‘Do not let your hearts be troubled’, says Jesus to us in today’s Gospel reading. These words are part of his farewell discourse, his will, if you like, which Jesus leaves to his disciples before his passion and death on the cross. For Jesus and his Twelve Apostles, the life is far from normal. Dark clouds have gathered above them and it seems like the storm might not go away any time soon.Over two thousand years later, our lives are also disturbed, our daily routines broken by the deadly virus that has forced many countries into a life of lockdown. It is not the same for us as it was for Jesus and his first disciples. We know about the resurrection, about the sure hope of eternal life in God. We sing that Christ is our cornerstone on which we build our lives. But we too are distressed and with the disciples listen to Jesus’ words spoken in theirs and ours troubling times: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ We are in the upper room, not long after Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. It is a very dramatic setting. Outside the sun has gone down and the night has already taken over the day. One of the disciples, Judas, has just gone out of the room to betray Jesus to the chief priests and pharisees. Another one, Peter, was told that despite his willingness to remain faithful he will deny Jesus not once, but three times. Can you imagine the tension in the room, the disciples’ levels of anxiety and confusion, their hearts pounding in expectation of what may happen next? And then out of the sudden Jesus says to them, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places’ (J 14.1-2a). Jesus speaks into the dark night of their souls. He speaks the words of comfort and reassurance; and he asks them to trust that God has not abandoned them but continues to look after them in this life and in the next. Jesus explains that what he is about to do is entirely for their sake. He says, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’, and he adds, ‘I will come again and take you to myself, so that were I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going’ (J 14.3-4). The disciples struggle to understand what it is that Jesus is saying to them. He is talking about the way they need to take in order to follow him to the Father and they have no idea what he means. Where should they go? How? Cascades of questions run through their minds, and so Thomas finally speaks up on behalf of them all, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know they way?’ (J 14.5). Let’s pause to think about it. The disciples who were closer to Jesus than anyone else say, ‘We don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ What about us? How long have we already been the followers of Christ? How many days, months, years or even decades of our lives have we been encountering our Lord in Word and Sacrament? What questions are cascading through our minds right now?What place is your faith in Jesus taking you to during this difficult time of pandemic? Are you in a place of trust or despair, or perhaps somewhere in-between? Are you like Stephen, of whom we heard in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, ready to die for your faith in Jesus? Or are you more like Thomas and Philip, uncertain, seeking for answers to the questions you have been mulling over for years and now that you have more time on your hands have become even more pressing? The answer Jesus gave to Thomas was a simple one, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (v.6). Jesus explained that to know him was to know the Father also (v.7). And in this dark hour of distress, understandably, they didn’t grasp the meaning of these words. But after the resurrection they would know that to have faith in Jesus is to have a love within you that is stronger than death: the love nailed to the cross, but never defeated; the love that gives substance to our hope. If we continue follow Christ, we don’t need to be afraid even of death, because we follow him to where he has already gone before us, to a dwelling place prepared for us by his own death, resurrection and glorious ascension. He will come again and will take us to himself. He is the Way to the Father; he is the Truth in the light of which we discover what love really means; he is the Life which can never be defeated even by the virus and lockdown. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit may strengthen us in the sure hope of our faith as we continue to struggle with and fight the pandemic of Covid-19. To end this reflection, I would like to share with you the words of the prayer written by St John Henry Newman. This prayer, often used at funerals, is a cry of trust in God’s protection and mercy: ‘Support us, O Lord, all the day long of this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen.
In today’s gospel reading Jesus calls himself a ‘gate for the sheep’ (J 10.11). This word, ‘gate’, has a very strong resonance in these strange times of pandemic. To a certain extent, we are all living in “gated” communities. So many people in the world have been experiencing this way of life in one way or another. For security reasons, to prevent more people from catching and spreading the Covid-19 virus, many borders have been reintroduced and sealed, strict social distancing measures have been put in place, the economy has almost entirely been shut down, and we have been asked to stay at home unless activities we engage in are deemed absolutely necessary and essential. The gate to our “normal” way of life has been temporarily closed. Here in the UK, we’ve lived under a lockdown since the 23rd of March, and unless something changes for the better quite significantly, we can expect it to remain our new “normal” for the foreseeable future. So, when we hear Jesus say, ‘I am the gate’ (J 10.9), it may even make us feel uncomfortable. I for one do not want any more gates to be introduced into my daily routine of life. What I am longing for is a return to a physical community in which we can once again enjoy each other’s company, go out for a meal or a drink in a pub and have a laugh, visit each other, or travel to places we’ve always wanted to go to. But when we take time to reflect on what Jesus means by calling himself a gate (or a door - as it can also be translated), we soon realise that what he offers has nothing to do with constraining our lives even further but leads to a life of fulfilment, one of freedom and hope.Jesus says’ ‘I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture’ (v.9). Jesus talks about the new life we can all find in him. He invites us to see him as a gate, a door through which we can enter his fold. But he doesn’t want to trap us inside a barbed wire fence and keep us to himself squashed together with other sheep. He doesn’t use force or coercion to keep hold of us. Instead he gives us all an invitation to join the community he has formed when he stretched out his arms for us on the cross in a gesture of total solidarity with the whole of suffering creation. Everyone can approach the foot of his cross and receive the water and blood flowing from his side (J 19.34). But no one will be forced to do so. What I find fascinating about the faith is that even when we do come into the fold, we retain our freedom to come in and out, and to keep searching for a pasture. For is not a life that Jesus offers us one in which more and more doors open up around us and within us as we continue to listen to his voice and follow wherever he takes us? Isn’t life with God one of endless possibilities? Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, also known as Vocation Sunday. So, it is entirely appropriate to ask ourselves about how we have been responding to God’s call in our lives. St Peter reminds us in his letter that all of us have been called to follow in the steps of Christ (1 Pet 2.21). While some men and women have been chosen out of the Christian community to serve as bishops, priests and deacons, they are only a small part of the people of God. All of us, whatever our life experience, profession, background, role we play in a church community, have been called to walk on the pilgrimage of faith. As we journey on, sometimes we lose our way, we make mistakes, hurt ourselves and the people we love, but we also know that we can always return ‘to the shepherd and guardian of our souls’ (1 Pet 2.25). Christ never closes the door to anyone, and even when you find yourself walking ‘through the valley of the shadow of death’ (Ps 23.4), the Lord will be there walking alongside you. He is not afraid of our darkness and confusion. His goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life (Ps 23.6).As you have been following Jesus, the Good Shepherd, where have you been taken by him on your journey of faith thus far? Since your baptism, what new pastures have you grazed on, by what have you been fed and sustained? What sustains you now, in these difficult circumstances, while we live under a dark cloud of the pandemic? I’d like to encourage us to reflect on these questions during the week. Even when we are deprived of praying inside our churches, and of the sacraments, especially of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus remains with us and continues to invite us into the life of communion with him. Even when we feel lonely and isolated, we are never alone. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, but he is also a lamb – ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and grants us peace’, as we sing during the Mass. There is no other shepherd like him. God loves us so much that his Son, the Good Shepherd, has become for a sacrificial lamb. On the icon of the Good Shepherd we see Christ with the cross in the background and the sheep resting on his arms. This is a stark reminder that our Shepherd gave his own life for us, his sheep and the blood he shed for us all continues to sustain us as it mingles with ours. Jesus is our Saviour, our Brother and our Friend. Each time we approach the foot of his cross, even when plunged into the darkness of grief and pain, we find ourselves in an amazing company of our fellow believers, together with Our Blessed Lady Mary, the Mother of Jesus and ours, St John, his beloved disciple, and the unnumbered multitude of people who responded to his call, followed him and discovered new horizons of hope. We don’t need to worry that if we decide to follow Christ then our lives will somehow become poorer, less exiting, deprived of enjoyment and laughter. As Jesus himself says: ‘The thief comes only to steal and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (v.10). Jesus does not steal anything away from us, because we cannot give him he hasn’t already got. His love for us is unconditional and steadfast. He is the gate to the fulness of life and he is the Good Shepherd whom we can follow without hesitation. But even if we do hesitate, because such is our human nature, he will continue to invite us to enter through the door and to live in freedom and hope.
For the first time in living memory, and hopefully the last, we are celebrating Easter in dispersion. This feels really disorientating. The weather outside is exceptionally beautiful, spring is now in full swing, overflowing with the signs of new life accompanied by the sound of birdsong. We would be forgiven for thinking that everything is fine and that life can carry on as normal. However, nothing is fine, and nothing is normal. Many more people are getting infected with the coronavirus, well over 100 thousand people throughout the world have already died because of it (nearly 10,000 in the UK alone), and we are all doing our best to follow the rules of social distancing. Most of the activities we enjoy have stopped, and we are waiting for the pandemic to ease so that we can be out and about once again working, and seeing our families and friends.We are waiting for the world we miss so much to come back to life again. We are waiting for the resurrection. It is in this state of waiting that we are today celebrating the feast of all feasts, the Resurrection of Our Lord. It is in the midst of a world of anxiety and fear that the hope of resurrection to eternal life is being proclaimed to us and all people: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death,And upon those in the tombs bestowing life! (Eastern Orthodox Liturgy)Does this mean that there is no more death, that we can be somehow oblivious to what’s happening around us? No, the hope of our faith is neither a utopian illusion, nor a deception. Rather, it is a conviction that God is with us in both our life and in our death. In his Son, our Saviour and brother, Jesus Christ, God knows what it means to live a human life, what it means to be surrounded by the darkness of evil, and what it means to die.The Son of God, who suffered and was crucified for us, experienced death just as we do. More than that, he experienced a kind of death none of us would ever want to or ever should go through. Although he was without sin, he suffered as if he was a criminal: nailed to the cross, and abandoned by almost everyone but his mother and a few of his closest friends. His death, however, is not something to lament over but something to give thanks to God for. St Paul reminds us why, when he writes, ‘Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God’ (Col 3.2-3). This is not an invitation to walk with one’s head in the clouds and do nothing about what’s happening around us. Quite the opposite. It is a reminder that in our Baptism, we have already died: we have died to sin, to despair, and to fear. Baptism gives us freedom to live our lives in the hope of the Risen Christ. If taken seriously, it can change absolutely everything about the way in which we see ourselves and others around us. ‘For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God’ - what an astonishing statement that is. In Baptism God invites you and me to live with him, to go to the places God goes and to walk the paths God walks, while we are still awaiting the second coming of Our Lord. Yes, we are still waiting for the Risen Christ to come again and to renew the face of this earth. Our promise is a glorious one: ‘When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory’ (Col 3.4). We don’t need to be afraid of the Risen Christ coming to us. All we need to do is to welcome him in a spirit of trust. But in the meantime, we are waiting. We are waiting for Christ to return, and we are waiting for the virus to be put under control and eventually to go away and stop ruining our world. Jesus was no stranger to waiting. This is was this often forgotten day, Holy Saturday, is about - waiting. Many of us have a problem with waiting. I, for one, don’t like it. I know the value of it but it pains me when I am forced to wait. Waiting often seems like a waste of time. But is it? Isn’t it rather a time of preparation, an opportunity to go deeper into one’s heart to examine one’s motivations and hopes?Let’s look at what Jesus does as he is waiting for the resurrection. Jesus’ waiting is not idle. On Holy Saturday, he descends into hell and rescues our ancestors who have been waiting for their redemption. While the dead body of Jesus is resting in the tomb, he descends into the realm of the dead to proclaim to Adam and Eve that they are no longer trapped in the shackles of death but are free to live forever with God who is the source of all life. On the surface of things, it may seem as if nothing is happening, but in fact, on Holy Saturday, hell is harrowed by Christ and Satan loses the war. Our waiting for a better, more normal, world to come shouldn’t be idle either. Our waiting, our Holy Saturday, may be longer than we would like. It may even be, and is, encroaching on the happiness of Easter. But even in this difficult and anxious waiting that has been forced upon us by the pandemic our lives are hidden with Christ in God. We are not waiting alone. Christ is waiting with us, and we are called to wait with those for whom this waiting is unbearable. It is now often said that we should not be doing one thing or the other unless it is essential. Well, waiting is essential, just as is patience. Christ didn’t come down from the cross, neither was he raised from the dead straight away. He waited in the darkness and in the shadow of death alongside many others who were already there. We too are called to wait alongside one another before the resurrection comes. We are called to be present where God is present and that includes the most desperate of all places. During this unusual and incredibly difficult Easter, let us share the light of the Risen Christ with one another through the discipline of waiting together. As we wait for the resurrection of our world, let us never neglect the two essential activities of our lives as disciples of Jesus: prayer and service. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Good Friday 2020Can Good Friday still be good in the time of the coronavirus pandemic? Of course, that it can. Good Friday is good not because the goodness of this day is somehow dependent on us, on how we feel or how we chose to look at it. The goodness of this day depends on one thing only, on what happened on the original Good Friday in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Today, we look not to ourselves, but to the cross of Jesus. We read and reflect on the Passion of the Lord, and we are drawn to stand at the foot of the Cross - with Mary, the sorrowful mother of Our Lord, and with John, the disciple whom he loved. John the Evangelist takes us into that most intimate moment of the Passion by allowing us to hear the words Jesus speaks firstly to his mother: ‘Woman, this is your Son’, and secondly to John: ‘Here is your mother’ (J 19.26-27). This is a moment of merciless separation, of an agonizing suffering felt by the three of them. Jesus, hanging on the cross and dying, remains out of their reach. They cannot touch him or offer him any comfort during this last hour. Despite standing so near the cross they are not able to touch him. They are forced to keep their distance.This moving scene presents us with the picture of Jesus, the Son of God, in solidarity with every person dying in isolation, without his or her loved ones even being able to watch at the bedside. In this difficult time of social distancing, which for those who are losing their loved ones is not only difficult but also utterly agonising, God remains close to each and every one of us.It might not feel like it at times. We may feel angry with God and, plunged into the darkness of pain, find that trusting in God’s presence is the last thing we want or are able to do. Even then, however, there is a place for us at the foot of the cross. Jesus too experienced the sense of abandonment by God. In Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of the Passion, we hear Jesus cry from the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mt 26.46, Mk 15.34); and, both in Matthew and Mark, these were the last words Jesus spoke before taking his last breath. If all you want to say to God today is, ‘Why is this all happening to us? Where are you? Why have you left us?’, then know that your doubts, your anger, even your sense of being forsaken by God, can be offered in prayer. The Words of Psalm 22 can help give shape to such a prayer of desolation and doubt. For when the Psalmist eventually says to God, ‘Be not far away, O Lord; you are my strength; hasten to help me’ (Ps 22.18), we know that this expression of trust is not naïve but comes from a place of deep anguish caused by the experience of untamed suffering. Today, as we gaze on the cross of Jesus, we can be sure that in our isolation and sorrow, even in our doubts and sense of God’s absence, we are not alone. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us, ‘For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin’ (4.15). How did Jesus pray? ‘With loud cries and tears’. He prayed ‘to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission’ (Heb 4.7). We know that after Good Friday comes the silence of Holy Saturday and then joyful noise of the Resurrection. This year the noise will need to wait until we can meet together again, but joy can already enter our hearts and our homes. For joy is not simply happiness, but it is born out of that hope we discover in the Cross of Christ, the hope over which death does not have the last word. Don’t forget that Good Friday still is and will remain good, and Easter Day still is and will remain the day of joy and resurrection. May you have a joyful and safe Easter.
