Homily. "Hear My Voice"

 John 10:22-30. Homily.

 

At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,  and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.  So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me,  but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.  My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.”

 

They say, in John, when we are told when something happens, and where it happens, we are also being told the mood. What was “in the air”. So not just the When and the Where, but also the How and even the What. Let us see how that might play out here.   

 

Jesus is in the Temple, and it’s the winter Dedication festival, which marks the Dedication of said Temple, Except it doesn’t, not quite. It doesn’t mark the time the First or the Second Temple were first dedicated for use. It actually marks the re-dedication of the (Second) Temple.[1] That was necessary after it was defiled by Syrian invaders, not that long ago, in the 2^nd century BCE. And the invaders had set out to humiliate. It is said they sacrificed pigs in the Temple and poured their fat on the Sacred Scrolls. This, as you can imagine, led to a fight. There was a battle - there were battles - and the Temple was reclaimed. So we can say it: this festival marks a military victory. Memory of military victory is what is in the air.

 

So the question some Jews put to Jesus here is probably not abstract. It is pressing; it’s intense. Is Jesus Messiah? Is he a hero, at least like the heroes of old? Is he the one through whom Gd will overthrow today’s invaders, the Romans, so that the Jewish people can live in freedom?

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

We know – from our passage and from the gospels as a whole – that Jesus gently, or not so gently, says he is just not starting from there. He is staring somewhere else. We get it. We’ve caught on. We may well think that the people then and there who didn’t get it or catch on were not just confused, but wilfully, perversely wrong-headed.

 

But not so fast!

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

I suggest these urgent questions resonate throughout time, and throughout space. Not just for us, but for the people we care about. For everyone, the world is big, and we are small. For all of us, in times of crisis, we may want to cry out to someone:

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

So, for us, too, here, now, it can be hard, hard to hear Jesus saying that he just does not start from there. He is starting from a different place. He promises to look after us, and that’s good of course. But he does not promise heroic victory, does not promise that kind of rescue.

 

Instead? Instead, Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice”.

 

My sheep hear my voice. And my voice is the voice of my Father. To hear my voice is to hear the voice of Gd the Father, for the Father and I are one. To hear my voice is to hear all the wisdom, the vision, the grace, the strength, the forgiveness, the love, the generosity, and the compassion of Gd. And the question Jesus puts back to us is:

 

Are you willing to place

all your hope in this and this alone?

To live by hearing my voice,

whatever you have to face?

 

How to begin to hear this voice, the voice of Jesus, which is the voice of Gd? The beginning is not hard. We only have to shut up. To stop our bleating, if you like. We must rededicate ourselves to silence.

 

[SILENCE]

Amen.

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[1] The Greek is enkainia, which can be translated “Renewal” and so “Rededication2.

Sermon for Christmas Day - A Prison

Gospel: John 1:1-14.

I will be honest with you. I am not sure whether to begin with “please” or with “thank you”. But, actually, now I think about it, a good motto for life is: if in doubt about what to say, say thank you. It applies to human beings often, and to God always.

If in doubt about what to say to God, say thank you.

And I want to say thank you to you, my brothers. Why? Because you are here. You do not have to be here. In prison life (we know) you often have to be in certain places at certain times, or penalties follow. But none of you has to be here. The only one who has to be here is me (well, and the Officers who are kindly assisting us). That’s worth thinking about.

You have chosen freely to come here, and together we mark Christmas as one. We mark Christmas not with great feasting – I don’t have turkeys and mince pies hidden away – not with feasting, but with worship. We are here to worship. And I thank you for it. Thank you.

Christmas in prison is hard. We do not have to hide from that. I am not going to say it is a good thing to be a prisoner in prison on Christmas Day. I won’t insult you. Only, there is just this one thing, one aspect of Christmas in prison:

it just is easier to strip away the false layers.

The voices that say it is all only about partying and excesses, and getting on with everyone without any effort “because it’s Christmas”. These voices we can shut up. Or we can let them fade away.

What is left? I am going to put it simply:

what is left is the truth of the Christmas story,

the earthy story of the birth of Jesus.

You know, you know already that the story is of difficult times:

·        a difficult announcement by an angel,

·        difficult journeys,

·        a difficult search for a place to rest,

·        a difficult ruler

·        making for a difficult flight.

There weren’t any crackers or tinsel or sparkling lights. There probably wasn’t even a party, at least not one that took weeks to plan. So be it! This is the reality. And we, even here, even now, are free to embrace that reality. The real Christmas can be ours, can be yours, even here, even now. Thank you for being here. Here, where the real Christmas is.

And so to my “please”. I want to say “please” to you, brothers.

“Please… forgive me”.

Please forgive me, if you came here today expecting the whole Christmas story I have just referred to – you know, with angels and shepherds, and journeys, and Mary and Joseph, and the manger.

It’s perfectly fair that you might expect that.

Now, you do get a lot of it in our carols. But it is true that you don’t get any of it in our readings. And I am sorry about that. Sorry, but it had to be. Had to be, because in my Church the one reading you simply have to have at Christmas is the Gospel reading we have had. And that is the opening of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…” and so on. Why? We’ll come back to that.

After my thank you (thank you for being here)

and my please (please forgive me),

I want to add one other thing.

That is: “I wonder”.

I wonder… if you can tell me something.

I wonder if you can tell me where Jesus was born?

[Participation]

There are many answers you can give: in Israel/Palestine; in Judaea; in Bethlehem; within the family of Mary and Joseph; in a manger. But, sure, among the answers that people tend to give, we’ll always have:

in a stable.

But! But you will not find any mention of a stable in the gospels, or anywhere else in the New Testament for that matter. We in the West have tended to think about a stable, because of that reference to a manger.

What is a manger? ... A feeding trough. So animals are around. If they are not right there (they too are not actually mentioned), they must have been near enough by. As they would be in a stable.

But! But there are other possibilities.

One is that Jesus might have been born in a cave. There are caves around Bethlehem to this day, and a cave is, of course, a good place to shelter animals. It’s a natural shelter. All you may have to do is put a feeding trough in, and, there you are: an animal shelter. So was Jesus born in a cave?

Another thing to bear in mind is that, in the ancient world, families and animals often stayed under one roof. People didn’t have the money for more than one building. So, when the weather was bad enough for animals to need shelter, the animals slept in one part of the building, and the people slept in another part. What this means is: Jesus gave birth in a back room which animals would also use, not in the guest room, a guest room with some luxuries, some comfort.

So, I wonder. I wonder what you think?

Was Jesus born in a stable, a cave, or a back room?

I cannot tell you. But I also wonder this: I wonder if it makes any difference. I myself think it makes little difference. What is important is what Luke’s gospel makes very plain: Jesus was placed in a feeding trough,

because otherwise there was no room for him.

That is, I think, the most difficult part of the difficult story of Christmas.

God comes to us, to us, human beings, and we have no room for him. We give him no room. He is pushed out, pushed to a place which will do, but only just. There is no room for Jesus, who has come to help, guide, and heal us. We human beings say – all of us in different ways – to Jesus:

“No. Not here. Not with me. Go over there.

I am giving you no room.”

And there is this. This of course means that Jesus is from the beginning close to those who are also told that society has no room for them. I won’t labour this point. You get this point. It means

Jesus is from the beginning especially close to you, brothers.  

So, why must we hear, today of all days,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh…”?

There is a reason. A good reason.

Today (and every day) we need to hear that

the Word was (and is) God, and the Word became flesh.

Became flesh and blood like you and me.

God is God as God is God.

And God is a human being as human beings are human beings.

So what?

What this means is that when we meet with God in Jesus,

it really is God.

It is not a faint echo of God.

It is not some idea of God.

It is not even some teaching from God.

But it is God as God is God.

 

You see, Christianity is all about intimacy.

We meet with God.

You meet with God.

You are invited,

here and now (and always) to meet with God.

You are invited to be with God.

That’s the best Christmas invitation of all.

And it is for you.

 

We can say “thank you” to God in Jesus for this closeness.

We can say “please” to God in Jesus, 

that we will be helped truly to make the most of this.

We can say “I wonder” –

I wonder how God can love us so much

that God freely comes to a place where there is no room for him.

Amen.

*IS* This "Passion Sunday"?

 

Sermon. 26 March 2023.

Lent 5 (Passiontide Begins)

Gospel: John 11:1-45

 

Today is the Sunday when Passiontide begins.

You might think that means it is Passion Sunday.

It is not. It is confusing.

 

Even to hear that today is the Sunday when Passiontide begins is confusing.

 

If you have no connection with the Church calendar at all, and have come here out of curiosity (or something else), you might think that Passiontide is about passion as we currently speak of passion.

We currently speak of passion in, I think, two ways:

1.                 It’s part of the game we feel we have to play in job applications: “I am absolutely passionate about the next generation of KitKat” and so on.

2.                 It’s all about romance and courtship and coupling and that kind of love.

So you might think that Passiontide is an extended Valentine’s Day.

It is not. It is confusing.

 

If in Passiontide you stumble into a certain kind of church, you will be struck by how images and statues are removed, or, more often, covered with cloths and drapes. If you think about the posture of the typical statue in church, and how it would look covered, your first thought may be of the archetypical ghost (I am picturing Scooby-Doo here). You may then think that Passiontide is the Church’s own Halloween. 

It is not. It is confusing.

 

If you know a bit about Church, you may well know that “Passion” in the Church does not mean intense longing, but rather is an English version of the Latin passio (passio, passionis, feminine – for the linguists among us). And that means “suffering”. At another level it means being in the passive role. It means being the one who has things done to you. It means being at the mercy of others. And so in the Church’s story “Passion” means the suffering of Jesus, when he was at the mercy of others.

 

All this being the case, you may well think that the Sunday when Passiontide begins is when we begin to hear of the suffering of Jesus leading up to the cross.

It does not. As we have just heard (at great length), it does not. It is confusing.

 

But! But we are now in the place where we can begin to make sense of Passiontide. Today is not Passion Sunday because today we do not hear of the suffering of Jesus. But today is the beginning of Passiontide because, were we to attend services in the week, we would now be hearing of the suffering of Jesus leading up to the cross. And – spoiler alert – next Sunday we will hear of Jesus’s death on the cross. So the Sunday when Passiontide begins is the hinge within Lent.  Lent begins with the account of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. Then we reflect for three weeks on how Jesus can lift us from our own wildernesses, our confusions and worse. Now we begin to attend to the story of the suffering of Jesus.

 

So why, here, at the beginning of Passiontide (you ask – I can tell), why do we hear – of all things – of the raising of Lazarus? Is not this Jesus at his most active, at his least passive? Is this not Easter, and not the Passion?

 

My answer is Yes. Yes, today is an anticipation of Easter. And that is not because those who drew up our cycle of readings were stupid, or lazy. It is because they knew that, for Christians, Easter bleeds into everything. For Christians, there is a sense in which every day is Easter Day. If I haven’t mentioned him before, I mention him now, my hero, St Seraphim (Seraphim of Sarov, Russian, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). He was (and is) famous for greeting every person he met with: “My joy! Christ is risen!”. (Radost moya! Christos voskrese! – for the linguists among us.) “Christ is risen!” he said, every day of the year, yes, including Good Friday.

It makes sense.

For Christians, there is no day when Christ is not risen.

My joys! Christ is risen!

 

So, in the Church in West and East actually, before Easter, we hear of the raising of Lazarus.[1] Of Lazarus raised from the dead. And, not incidentally, not accidentally, of the rolling away of the stone for poor dead Lazarus.

 

The rolling away of the stone for poor dead Lazarus.

 

We are likely to think of this as a thing of simple joy. Something beautiful and comforting and reassuring – just that. But let us pay attention to the details of the story. I suggest we are told very clearly that we are not simply comforted.

 

Think of Lazarus. For all there is a simple moment:

“Lazarus, come out!” and Lazarus comes out…

for all that, note that Lazarus comes out, still bound. He needs help. He needs others. Others have to do the work, the delicate work of unbinding him, removing what binds him. It is an effort. And… I put it this way, sisters and brothers… we are not told that this was painless.

 

Think also of Martha. Of Martha’s objection to the whole thing. Why does she object? Some pious reason? No. She says: “by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days”. That is a rather delicate and moderating translation. Let me give you the Authorised Version: “he stinketh”! Already he stinks! (Ede ozei – for the linguists.) Already he stinks.

 

See how he loved him!

Even when bound, and in need of help to do anything.

Even when dead.

Even when stinking with the stench of rotting,

Jesus comes to him.

Jesus addresses him.

Jesus calls him by name.

Jesus gives him life.

 

See how he loved him.

See how he loves you.

Truly, this is “Passion Sunday”.

Amen.  

 

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[1] In the West, this strictly applies only in Year A. In the East, the Saturday before Palm Sunday is always Lazarus Saturday.

On the Circumcision of Jesus

 Sermon. 01/01/2023. The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.

 

Numbers 6:22-27

Luke 2:15-21

 

I sometimes wonder how disappointed a person would be, if they listened to the Church. Let me clarify: I sometimes wonder how disappointed a person would be if they listened to the Church in one regard. I mean if they really followed the Church and its pronouncements on Advent.

 

You know the claim, the contrast, I think.

While the world starts celebrating and feasting and otherwise keeping Christmas from mid-November,

in the Church, Christmas does not begin until the evening of Christmas Eve, and Advent is a season in its own right, one marked by self-reflection, silence, and going without.

So imagine you stuck to that. Not a mince pie, not a slice of stollen, not even a shepherd or an angel, before the evening of 24 December. And then?

 

And then you come to the main service on Christmas Day, and even here (if your church is being obedient) you don’t hear of angels or shepherds, but rather what may seem to be rather abstract stuff about (GOD), and the Word, and flesh, and so on – the Prologue to John.

And then?

And then already on the second day of Christmas you are thrown straight into the story of death. The Feast of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

A few days later, the most horrific story in the New Testament, the story of the slaughter of the innocents. The slaughter. Of innocents.

This is hard.

You may well think that you should have enjoyed all the mince pies and slices of stollen you were offered in November and December.

 

Surely, at the beginning of the second week of Christmastide, then we can return to a story which fits a season of feasting and celebration?

Well, let us see.

 

The first thing to say is that the Church Catholic keeps different feasts on 1 January.

For most Orthodox, it is the Feast of St Basil (who by the way often wears red and goes from house to house distributing presents, but that’s for another time).

For modern Roman Catholics, it is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of (GOD).

For Anglicans (being Anglicans), we have a choice.

But all Christian calendars carry an awareness that the eighth day of Christ’s life was/is/is/was the day of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.

 

So here your preacher can play safe, and speak about the naming and the name of Jesus, Yeshua, meaning (GOD) saves, or (GOD) is salvation, and let the feasting commence!

Or your preacher can play not-safe, and actually mention the less-discussed, the undiscussed, act of the circumcision of Jesus, an act which brings us back (we may as well say it) to the theme of blood.

You will have guessed that your preacher is going to play not-safe.

Let us mark the circumcision of Jesus.

 

There are a number of reasons for doing this. The first is that the circumcision of Jesus is one of those things even sceptics can be reasonably sure really happened. Now, if you get your information from social media ((GOD) help you), you will have a sense that it is controversial to say that Jesus even existed. But within proper historical studies, there is no real argument. Jesus (whoever he was) really existed. Someone called Yeshua was born, had a role as teacher and healer which impacted upon some, and was crucified by the Romans. And his followers were somehow energised after his death. These things are historical facts. And I say that another fact we can set alongside these is that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, in accordance with Jewish custom. (If there were any sense that Jesus might not have been circumcised, we can be sure that his opponents would have brought this up at every occasion.)

 

This brings us to the second reason to mark the circumcision. It is one obvious way of bringing to the centre of the stage something we may forget. Jesus was a Jew. And he wasn’t only a Jew “ethnically” (whatever that means). He was a Jew “religiously”. He was a Jew religiously, and, brothers and sisters, we have to face it: he was not a Jew who became a Christian (think about it)!

 

The story of the circumcision of Jesus occurs only in Luke. Luke has much more to say about the baby-and-child, Jesus, than the other gospels. And, in the stories Luke brings,

his parents are presented as devout Jews,

Jews really at home in the religion of Judaism,

Jews who relished Jewish ways of connecting with (GOD).

And I dare to say this applies to Jesus too.

This is something we Christians might usefully treasure and ponder in our hearts, like the Jewish mother, Mary.

 

I’m really not sparing you, am I? Well, I say again: if the Church brings so many martyrs into the calendar so soon after Christmas Day, then it must be telling us - against all the assumptions - that Christmastide is for adults. But of course I know that as adults (precisely as adults) we may have all kinds of moral or ethical objections to the circumcision of baby boys (who cannot consent). And, for sure, there are discussions to be had. If I say there are modern questions, that is not to dismiss or minimise them. But it is to say that ethical concerns were almost certainly not around for the Jews of Jesus’ day, for Jesus’ own family.

 

So what, then, was circumcision, in the day? What was it about? What was it for? Bluntly, we are not told. Nowhere in the Bible are we told. Back in Genesis, (GOD) commands Abraham to circumcise himself and his menfolk, and Abraham obeys. And it becomes a mark of the covenant with (GOD) from then on. It becomes a mark of (GOD)’s call. Is there any reason for this? Well, later Jewish tradition is clear that not all (GOD)’s commands have to be grounded in reason. They don’t all have to show how they do us good. (GOD) is (GOD) and (GOD) can call us to pattern our lives as (GOD) chooses (save for real harm alone). However, speculative rationales for circumcision abound:

it is about involving human beings in the process of creation, by giving them a final little tidying-up task to perform;

it is about moderating male sexual desire;

it is about having an enfleshed reminder of (GOD) every time a married couple has intercourse.

And so on.

 

But I want to make another connection. The fact that circumcision goes all the way back to Abraham means that it is essentially and intimately linked to… to blessing. Remember (GOD)’s promise to Abraham at the very start of his story [Gen 12.2f]:

 

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you

[or will bless themselves in you].”

 

The later blessing of Aaron – “the LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine upon you…” – this blessing is something of an echo of this core blessing, this root blessing, the blessing of faith, the blessing in Sarah and Abraham. (Whether that was actually why it was chosen by the compilers of our lectionary for today, I cannot tell you. But I suggest that the resonances are just plain there.)

 

Perhaps you are not used to think of blessing as the central meaning of the Old Testament, from Abraham on. It would be surprising if you were. After all, here is the more normal Christian summary of the biblical story:

Creation – Fall – Redemption – Consummation.

The Old Testament, in this account, is overwhelmingly about the Fall.

So in the Old Testament Christians look for flickers of light in a dark night, and little else.

 

Well, brothers and sisters, I offer you another reading.

You can think of it as a parallel rather than an alternative reading, if you like.

Think of the story of Bible as one of

blessing upon blessing, of grace upon grace.

What happens if we think of the biblical story as

-         the blessing of creation (“very good”)

-         enriched by the blessing in Sarah and Abraham

(by circumcision and all the marks of all the covenants)

-         enriched in turn by the blessing of Jesus

embodiment of the covenants.

Whenever you have an Old Testament reading, ask yourself:

How is the core blessing in Abraham reflected here?

How is the new blessing of Jesus anticipated here?

 

So we have reasons to celebrate today.

We have the naming of Jesus - (GOD) saves!

And we have his circumcision too,

his circumcision into the blessing of Abraham.

So Christmastide, yes. Feast, yes. Celebration, yes.

In which spirit, you will find after the service a mince pie, and a piece of stollen!

 

Amen.

 

INTERCESSIONS

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless your Church.

that it may find again the delight of a child,

in its worship of you, and its service of its neighbours.

 

(GOD) in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless your world,

that people of power and influence

will find again the fierce sense of justice of a child.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless this place,

that it be a source even of rest and gentleness,

such as every child needs.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless all who are unwell,

or in need of any kind 

(among them those we name now in our own hearts)

May we cry out for them with a child’s urgency.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless all who will die today,

and those who have shaped us and died,

and those who mourn,

and give us a child-like trust that you will remember them and us into life.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

come anew to each one of us in this new year,

to show us the new next step you want us to take.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Amen.

 

What Kind of Resurrection?

 Sermon. 3^rd Sunday Before Advent, Year C. 06/11/2022

 

Gospel: Luke 20:27-38

 

It’s a pleasure to be here this morning of course. You might well assume that (we know each other), but I mean I am pleased to be catching up with you. I was sorry I could not be in the Benefice for All Saints, nor for All Souls, and neither will I manage Armistice Day nor Remembrance Sunday. The day job prevents it. But it is good to be with you now, in this season. Whether we think of it as Kingdom Season, or the introduction to Advent, or Remembrance-tide, some themes are in the air we breathe, over these weeks. The themes (I will stick to the plural) of ultimate things, of last things, of resurrection, of eternity, are in our prayers and in our readings today.

 

And so to today’s Gospel. Jesus takes on the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a real force in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, for all they did not survive as a group. They did not believe in the resurrection. This was not because of any conviction drawn from physics or philosophy. It was because their Scriptures consisted of Torah alone, the Books of Moses alone, which we know as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. As I say, Jesus takes them on: he sticks to their terms. He reminds them that in the heart of Torah, in Exodus, from the burning bush, God speaks to Moses, and says: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” and adds that Gd is Gd not of the dead but of the living. The argument is a strong one: Gd, who gives life, tells us Gd has not forgotten Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob. And so, as the life-giver Gd is, Gd (we might say) “remembers them into life”; “remembers them alive”.

 

Jesus here sows a seed. He encourages those against belief in the resurrection to open their minds to its possibility. And this invitation, we might think, is extended to us. If Gd the live-giver does not forget us at death, then resurrection is thinkable. But! But other questions are possible. One that is rarely asked, but really should be is: is the idea of resurrection attractive?

 

I think the most honest answer we might give is: What resurrection? What kind of resurrection? it depends on the nature of the resurrection.

 

Let’s be clear. Death is unattractive. That is the starting point. Even death at a ripe old age, after a life well lived, leaves a hole, makes for an end, a breach, a breaking. Fellowship with that person becomes impossible - even the simplest form of fellowship, sharing a cup of tea, and the gentle hum of conversation. It cannot be. And so we have to speak of death – even a good death – as a form of alienation.

 

Nevertheless, I ask: is a second life, more or less like this one, that goes on without end, attractive? I mean: I enjoy your company very much, and you are kind to me. But if I were to tell you that we are destined to go on meeting like this over countless billions of years, would your heart really soar? I am teasing, of course. The idea of “eternal” life is not one that goes on and on, but one that is outside of time altogether. But I put it this way as one way of thinking about whether resurrection life need be attractive.[1]

 

So again I ask: What resurrection? What kind of resurrection is attractive?

 

Let us be clear. If the idea of a second life which just goes on and on is not necessarily attractive, and if “eternal life” is something different, then it is fair to ask questions like: How can we (you and I) be made fit for eternity, be made to bear eternity (not find the notion of eternity boring us to death)? To such questions Christian faith has no answer. No direct answer. When it comes to resurrection life, Christianity actually has very little to say about how it works, what happens, and to whom, and by what means. Rather, what we do is bring it back to Gd. Gd who is life-giver and is faithful. We do not know how, but our faith is that Gd will remember us to life. Because that is who Gd is.

 

And! And there is more. We can answer the question of what resurrection, what kind of resurrection, another way. We can say that the resurrection - the general resurrection, our resurrection - will be… of the kind begun by Jesus Christ.

 

Let me tell you a story from my own life. I have on several occasions visited the Church of the Holy Tomb. It goes by the fancier name: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But that just means the Church of the Holy Tomb. It is in Jerusalem, and the grave in question is by tradition the resting place of Jesus after he died on the cross. (And it is also historically plausible as the place. Not proven of course but plausible.) So it is the Church of the Empty Tomb. So it is the Church of the Resurrection (which is its other, I think, more proper name). And I have been in this vast and venerable cathedral-like Church, and, within it, climbed down the narrow and uneven steps into its small dark tomb.

 

It is cramped, as you would expect of a tomb. It has a smooth slab, as you would expect of an empty tomb that countless people have venerated. And it has what I can only describe as a cloth icon, icon of the resurrection.

 

The image is of Jesus, rising from the dead, from his own tomb. But he is not alone. He has a task to perform. He is reaching over. His arms are extended and his hands are open. And what he is doing is pulling up Adam and Eve from their own graves. Others also are rising from the dead with Eve and Adam, all the saints and heroes who died before Christ. This – this! - is the classic Orthodox image of the resurrection. It is or at least relates to what is called in the West “the Harrowing of Hell”. Jesus is emptying out hell.

 

And, what has struck me every time I have seen that image of the resurrection has been the expression on Jesus’ face, engrossed in his  task. For me (I am not art-critic; I am saying only “for me”), it was a look of perfect attentiveness, perfect attention, perfect concentration, perfect care. For me, Jesus was determined to make the whole thing as painless as possible. Now, if someone is dragging you up from a tomb you have lain in for many centuries, it is going to be painful. Or at least uncomfortable. But Jesus wants to ease the process, as best he can, ease you into newness of life. Like a skilled nurse. Like an devoted parent. Like the beloved Lover he is.

 

What resurrection? What kind of resurrection? This kind.

 

You know, it seems that Jesus convinced few if any Sadducees about the teaching of the resurrection within Torah. I further suggest that Christian efforts to expound on the logic of resurrection or eternal life to our cultured despisers have had limited impact. No matter!

What we can do is keep coming back to our faith, our trust in Gd, Gd who is life-giver, and who is faithful. Gd who does not forget us, does not forget us even at death, but remembers us into life.

 

And, more, we may keep coming back to our faith in Christ, the first-fruits of the resurrection, who pulls us up from our tombs. Who pulls us up from our tombs, even already within this life (even on this dull autumn day). Christ, who pulls us out of all that is dead and deadening and deathly and death-dealing in our own lives, and who does so with all care, attentiveness, and love.

 

The more we dwell on that, the more we may experience that.

The more we experience that, the more we may dwell on that.

In doing so, we give meaning to resurrection.

In season and out of season.

Amen.

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[1] A more sophisticated question testing the same theme is: if we imagine living a heavenly life, would there not yet be a yearning for some resolution to that life - some “end”, in the sense of some completion?