Mark 8.31-end In this Gospel Jesus is asking his followers to do something that seems to be outrageous, demanding and unreasonable - deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. What are we being called to deny? What is the cross we are being asked to take up? Is it the cross he will eventually be nailed to for our sins? Jesus and his disciples were surrounded by evidence of Roman occupation. One thing they all saw was the summary execution by crucifixion. In Hollywood films Jesus always carries (or sometimes drags) a full cross. Not very practical, it takes too much time. Most executes carried the cross-bar, which was heavy enough, but it could be fitted on posts already in the ground. To carry this is hard enough. This is what Jesus is trying to show his disciples - it is not easy following Our Lord, carrying whatever he asks us to, following him wherever he leads and denying ourselves. This is a Lent call. What we are being asked to do is to deny our worldly desires and pleasures, and to be engaged in the service of others. Service means being humble, putting the interests of others before ours, but not in a timorous, self-deprecating way. We are called to be witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ boldly. We are to put God and other people first. Those are the two great commandments. “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” In this lockdown Lent we are socially distanced but we do not have to be socially unconcerned. Peter cannot see this. How can Jesus fulfil Peter’s expectations of him if he is going to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and be killed? This is a lesson he will only really learn when the cock crows and he finds he has failed Jesus. When Jesus looks back at him at his trial, he sees Jesus’ love even in the face of death. He bursts into tears, as he realises what Jesus meant by telling them to be ready to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. He sees what that means for him and for all of us. Love of God and others conquers all and is the theme for this Lent. To sustain us through Lent as we carry his cross, through prayer and fasting, we are called to look into Jesus’ eyes again and again, until we reach Easter Day. Almighty God, by the prayer and discipline of Lent may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings, and by following in his Way come to share in his glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Mark, the writer of the Gospel we are using this year, is a man in a hurry. We know from Luke and Matthew a lot more detail of what went on in the wilderness between Jesus and Satan. Mark doesn’t have time for such details. He gives us the bare facts. Mark’s Gospel is a no-nonsense telling of Jesus’ ministry and death. It’s ideal for a Lent read, perhaps. Today’s reading from Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism by John and is told entirely from Jesus’ point of view. Jesus sees the heavens torn apart and the Holy Spirit appears to him in the form of a dove. He also hears God’s voice, acknowledging him as God’s Son, with whom God is well pleased. The second scene of this mini-drama takes place in the wilderness. Jesus is driven there by the Spirit. He is to spend 40 days there, with wild animals and attended by angels. The final scene has Jesus beginning his ministry in Galilee, calling people to repentance and to believe the good news he is bringing. The time in the desert reminds us of the Exodus. The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness preparing to enter the Promised Land; Jesus spend 40 days in the wilderness preparing his ministry. This past year has felt very much like a ‘desert experience’ for most of us. There have been times when it has felt endless and with little to refresh us and give us hope of an end - and it has not ended yet, not by a long way. The wilderness is a powerful symbol if challenging times. Our only consolation at times is that Our Lord went through a similar experience and came out the other side, just as we will. We are not told what the temptations were that Satan offered Jesus, but we can imagine what they were. To start with at least, Jesus was alone in the desert. The desert is dry and sun-baked. Jesus has just been given the call as God’s Son. How is he to carry out a ministry to the world as God’s Son? We can imagine that the wild beasts (lions, jackals, wolves?) were a challenge and a temptation to give up. Our wilderness time has been fraught with difficulties and temptations. We cannot give up, however. Jesus was waited on by angels. So have we been and are continuing to be. In our ‘support bubbles’ and our ‘household bubbles’ we have been helped to go on. We owe a great debt of gratitude to all those who have brought us shopping or our repeat prescriptions from the surgery, or baked us cakes, or done a thousand things to make us feel that we are not alone, that God does know and care and love us. All these things are the work of angels - messengers of God - and we thank God for them all. Through the whole of the testing time, Jesus clearly kept his relationship with his Father strong. As soon as the testing time was over he began to preach, proclaiming the good news of God’s love. Our lives instantly bear witness to our commitment to God and our knowledge of God’s love working in our lives, however long our ‘wilderness time’ lasts. We have each other to support us. We stay positive and continue to believe the good news. Heavenly Father, Your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert: help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ASH WEDNESDAY
Lent is originally said to have followed Epiphany, just as Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness followed immediately on his baptism, but soon it became firmly attached to Easter, as the principal occasion for baptism and for the reconciliation of those who had been excluded from the Church’s fellowship for apostasy or serious faults. This history explains the characteristic notes of Lent - self-examination, penitence, self-denial, study, and preparation for Easter, to which almsgiving has traditionally been added. Now is the healing time decreed for sins of heart and word and deed, when we in humble fear record the wrong that we have done the Lord. (Latin, before 12th century) As the candidates for baptism were instructed in Christian faith, and as penitents prepared themselves, through fasting and penance, to be readmitted to communion (I think we should all use this Lent as a preparation for when we are able to take communion again in our churches, very much in the spirit of the early church), the whole Christian community was invited to join them in the process of study and repentance, the extension of which over forty days would remind them of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, being tested by Satan. Ashes are an ancient sign of penitence; from the Middle Ages it became the custom to begin Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross. The calculation of the forty days has varied considerably in Christian history. It is now usual in the West to count them continuously to the end of Holy Week (not including the Sundays), so beginning Lent on the sixth Wednesday before Easter, Ash Wednesday. Liturgical dress is the simplest possible. Churches are kept bare of flowers and decoration. The Gloria is not sung (Oh, to sing the Gloria again!). The fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare or Refreshment Sunday, Mothering Sunday, as we call it) was allowed as a day of relief from the rigour of Lent, and the Feast of the Annunciation almost always falls in Lent; these breaks from austerity are the background to the modern observance of Mothering Sunday on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. As Holy Week approaches, the atmosphere of the season darkens; the readings begin to anticipate the story of Christ’s suffering and death, and the reading of the Passion Narrative (this year from Mark’s Gospel) gave the Fifth Sunday the name of Passion Sunday. There are many devotional exercises which may be used in Lent and Holy Week outside the set liturgy. The Stations of the Cross, made popular in the West by the Franciscans after they were granted custody of the Christian sites in the Holy Land, are the best known. Let us draw the most that we can from our challenging Lent this year, and let us pray that we are able to meet in our churches for Easter at long last. Transfiguration This Sunday’s gospel reading has Mark’s version of what we call the Transfiguration, the mountain-top experience Jesus and his inner circle had when they saw Jesus’ appearance ‘transfigured’ - his face shone like the sun and his clothes were so brilliant white that the Gospel writers remark on it - ‘whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them’. This is strange enough, but there is more. Moses, the great figure from the Jews’ history, and Elijah, the great prophet of the Kingdom Period, are seen talking to Jesus. They represent the Law and Prophesy. Jesus refers to himself as a prophet; his cousin John was a famous prophet; prophesy was an important feature of Jewish history and self-understanding - the prophets gave the people the words of God. The prophets helped the people and the kings to understand the will of God. Moses is the one who led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt through the wilderness for forty years to the Promised Land. He didn’t enter the Promised Land; Joshua took over that task. Moses, like Elijah, was taken up to heaven. Neither had a grave. Moses, of course, was the great Law-giver. The first five books of the Bible are attributed to him. Jesus was often referred to as a second Moses, just as Francis of Assisi was called a second Christ. The atmosphere on the mountain-top is full of awe. Jesus is speaking with Moses and Elijah. Peter, never really at a loss for words, suggests making booths for the three of them. He doesn’t have a better suggestion! On top of all this the mountain is covered by a cloud and they hear a voice: ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!’ Suddenly it is all over, and they are alone with Jesus, who binds them to silence over what they have seen and heard. What does it say to us? This passage is full of mystery. It seems that the curtain that divides us from the world of the spirit is pulled aside and we are allowed to look beyond this physical world. We see Jesus as he really is. He is transformed before our eyes. Not only do we see, but we also hear the voice of God, and it terrifies us. Who is this itinerant preacher we have been going around with? He has healed people and we have heard his teaching. This is of a quite different magnitude. We have to try and take this in. And just as suddenly it is over! Moses and Elijah have vanished. The curtain has been closed again. The voice has echoed away. Jesus is alone in his everyday clothes. What are we to make of this? We hear him telling us to keep this to ourselves - and we agree. What else are we to do? He is God’s Son, and God has ordered us to listen to him. Two thousand years on we have the same dilemma. How do we react to this event? I suggest we bow down in awe and wonder. My Lord and my God!
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Through him all things were made” (John chapter 1) This is one of the Gospels for Christmas Day, but we are being asked to look back past the birth of the baby Jesus to before the creation of the world. We are being asked to see Jesus Christ in the context of Genesis and the opening of Holy Scripture itself - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” John is doing this deliberately. He wants us to understand the wonder that is Jesus Christ, the person who lived and died, and rose again, and ascended to the Father within (for him) living memory. He is probably writing around the turn of the century and people are still trying to get their heads around the meaning of Christ’s life and death. The only way John can put it into words is to give it as cosmic setting. While Luke and Matthew set the birth of Jesus in the context of human history - the census Augustus calls for or the reign of King Herod the Great - and Mark doesn’t even consider the circumstances of Jesus’ birth to be worth mentioning, John sees Jesus from the start of his Gospel as the Son of God, the Word. There is a lot of Greek philosophy here, but we remember also the beginning of Genesis, where God creates, not by making things, but by calling them into being with words - “and God said:’ Let there be light!’ and there was light; and God saw that it was good.” Right from the beginning Jesus Christ is the Word of God active in this world, bringing light to humanity, sharing the splendour of God with the human race. John’s Gospel is the story of the struggle between light and dark. John (notice in this whole passage of John chapter 1, verses 1-14 John refers to John the Baptist by name, but he does not refer to Jesus by name) reminds us of the rejection that the Word will receive - “his own received him not.” Remember the darkness around the Last Supper or the darkness in the crucifixion, and then remember the light of the Resurrection morning, the first day of the week, when Jesus has risen and the sun is shining brightly on the events of that glorious day, which we shall surely be able to celebrate this year in our churches. Our Gospel finishes with a promise for us all - “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God… born of God”. And that, dear friends, is you and me! “The Word was made flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Truth is another theme of this Gospel. We remember Pilate’s question: “What is truth?” and it is standing in front of him! Jesus Christ is truth. Let us all, in our challenging lockdown, continue to rejoice in his light and believe in his truth. Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever. Amen.
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AuthorCanon John Green Archives
May 2021
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