Pilgrims of the Passion
Four Meditations by the parish clergy on Good Friday 2009
The First Pilgrim
I want to talk to you this afternoon about one of the most important figures in the New Testament. I want to talk to you this afternoon about someone whose sense of mission was probably more responsible for changing the face of the world than that of anyone else who has lived. I want to talk to you this afternoon about someone whose understanding of the cross and the Passion of Christ made him realize that nothing less than a new world order had come to pass - had come to pass in the space of the three hours during which we gather in prayer and worship in this church, and countless other churches, around the globe. And yet, I want to talk to you this afternoon about somebody who, as far as we know, was in total ignorance of the events of Good Friday when they actually happened.
Indeed, I want to talk to you this afternoon about somebody who, had he known about the events that unfolded during this week of weeks, would doubtless have approved completely and whole-heartedly about the fate bestowed on Jesus of Nazareth - the fate that we remember most clearly of all on this afternoon of afternoons. For this person was a Jew - a good Jew - indeed a zealous Jew, so proud and confident of the way in which he lived out his faith that he could say of himself how he had been circumcised on the eighth day, how he was a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; and as to righteousness under the law, blameless. As you will realize by now, I want to talk to you this afternoon about a tent-maker from Tarsus, known to his Jewish friends and companions as Saul, but better known to us by the name he used in Roman, and latterly in Christian society - Paul.
For we should, indeed, have no doubt that without the mission and ministry of Paul, there would, almost certainly, be no Christian church, and whatever else we would be doing on this Friday afternoon, we would not be remembering and marking the crucifixion of a rabble-rousing breakaway Jew who fell foul of his own religious leaders, and of the prevailing ruling powers, to be nailed to a cross for six hours before he died. For back in the beginning, it took Paul, and only Paul, back in the beginning, to understand that the significance of what happened this afternoon was something that affected non-Jews - gentiles as we are known - every bit as much as if affected Jews.
The other companions of Jesus didn’t see this, and, indeed, they were never exactly fond of Paul. So they were probably relieved to discover that he didn’t, in fact, want to spend very much time with them, as he considered that his vocation lay elsewhere. Indeed, he is very clear about this, recounting that God was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles and that, when he had one of his rare encounters in Jerusalem with the original apostles, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised.
Given that, in all probability, we who are here, in this church this afternoon, are all gentiles - I am not aware of anyone who is a convert from Judaism - you will realize just how important it was that Paul was given this ministry by God. For truly, without Paul’s tireless preaching of the Gospel across just about all his known world, it is most unlikely that the events we have come here to remember today would have had any bearing or relevance to us at all. Indeed, I think it wholly unlikely that you or I would ever have heard of Jesus, if Paul had not been such a remarkable pilgrim of the Passion, taking the news of the transformation wrought by the cross to races and peoples across vast distances, and in the face of all sorts of perils and aggression.
And that, in itself, is a pretty good reason for spending a little bit of time on this Good Friday afternoon reacquainting ourselves with Paul as a pilgrim of the Passion. But there is another reason, I want to suggest, why Paul has something to offer us on this awful and special day. It is not enough that we remember Paul simply because he was given the unique vision and mission to spread Christianity to the non-Jewish world, and thereby bring us all the gift of faith. I want to suggest to you today that it is not just what Paul did that speaks to us of the power of the Cross and the hope of salvation - it is who and what Paul was that demands our attention.
Because, as I say, on the first Good Friday, Saul of Tarsus probably was utterly unaware of any of the events we commemorate today. There is nothing to suggest that at this point in his young life he had ever heard of Jesus of Nazareth, and, indeed, had he done so, he would most certainly have disapproved of his teachings and behaviour, and he most certainly would have approved of his execution. For the first time we learn of Saul is some months later on in the story, perhaps even a year or so later, when the apostles have gathered quite a growing community around them. A community so big that they realize the need to appoint some people to assist them in various ministries, including a man called Stephen who is so consumed by prophecy that he, too, falls foul of the Jewish authorities and ends up being dragged outside the city to be stoned to death, and we are told by the author of Acts that the witnesses to this death laid their coats at the feet of a young man called Saul, and that Saul approved of their killing him.
And there have been plenty of Sauls of Tarsus to this day, as people throughout the ages of history have stood up for the cause in which they have believed, and ranted and raved and done terrible things. On the grand scale, we can look at the bloodiness of the Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition, both carried out in the name of the Christian church, and, in our own age, we can look at the terrible travesty of Islam behind which the likes of Al Qaeda seek to justify a similarly callous approach to the suffering and death of others.
But this Saul of Tarsus way of working isn’t just a large scale problem - it happens in smaller and less significant communities as well, where it happens in smaller and less significant ways than murder or execution, ways which are petty but still indescribably ugly. And I know this is true - this is so terribly, awfully, depressing true - because I look no further than myself to see it. It’s not exactly a surprising confession or revelation for me to say that I am someone of strong opinions and convictions - and, indeed, I find much in St Paul’s character impressive and appealing - and I know from my own words and actions how ugly my behaviour can be, both when I am misguided, and sometimes even when I am trying to do the right thing, not the wrong thing, but find myself doing it in the wrong way.
And, I am afraid, I have seen this not just in myself - indeed, it is really rather depressing to see the enmities and hatreds that can arise within church communities, which can arise within one narrow denomination of Christianity, or even, at times, within something as tiny as a PCC. The Anglican Communion is wrestling with disagreement in this current age, and often doing so in a manner of which we all should be ashamed. And there are days when I despair - I despair of the institutionalized church; I despair of zealous and fundamentalist leaders, whether of governments or terrorist groups; I despair of all those who use their personalities to trample with boots on across the holy ground of other people’s lives and emotions; I despair, and do so constantly, of myself.
And then I look again at St Paul, and I thank God. And I thank God in part because Paul, himself, knew and understood this, both of the human condition in general, and very specifically, of himself, so that he could write in his characteristically hot-headed manner, this sense of his despair:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my body another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my body. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death
For me, this is why Paul is truly a saint. It wasn’t enough that he took Christianity to the furthest corners of the known world, founding churches here, there and everywhere. It was that God took this aggressive, broken, imperfect character - this man who was so capable of arrogance and verbal violence - and he made him of all extraordinary people, he made him a channel through which the message of salvation could be shared with the waiting world. For when Paul cries out so profoundly and painfully Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? he was able to answer his own profoundly rhetorical question, and say Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! [For] there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
That, for me, is why Paul is a saint and a pilgrim of the Passion. Because his story reminds us that God can transform and transfigure all human life, and that God used him - all of him, even the difficult bits - God used him to spread the good news that is the ultimate message of the cross. And, when I look at the cross and I despair of myself, and I want to cry out yet again, Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? it is Paul who enables me to say, and say even on Good Friday, of all days - Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! [For] there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Dominic Barrington
The Second Pilgrim
Arise and go to Nineveh
Jonah is no hero, no obvious pilgrim of the Passion. Jonah is no model of obedience and yet Jonah is the only prophet referred to by name by Jesus. A prophet who is limited to one short sentence, in a book that comprises only four short chapters. A prophet who is swallowed by a whale - well, a large fish, really. But this is the most Christian of books in the Hebrew Bible.
Let me remind you of the story: Jonah rejects God’s command to preach to the gentiles of Nineveh, and runs away as fast as possible in the opposite direction - on a ship bound for Tarshish, and goes down into the hold to sleep. A huge storm rises - the terrified sailors blame Jonah for his disobedience, Jonah agrees, and is thrown into the sea. A great fish swallows the astonished prophet. Jonah stays in its belly for 3 days, praying in anguish and then (surprise, surprise) is regurgitated on to land where he decides to obey God’s command after all - prophesy to the people of Nineveh of the destruction of their city within 40 days.
The people of Nineveh repent and God forgives them - and forgoes his threat of punishment. This irritates Jonah, what sort of prophet does this make him look like? He wants to die. He is angered further when a plant that gave him shelter from the sun withers and dies.
Somehow, because of this, he realizes that God can show kindness to whom he wants - whoever they are.
The disciples were not called to be prophets - they were called to be followers of Christ, as are we. They did not flee in their fishing boats, they stopped what they were doing and followed him. Obedient, yes - but in a different way, disobedient too.
Jonah listened and ran away. The disciples stayed but did not listen. The origin of our word obedience comes from the Latin obaudire, to listen. When we are obedient we listen, when we are disobedient we do not listen.
The gospels are full of stories, full of warnings of terrible things to come - the death of Jesus. And yes, his resurrection to. But they did not listen.
And when the storm and the darkness came they become even more Jonah like. Just as Jonah slept in the hold of the ship, they slept in the garden of Gethsemane. Just as Jonah had run away to the command Arise and go to Nineveh, the disciples, unable to stay awake as Jesus had asked, simply ran away.
Jonah grudgingly learns and accepts the nature of God’s forgiveness; the disciples, whether they ran away or denied Jesus, the disciples who, at best, could not bear to see Jesus die on the cross or, at worst, were too cowardly (more cowardly than Jonah who was prepared to die) are forgiven and transformed by the risen Christ.
Do we run away? Do we fail to listen? Do we sleep - in the comfort of our church and the comfort of our lives, as Jesus dies on the cross?
Are we prepared to change as Jonah changed? Was he a hero after all? Can we be heroes too?
In our prayers we might ponder when we listen and when we don’t, when we stay, and when we run.
John Smith
The Third Pilgrim
Why? Why is this happening to my beloved Son? My heart is breaking as I struggle to understand the horror that is before me – I want to scream, to rage against the brutality and injustice. Instead I hold it – silently – deep within.
I yearn, I ache to hold him in my arms as I did when he was a child, to ease the pain that is tearing though his body. How can they do this to him – he is a good man, he doesn’t deserve this. Maybe I haven’t always understood, but I know, I have seen how deep his faith and trust in God has been.
He’s worked, often to the point of exhaustion during the past few years – teaching, helping people to experience and really feel God’s love for them as individuals. Stark contrast to some of the chief priests, Pharisees and elders who seemed to take a perverse delight in making people feel unloved, unworthy of any dignity or respect.
I worried about him so much at times; he hated injustice of any kind and would confront the people wherever and whenever he saw it. It didn’t matter to him who they were. I feared that one day they would retaliate. But he seemed to have a very loyal group of friends around him who I thought would support him, care for him. Care for him? It was one of them that betrayed him to the chief priests and temple guards. How could he – how can he live with that on his hands? And what of the rest of them? – Where are they now? – they’ve all disappeared – all, that is, except John – I can see him over there, looking so anguished.
Those words - did you hear them – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? How dare they – they’ve stripped him of absolutely evenything – even his faith and trust in the God who was dearest to his heart.
Why? How did this happen? It seems no time at all since I discovered I was pregnant? That was a strange time. It was almost a dream like experience – a very strong, real sense that an Angel was talking to me, telling me that I would have a child. How could that be? I felt deeply troubled, afraid even, for Joseph and I were not married at that time. Would he leave me – he could have done, had every right to do so. But I could hear that same voice telling me not to be afraid, and that somehow God was involved. I couldn’t really understand, yet had a deep sense that God was with me and I remember saying I am the Lords servant – let it be as you have said – and then the angel disappeared. But I kept thinking about it, praying about it. I needed some space, to get away from the wagging tongues so went to my cousin, Elizabeth. Miracle upon miracle, she was expecting as well. She didn’t judge me, or point an accusing finger; simply welcomed me, comforted, supported and encouraged me. It was a good few weeks. Those early years were difficult. My baby was born in Bethlehem – Joseph and I were forced to go there just before my baby’s birth because of the Census. The place was crowded, I remember, and we couldn’t find a room anywhere so we ended up in a cave where the animals were housed – at least it was dry and we did get some warmth from the animals. It was a difficult time with many unexpected and strange visitors. The whole experience left me with so much to think about in the silent moments during the months and years ahead.
There was another extraordinary moment when Joseph and I took our little one up to the Temple as our faith requires us to do. An old man appeared to be waiting for us – I seem to remember that his name was Simeon. He took my little boy gently in his arms and blessed him. But he also said some strange things that I could never really fathom, and those words are coming back to haunt me now. He said something along the lines that our child was destined to be a sign that would be rejected – and that a sword would pierce my heart too. And what rejection! Rejection so brutal and fuelled with such fear, suspicion and hatred. Why are people so fearful and suspicious of what they don’t understand, so ready to hate? Pierce my heart? Just now I feel that a sword is tearing my heart apart.
On another visit to the Temple, we lost Jesus. Joseph and I thought he was with the crowd as we were returning home – we travelled a whole day before we realised he wasn’t. I was sick with fear and worry. We ran back to Jerusalem – it was three days before we found him once more. I was so happy, but so cross with him. Anything could have happened. Do you know what he said? Why did you search for me – didn’t you know I would be in my Father’s house? What a strange thing to say. There were times when I couldn’t make him out at all. We kept a very close eye on him as we travelled back to Nazareth.
My God, this is an awful place – they’re even gambling over his clothes – the depths to which people will go – yet they are alive, and my Son, who is the very essence of love, is nailed up there, life draining from him.
A moment ago, John came over to be with me, and just as he did so, my beloved child looked at me; I have longed for that moment, - now it is too painful, tears stream silently down my face. Through his unimaginable agony, he looked at me with such love and tenderness and entrusted John and me to each other’s care. John will take me home, I know he will; and I will care for him as my Son would want me to, as I have longed to care for him.
Ah! It’s over. He has breathed his last. I hear and feel the wail that can only be a mothers tearing through me. Darkness envelops me. What now, God, what now?!
Lesley McCormack
The Fourth and Final Pilgrim
We have watched, this last hour, with three pilgrims of the Passion. We have watched with St Paul, whose tireless energy was transformed from hating Christ to serving him. We have watched with Jonah, whose self-absorption was transformed into a saving presence for the people of Nineveh. We have watched with Mary, whose entire life was transformed by the call to be the God-bearer, and who experienced bewilderment and pain in a succession of ways it is hard to imagine.
The pilgrims of the Passion: Paul’s pilgrimage of the Passion around his known world; Jonah’s pilgrimage prefiguring the Passion in the belly of the great fish; Mary’s pilgrimage alongside her son from Annunciation to Burial. What, perhaps, unites the stories of these unlikely characters, who certainly didn’t know each other? And who is worthy, in their venerable company, to be the last of our pilgrims of the Passion?
The answer to the first of those two questions - what unites the stories of Paul, Jonah and Mary - is, I think, something about ‘sticking power’. All three of their stories show us the value and the necessity of sticking at something. There are elements in all three of their stories of what you might call perseverance, or endurance. That’s very obvious in the story of Saul-turned-Paul, who perseveres in a hugely demanding vocation to serve God with every fibre of his being. Paul’s ‘sticking power’ or endurance has to cope with what one truly can call a God Almighty shock, when he discovers that his vocation is not to persecute the followers of Jesus, but to become one - and so he continues serving God with phenomenal figure, as the Pharisee turned Preacher, founding churches and nurturing them, always pushing onwards, so that he could say I press on ...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
And Mary - well, what perseverance was there there! I could, and have, preached entire sermons on Mary’s strength of character and endurance, coping with everything from the most bizarre unexpected pregnancy in the history of the world, through to the agony of a mother watching her son die an unjust death. Mary certainly stuck with it, through to the end.
And what of the story of Jonah? Well, there is perseverance in the telling of that story, too, although, perhaps, you have to look at the story with a slightly different angled lens to see it clearly. There may be a hint of perseverance there in the fact that Jonah managed to proclaim God’s salvation to the people of a city so big that it took three whole days to walk across it (making it far bigger than modern-day London), to the result that every single person repented and turned to the Lord. I dare say that you or I would wilt slightly at such at such a missionary objective. But the real perseverance, the real endurance, the real ‘sticking power’ in the story of Jonah is not really that of Jonah himself, who, we should remember did his best to head west when God said, "head east". The real perseverance in the story of Jonah is the story of God’s perseverance - God persevering with Jonah, knowing that, in fact, this contrary man did have what it would take to bring salvation to the vast city of Nineveh, despite the fact that he didn’t really want to do so. Despite the fact, even, that once the Ninevites were saved, Jonah was displeased and became angry! Jonah, arguably, is the most obnoxious and reluctant prophetic figure you can find in the Bible - and yet God persevered with him.
And so, who could we look at to be our final pilgrim of the passion? How would we want to identify such a pilgrim? For a start, we would need to look for someone who understood that the Passion is inextricably linked to salvation, however that is worked out. Jonah, despite his contrary outlook, brought salvation to Nineveh. The infancy stories of the gospels make it plain that Mary, and indeed Joseph, knew that Jesus was coming into the world to save his people from their sins. And Paul preached clearly that God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation. So we should certainly look for someone who knows that in the Passion we can find a message of salvation.
And, for that matter, we should look for someone who is profoundly and fully aware of the Passion itself. Jesus himself aligned his destiny with what he called the sign of Jonah, so perhaps we can say that even in Jonah’s story we see the Passion; Mary witnessed the Passion, and Paul came to understand that the Passion was a completion or fulfilment of God’s work, changing permanently the way in which God related to God’s creation.
What else might we want to ask of someone who can aspire to be a pilgrim of the Passion? We might want to suggest that they would be somebody who understood the power of baptism to bring a fresh start to life, and who were committed to living out all that might flow from their own baptism. We might want to suggest that they had more than a nodding acquaintance with what was expressed so profoundly at the Lord’s Supper, knowing how important it was to share bread and wine with friends and fellow pilgrims along the road.
We might want to suggest that they would have some familiarity with Scripture, that they might know the books of the Bible and the power that they contain, but that they would also know when it would be appropriate to look beyond them to find what God was truly calling his people to do.
We might want to suggest that they would believe and trust that God the Father not only would give the gift of the Holy Spirit, but, indeed, that they had received such a gift, to energize them, and raise them up in the service of the Father.
We might want to suggest that they knew about a love that is so selfless and generous that it truly bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things - a love which truly never ends.
And, in this context of pilgrimage, perhaps we might want to suggest that, most of all, they have true ‘sticking power’, that they have the gift of perseverance, that they know that the one who endures to the end will be saved. After all, even on my favourite televison programme, on an episode broadcast this very Holy Week, one of the lead characters of The Bill tells a junior colleague that, "Sticking with it shows worrying signs of maturity."!
So, where do we look to find such a pilgrim of the Passion? I wonder if, by now, you have worked out where I have been looking to find our final pilgrim of the Passion?
When Jesus knew that all was now completed, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is accomplished; it is made complete; it is perfected; it is finished. Then (and only then) he bowed his head and gave up the Spirit.
So is Jesus - the one who persevered until all was complete, perfect and accomplished - is Jesus the final pilgrim of the Passion? Certainly, I have been looking at the Cross to find our final pilgrim...
But I have also been looking out at you, and I have even been daring to squint in the mirror, as I sought the final pilgrim of the Passion. For just as Jesus persevered in the service of the Father, so we are called to persevere in his service. On this day of all days, let us pray that, with Christ, we, too, may be given grace to persevere. Amen.
Dominic Barrington
