings – either Mark’s or John’s account of the Resurrection. I’ve been very much torn as to which to choose. But the reading we’re told always to have is not from the Gospel at all. It’s from the Acts of the Apostles where we find these words spoken by Peter the Apostle. However confused the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection might have become – and we find marked differences in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – there are two things that are clear: that Jesus died on the Cross; and on the third day he rose again… and he rose because God raised him. This is the heart of the Easter Gospel: Passion and Resurrection; the coldness, reality and inescapable fact of death – and the new life of the Risen Christ. 

But how we experience that will vary from person to person. There is some confusion between the Gospels as to who is the first witness to the Resurrection. In today’s choice of Gospels, Mark and John agree that it’s Mary Magdalene who first finds the stone which had blocked the entrance to Jesus’ tomb now rolled back. But while in Mark’s account Mary and the other women enter the tomb to find a young man dressed in white telling them that Jesus has risen, St. John’s Gospel has Mary leave as soon as she finds the stone moved, so that it’s Peter and an unnamed disciple who first make their way into the tomb to find it empty. We might wonder what is going on? And perhaps this is part of the truth of Easter - that the writers of the Gospel don’t feel obliged to get their story agreed between them. This is not a fiction artfully constructed. It’s the simple record – with all the confusion of the day - of the undeniable fact of the Resurrection. So our readings today start with Peter’s testimony in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus died – and he rose again. The risen Jesus has appeared and there are people who saw it, but it’s not for everyone to need to see it. The Resurrection is more than an event you need to witness personally for yourself.

And Resurrection is more than finding a resuscitated body. It’s first of all an empty tomb. But an empty tomb is not proof of Resurrection. In St. John’s account, Peter does not know what to make of this vacated space with its empty grave clothes. The disciple who accompanies him says that he went in and believed – but he still hasn’t put it all together… as John tells us, “as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” It will take time before the truth of what they are witnessing sinks in. The Easter story is something that tells us that we can believe – and faith can be a very real thing – but we still won’t necessarily be able to make sense of every problem or setback that life has in store for us us. That’s what Resurrection is about: God active and alive, something we can believe in, even when we don’t feel or understand it.

How is it for Mary Magdalene, the first person to discover the tomb disturbed? St. John tells us that she found the stone moved,.. and she ran for it! Someone must have taken the body of Jesus away. There’s more agreement between Mark and John as to what happened next: when she finally looks into the tomb she finds either one or two men dressed in white. In Mark’s Gospel she and the other women are told that Jesus has been raised – and the disciples will see him… at which they flee in terror. St Mark’s account ends saying that they couldn’t tell anyone about this, because “they were afraid.” And there’s little comfort in St. John’s account. The angels ask why she is weeping. She can only state the obvious that she weeps for her Lord, killed on a cross, and it seems his body cannot even be left in peace. Mary, before she can experience the fullness of Christ’s Resurrection has to acknowledge her loss. For us Easter faith is not a miracle cure for all our woes. It can come only when we recognise the extent of our fears and anxieties, all those issues we would rather not own up to which sap our spirit...

There’s an Easter hymn that strikes a chord for me:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,

thy touch can call us back to life again,

fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Easter is not a matter merely of addressing the historical facts of the Resurrection, the emptiness of the Tomb, and the nature of Christ’s Risen Body. Easter is the time when we need to let God address us, to bring before him in Christ those ‘fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been.’ At Easter we do not shy away from the darkness within our souls, the wintry hearts, the grief and pain we may bear. But we find this one man who has been through it all before us: loving those about him, bringing life into broken bodies and relationships, a man who knows the full extent of human joy and sorrow, yet also experiences the pain of betrayal, the anguish of being deserted by friends in his time of greatest need; even on the Cross he has spoken words of care and forgiveness; until finally he has entered even into death itself and the darkness of the tomb. 

Only when Mary can say why she weeps does she turn to find the risen Jesus standing by her all along. She thinks he’s just the gardener, though something moves her to share her grief with him. It’s his response which brings home the truth of Easter to her. He simply speaks her name: “Mary.” It was Jesus who by his touch had brought her healing when they first met. Now he touches her by saying her name – this is how God comes to her in Christ; this is how we know that God knows us and is alive to touch our hearts.

Jesus loves us literally to death – his own death. So that his risen life is life for us all, if only we are ready to accept it. He speaks to us as he spoke to Mary. ‘I have called you by your name, you are mine,’ go the words of a chorus. And how true that is! That is why the use of our name at Baptism is so important. Christ calls to us from the start, whether we hear him or not. 

In a few moments we will renew our Baptismal Vows. As you declare your faith, remember that at your Baptism you were called by your name as the water was poured over you. As we are baptised in Christ he calls us by our name. Will we recognise him as he calls? Will we see him in the stranger, even as Mary finds him in a man she thought was a gardener? Will we find him in our neighbour, in our friends, in those from whom we are divided by misunderstanding and the inadequacy of communication or the frailty of our love?...

... love lives again, that with the dead has been:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green....

 

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,

he that for three days [....] in the grave had lain,

quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Alleluia. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Holy Week at St. Cuthbert's Church, Shotley Bridge

 

Holy Week at St. John's Church, Castleside

 

Night Prayer for use in Passion-tide

Night Prayer for use in Passion-tide. Use any time up to Easter - but having been prayed first on 17 March, there's also something about St. Patrick...

Night Prayer for Lent

It's been some time since we went "live" - but here we are with the service of Compline for Lent, and celebrating the priest & poet George Herbert.

Holy Seasons – Holy Time…

Look towards the final pages of the March issue of our Parish Magazine and you’ll see that we are carrying two short articles about Good Friday and Easter. I was interested to read how Sir Isaac Newton had tried to calculate the date of the first Easter – was he right? What we do know is that the date of Easter as we celebrate it now moves around. This year it’s quite early on 31st March – though only for western Christians; most Eastern Orthodox Churches won’t celebrate Easter until 5th May this year, which is almost as late as they can do so! It all depends on the moon and how it corresponds to the calendars which are in use today.

How many people notice these things? Well, schools are having to this year since it’s making the current teaching term very short! And most people will be looking forward to an extended Bank Holiday Weekend, regardless of their faith. Another season has been mentioned in the News over the last few days – Ramadan – not simply because it’s a season observed with great seriousness by millions of Muslims, but also because it begins on the date of the deadline which the Israeli government has given to Hamas for the release of hostages if there is to be any cessation or pause in the hostilities in Gaza. For a month from the evening of 10th March, faithful Muslims will fast and pray. It’s a time which will coincide with the second half of the Christian observance of Lent.

How will we all use that time? I’d just like to point out that the whole of the month of March should be special to us as Christian. If you feel you haven’t got started on Lent – here’s your opportunity to use it as we seek to come closer to God in Christ. Every day but one  during March is a day of Lent with the final week coinciding exactly with Holy Week; and the final day of the month will be Easter Day – the culmination of our Lenten journey as we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection to new life. So every day of the month can be put to good use – if only we have the will.

If anyone would be my disciple let him take up his / her Cross every day and follow me, says Jesus. It’s an invitation to an everyday faith – let’s take it seriously every day in this month of March. Let us find, at its end, the Risen Lord waiting for us.

Martin Jackson

Take up your cross and follow him...

2nd Sunday of Lent – Eucharist – 25.ii.2024

(Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16; Romans 4.13-25; Mark 8.31-38)

Here’s a story from America:

There is a gravestone back near Kearney, Nebraska which has on it the name, Susan Hale.  As a young bride, Susan and her husband were part of the gold rush on the Oregon Trail, but she drank some contaminated water, came down with a high fever, and died before they reached Fort Kearney. Her husband made a coffin for her body using the wood of their wagon. He buried his wife on the highest ground he could find, and marked the grave with wooden stakes so that he would be able to find the place again after he had gone on West and made his fortune.  But he changed his mind.  Instead of going west, he retraced his steps back eastward to St. Joe, Missouri, which was the closest outpost of European life. There he had a stonecutter cut into granite his wife’s name and the date of her death.  Then he tried to get someone to haul it westward, but no one would.  They didn't have time or space; their wagons were loaded, and they were impatient to get to the gold fields.  So he bought a wheelbarrow, put the stone on it, and pushed it all those miles to Kearney and set it up over her grave.

That’s the story of the grave. There is no indication as to whether the husband ever made it to Oregon or California or found his fortune.  You can only reflect on what might seem like a foolish thing, a costly gesture pushing the barrow all that way.  Why did he do it?  Perhaps it was because he knew that there are some things that we cannot easily and conveniently walk away from; he knew that there are some values in this life that are too important to neglect.  The easy thing to do would have been to dig a shallow grave and leave the body there.  But he did the hard thing.  He chose a road few would take and made a journey out of love.  That is the road, Jesus says, that leads to life – the costly path which is the path of love.

Today’s Gospel reading shows us Jesus on the road with the disciples. And as they go he begins to speak of his approaching death, ‘that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected.... and be killed, and after three days rise again.’ The disciple Peter immediately takes him to task. Surely this isn’t the way God works, he says. It is hard to believe. What does this Gospel reading concerning Jesus’ death have in common with today’s other readings. Our Old and New Testament readings are concerned with Abraham, a man given a promise by God that the generations descended from him will know the fullness of God’s blessing. For Abraham the hope is of continuity, of descendants in their millions, one generation after another. Talk of Jesus’ death, on the other hand, speaks of disruption and the denial of all that his followers might hope for – who will they follow if Jesus is taken from them?

Perhaps the problem is that we don’t see the whole picture. The story of Abraham is a long story which we rarely read in its entirety. It involves him in a long journey. He hears the call of God, he leaves behind his homeland to strike out across the desert, believing, but not knowing, that God will be faithful to his promise. He is brought into the land of Canaan, but he never comes to a land that he will possess. At best he can live amongst other peoples as a guest, always on the move grazing his flocks where he can. For the sake of responding to God’s call, he puts himself at risk of famine, in danger from feuding kings... When in his old age his wife finally bears him a son, his faith is tested most sorely as God seems to ask him to be ready to give up that son as a sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice which is not in the end required, but throughout Abraham is a man for whom the easy road is not an option. And in all his travelling, he has no more than a promise to go on – no fulfilment for himself, only the belief that God will work through the people who follow, because of his faithfulness to God’s call.

And Peter, the disciple who has had the faith to leave his livelihood behind and to follow Jesus, the one who has recognised  Jesus as the Christ, God’s chosen one,.... like us he can’t see the whole picture. Can Peter be expected to see how Jesus’ death will play a part in fulfilling his purpose? No one can. Jesus himself says it’s beyond our understanding when he tells Peter, ‘you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.’ But what else should Peter think about? The human is where we are, and what we are called to be.

Except that the way of Christ is to show us what is truly human by bringing God into our human picture – by entering even into human suffering and death. The invitation Jesus extends to his disciples is not one to be accepted lightly: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ We can’t think that anyone who heard Jesus say this when he said it could possibly have understood what he meant. Only after Jesus’ death and resurrection, only after they had begun to live the Christian life for themselves could it possibly make sense. Like the husband of Susan Hale who buried her body, meaning to carry on and make his fortune before returning to her grave – it was only when he’d buried her that he could understand the different road he had to take, the burden he must bear out of love.

What does it all mean for us as Christians? – to take up the cross and follow Jesus? In his great book, ‘The Cost of Discipleship’, Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes the distinction between ‘cheap grace’ and ‘costly grace.’ Grace is the gift of God, freely given for our sake, without any price. It can’t be earned – because it’s a gift! But do we give it any real value? 

‘Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church,’ writes Bonhoeffer. ‘We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices... Grace without price; grace without cost!... Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God.... Cheap grace... amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, ... (it is) grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

(But) costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. 

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ....’

These are words which Bonhoeffer wrote in the years after Hitler had come to power in Germany. They are remembered because Bonhoeffer himself was to live them out so fully. Arrested by the Nazis, he spent the last two years of his life in prison. His last words were recorded by an English officer held in the same jail who attended a service he took on April 8th 1945. Scarcely had the service ended when two men in civilian dress ordered him, ‘get ready to come with us.’ That officer, Payne Best, records: “Those words ‘come with us’ – for all prisoners had come to mean one thing only – the scaffold. We bade him goodbye – he drew me aside – ‘This is the end,’ he said. ‘For me the beginning of life.’.... Next day at Flossenburg he was hanged.”

Bonhoeffer had recognised that the way of Christ was the way of the Cross – putting faith into practice, he lived out his own conviction, ‘When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.’ Is this the road on which we are called? Perhaps most shocking is the fact that round the world Sunday by Sunday, hundreds of millions of Christians can hear the story of Christ’s passion and death repeated – and that’s it!.... We just hear it. So much more honest is the response of Peter who tells Jesus off, who cannot grasp what Jesus is saying and tells him so.

Each Sunday in Lent the blessing at the end of the service is given: “Christ give you grace to deny yourselves, take up your cross and follow him....” But do we want that sort of grace? Are we ready to follow? Are we ready to put ourselves out just a little from our established routines? What choices do you face today?  What roads are before you in your life? Which one will you choose?  The well-travelled path?  Or the path of least resistance?  Will you choose that way which leads you in the footsteps of Christ?  We need to remember that God is with us in our choosing.  God is with us as we travel.  By the way of the Cross, God is calling us to life.