A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.
St. John xvi. 16
 
        
Time is a strange thing. No sooner do we seem to catch it, and it is gone. Tempus fugit, the old Latins said. And how true it is. Time flies. Seconds become minutes, minutes hours, hours afternoons and evening, then days and night, and weeks, and months, and years. And because of this, it behooves all men to make the best of time, the times. In some valid and worthwhile way, man is made to redeem the time with thought and action that bless and consecrate it all to a greater purpose, through knowledge for joy.

Capturing time, of course, is only possible for men. Human beings alone, after all, can think about time, appreciate it, and preserve it in memory. No other creature has the gift of remembering good times for joy and even remembering bad times for education and repair with the time that we still have.

This latter course, redeeming the time, learning from it, changing for the better is what human life used to be all about. Men used to learn from the mistakes they made in time and for times. They used to muster up the courage to replace mistakes committed in past time with correction in the present for the future. This is the only way man can become better and good as he pursues excellence through knowledge for happiness. In time we fail and then succeed if we are determined to recover our integrity for the satisfaction that comes with learning.

Of course, for Christians, of all men, the urgency of redeeming the time is of utmost significance. Christians believe that every thought they think, every word they use, and every action they do constitutes a record in time of who they are and what reward they shall win for it. This is because Christians believe that they are imago dei, made in the image of God, and to perfect that image in likeness by the use of reason and free will. Christians, in other words, believe that God has made us for Himself through thinking and willing the good in time for eternity. Every snatch of time matters because in it we reveal who we are, what we know, and what we love. And all this has eternal significance. In the end, how we use our time will determine where and what we shall be for eternity.

So how does this relate to our opening quotation from St. John’s Gospel? We are in Eastertide, and in this season Christ is teaching his Apostles how He has redeemed the time and times for God the Father and for them. In other words, He is teaching them how His thoughts, words, and works reconstitute and recapitulate human nature for God. He is giving them a repaired version of fallen human nature so that forever thereafter men who believe and follow Him might redeem the time for its return to God.

So Christ today presents us with a solution to the human predicament. By reason of sin, man cannot redeem the time for eternity. The best that fallen man can know and will is a kind of approximation to eternal joy. And to be fair, the record of fallen man’s attempts at imitating the divine and putting it into play for human life was not all wrong and sinful. Ancient man, whether Jew or Gentile, sought after God. Ancient man believed more in the divine than in the human. The pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Temple at Jerusalem, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the works of Plato and Aristotle all testify to man’s intention to redeem the time and bring God’s goodness into play in human life. But neither Jew nor Greek could save himself or redeem the time for something beyond time, but was always locked into the repetition of moments and memories. In Christ alone can all times be remembered for the good of eternal joy.

For this reason, Christ gives us radical new way to understand time. Christ has come into time to redeem it and reconcile it to God. The facts of time that He reconstituted as man for God are not to remain the absolute truth. Time is made to be swallowed up in eternity. Every thought Christ had, every word He spoke, every deed He did were part and parcel of moments of time filled with eternal purpose for man. His earthly Incarnation was a tool and instrument for man’s redemption of time for eternity. Time has a future if men will follow Christ back to its source and meaning. Thus, He says, a little while and ye shall not see me (idem). His most holy Incarnation is not ultimately to be grasped by bodies with bodies in time, the way men depend upon others for goodness and joy. Rather, He must leave the time and space medium to be with and for His followers in a new way. A little while and ye shall see me because I go to the Father. (idem) Christ must leave us because He intends that we should see and know him inwardly and spiritually, in time but for eternity with the Father. The real meaning of Christ for the world could forever thereafter mean seeing and knowing Christ as Logos, in the heart and soul, as the informing principle of life for salvation to as many as would believe. In other words, Christ the Word and Wisdom of God intended to be made flesh in His followers not bodily but spiritually, not materially but supernaturally. Christ, the way, the truth, and the life (St. John xiv. 6) would be present to His followers as the spiritual road we must follow, the truth we must embrace, and the life we must live with His Spirit animating us by rule and governance.

Christ says a little while. If truth be told, He was only and ever with His friends for a little while, thirty some odd years to be exact. But who He was in the flesh and what He did through the flesh, though only present for a little while, made all the difference in the world for those who would believe. The time He redeemed with His teaching and preaching, healing and loving, suffering, sacrifice, and death were all a collection of times expressed in the flesh for a little while that could lead to eternity. What would matter most would be remembering that little while and what was accomplished by Christ in it. His friends would be called to remember and treasure that time in which He established a new pattern and model for redeeming the time, and all times, for eternity. Christ’s life was to become his followers’ life. Christ’s truth was to be theirs. Christ as the way was the road they must travel.

The Apostles had to learn the hard way that Christ’s spiritual nature was far more important than His earthly presence. Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. (ibid, 20) They would sorrow at His eventual departure from them to return to the Father in Ascension. And the sinful world would be glad to have gotten rid of Christ the interloper and nuisance. But He insisted that His friends would need to redeem the time, His time, the little while that He was with them, for the work of their salvation and that of many others. Christ’s time on earth, short though it may have been, contained within itself the seeds of eternal truth for future joy.

Today, my friends, Christ is inviting us to see His Resurrection in Easter Tide for the spiritual truth that it reveals. Just as His death must become our death to sin and Satan, His resurrection must become our rising up into new life. Holding the short time of His visitation in our memories, it must become the instigation for death and new life as we embrace the pattern that He establishes for us. The imitation of Christ really means habituating our lives to His for salvation.

Thus, in this morning’s Epistle, St. Peter says, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. (1 St. Peter ii. 11) Christ was a stranger to this world and its sinful ways, and we must follow His example. Christ was a pilgrim, journeying from Heaven down to earth and back again, and we too must understand that this is our origin and destiny. As He abstained from fleshly lusts, warring against the soul, we must do likewise. And all this because in
Christ, we can redeem the time for the future of eternal joy. St. Peter continues by saying that our lives in time and through time must be beyond reproach in the eyes of nonbelievers that they might see the goodness of God in Jesus Christ alive and at work in us. If we are redeeming the time in Jesus Christ, nonbelievers might end up praising God and joining us. St. Peter concludes by saying we should obey earthly rulers since even their limited goodness is to punish evil and encourage goodness. We cannot redeem the time for eternity until we begin to redeem the time in an earthly manner as Christ did, submitting Himself to Caesar’s justice. That Caesar’s justice is not final is no reason to subvert it, for if Caesar keeps the peace, we have better conditions in which to redeem the time by spreading the Gospel.

Of course, redeeming the time will always involve suffering. Christ promises it. The world may oppose us, and our own fallen natures might be just as frustrating. But if we remember that in time Christ has redeemed us, His earthly life can become the pattern of our new lives, as we die to sin and come alive to righteousness. Though time flies, in and through it we shall find redemption and eternal joy.
Amen
©wjsmartin  

For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned
unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
(1 St. Peter ii. 25)
 
In Eastertide, we are called to become members of Jesus Christ’s Resurrected Body by remembering that we were lost sheep or sheep going astray who have been found. Christians believe that they have been found by Jesus Christ, the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. In Baptism, we believe that Christ has found us and has begun the process of our redemption and salvation. Our redemption demands Christ’s care of our souls.  Original sin was wiped out in Baptism, but still, we commit actual sins. So, we must submit ourselves to the care of Christ the Good Shepherd as He helps us to overcome the sin which doth so easily beset us. (Hebrews xii. 1)        

But first, we must learn what we, as the sheep of Christ, look like. This morning’s lesson from First Peter helps us. Here, St. Peter addresses the newly formed Church in Asia Minor. Most of its members are servants or slaves. Christian slaves have welcomed Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd who has found them and wants them as His own forever. Not surprisingly, they are having a hard time with the spiritual liberation that Christ brings. Because they are slaves, they are tempted with resentment, bitterness, and anger against their earthly overlords. St. Peter understands how difficult it must be for these earthly slaves to have patience with and forgive their masters. The earthly slave is owned by another man and treated as chattel or property. So the exhortation to longsuffering and love is a high calling indeed!

But the ancient slaves addressed by St. Peter provide a useful picture of the lost fallen human being in any age. For what is a fallen man but a slave to sin? And what is a lost man but one who is subject to powers in the dark unknown? And what are suffering and sacrifice if not the normative conditions for getting better and finding excellence in any worthwhile endeavor?
Prior to this morning’s Epistle reading, St. Peter says this to the slaves. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. (1 St. Peter ii. 18) 
The first order of business for St. Peter is not the earthly liberation of the slaves. Far more important is the spiritual state of their souls as an instrument of their true liberation, or salvation. They are called to be humble servants who respect and honor their earthly masters no matter what characters their earthly masters might possess. St. Peter’s advice seems irrational, unjust, hardhearted, and cruel. And if he were writing to fallen men whose only hope was earthly equity, we should have to judge him as wrongheaded. But St. Peter is not writing to unbelievers but to those who have been found by God’s Good Shepherd through a greater justice that rewards redemption and salvation through true freedom.

St. Peter knows that true freedom is inward and spiritual. He knows also that it is the gift of God to those who believe. He insists that it is found only in Jesus Christ, in whom God’s goodness alone enables man to triumph over evil. For Christians, the first order of business is to cleave to God’s goodness through Jesus Christ, come what may. No matter how dire a believer’s situation, he can always embrace God’s goodness as the instrument of eventual liberation through salvation. Given this, he must accept punishment for faults with patience. It is just and logical that he be punished for wrongdoing. God does not praise or bless a man who is punished for his sins. But when a man is faultless and does good and is punished for it, he must likewise be patient. In Christ alone, man can suffer patiently and unjustly for doing well. For this reason, St. Peter reminds the slaves, whose first aim is to please God, that they are worthy of praise and approval if they endure pain while suffering unjustly. Patience of the innocent sufferer wins credit in God’s sight. (ibid, 20)

St. Peter even goes on to remind Christian slaves that suffering is part of Christian life. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. (1 St. Peter ii. 21) St. Peter insists because Christ, the Good Shepherd, God’s own Son, walked the way of suffering, we should expect nothing less on our own spiritual journey. Christ suffered in our stead and for our good.         

Christ suffered of His own free will for us and our salvation. He never sinned. He was not crafty, deceitful, dishonest, or duplicitous. He was not selfish. He didn’t fight tit for tat. When subjected to torture and death, He did not threaten his persecutors. Rather, He put Himself into the hands of the Heavenly Father for God’s judgment. He took on our sins and put them to death so that we too might be dead to sin and alive to righteousness in Him.

In today’s Epistle, Peter intends to turn the souls of the slaves to Christ for that true liberation that no man can threaten. And in so doing, St. Peter makes the radical claim that no human situation or condition, however difficult, excuses the Christian from patient suffering and forgiveness of enemies. Christ is the forgiveness of sins made flesh to be received in the heart of every believer. The slaves have been forgiven their sins by Christ and must forgive their masters. And too must we. Both Peter, the ancient slaves, and we must remember that they were once like sheep like without a shepherd. (St. Matthew ix. 36) With Peter, all believers can become evangelists of the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s Resurrection. Peter was a slave to his own fear and cowardice when he denied Christ; the slaves were still sinners, and we are sinners. But now Christ, the Good Shepherd, offers to free all believers from the author of evil in this world and his malicious friends.
           
Today Jesus says to us, I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. (St. John x. 11) Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. And on this Second Sunday of Easter, we are called to meditate upon how Christ is our only Good Shepherd. Too often, we are led astray by hirelings, false shepherds and pastors, who are cowards that flee the necessary conflict and warfare of human life that is necessary for both the procurement of elementary goodness and then salvation. Christ is no wolf in sheep’s clothing. He courageously laid down His life for us. He went to the Cross to wage the last battle against sin, death, and Satan. The Captain of our Salvation promises us that if we follow Him, we must sacrifice, suffer, die to sin, and then embrace and spread His goodness. That we might suffer at the hands of a world that cannot welcome Christ’s presence and posture must never deter us.  

Today, St. Peter shows the slaves and us that Christ, the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls (idem), was also a slave. He giveth His life for the sheep. (St. John x. 11) Christ the Good Shepherd was the voluntary Slave who worked freely and completely for the good of two Masters – His Father and His sheep! He lays down His life for His sheep because He knows that only then can His Father’s Love become a true Slave to their condition, bear its burden fully, take on punishment for their sin, and then break sin’s chains through the perfect power of the forgiveness of their sins. 
Christ the Good Shepherd, risen from the dead and ascended back to the Father desires to become our servant or slave even now. If we do not allow Him to be our servant, we have no part in Him. (St. John xiii. 8) The Good Shepherd cares only for our welfare and good. Because the Good Shepherd is God’s servant or slave who alone has mastered our sin, we must hear His voice and obey Him.
Christ, the Good Shepherd, has come into the world to find us, His lost sheep. Will we allow Him to be both our slave and Master as He enables us to follow the blessed steps of His most holy life? (Collect, Easter II) If we do, forgiveness and patience are necessary virtues that will liberate us from all slavery and save us.  
Amen.
©wjsmartin

 
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,         
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on 
Things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
Is hid with Christ in God. 
(Col. 3. 1-3)
       
There is something rather strange about our Easter Epistle, which was addressed by St. Paul to the infant Church at Colossae in a small Phrygian city in Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. Easter Sunday is the first of 40 days. Before He ascended back to the Father, during the period of 40 days, Christ appeared to Saints Peter and John, to Saint Mary Magdalene, to the women, to Saint James and all the Apostles, to some five hundred, to Saint Stephen prior to his martyrdom, and later to St. Paul as one born out of due time. (1 Cor. xv. 8)  So why does Mother Church have us reading an Epistle that seems to be all about the spiritual relationship that we have with Christ after Pentecost? In it, St. Paul speaks about our relationship with the hidden God. Your life is hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3) We haven’t even begun our 40 days of getting used to the Resurrected Christ than the Church turns our minds upward and into the Heavenly realm!
        
So what is this business of our lives hid with Christ in God? For St. Paul, something has happened on the Day of Resurrection that forever changes our lives in relation to God the Father. Jesus Christ is not a mere soul or Spirit. Jesus Christ, the God/Man, has risen from the dead. Article IV of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion states this: 

Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man's nature; wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day.  
 
St. Paul believes that Christ indeed died in a natural body and rose a spiritual body. What he means is that Christ raised up the body through which He lived and died and yet has transfigured it. 

His soul took back his body, and penetrated it through and through making it spiritual…this spiritual body is transparent, obedient to the Spirit, unconstrained and lightsome…the instrument of the Divine Saviour’s soul. (Mouroux, p. 89)
 
The Risen Christ is, then, a glorified unity of body, soul, and spirit. He is the same Lord who died once for all our sins. His Risen Body bears the wounds of His Crucifixion, reminding us that He has borne our sufferings and sin and brought them to death. But the same wounds remind us of His ongoing love for us, as this spiritual Body that He bears will expand and deepen to include us in His new Resurrected life. But even during the 40 days of His Resurrection, He begins to call believers into the new Body that He will share with all who will follow Him. This Body has been raised up with the Father’s Blessing and the Spirit’s power. This spiritual Body is in more than one place at one time. Peter sees Him and then simultaneously so does James. Magdalene has seen Him and so too have the men walking on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus’ Body is already spiritually greater than what our earthly senses can ever comprehend. It is of such a nature that will ensure that our lives [can be] hid with Christ in God. 

Of course, it takes time for the Apostles to realize what is going on. The 40 days of Christ’s Resurrection are necessary. For Man to come to understand timeless Truth, it all takes time. But in that time what they come to realize is that Christ is calling them to become one with Him in a new way. Christ is now ready to share Himself with them in the way that has enabled Him to conquer sin, death, and Satan and to open to them all, simultaneously, the Gates of Everlasting Life.  
         
So how can our lives be hid with Christ in God? St. Paul reminds us in another place that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor v. 7,8) Christ Jesus our Saviour is Risen from the dead. He invites us into that life that has gained the victory not only over all sin but even over time and place. Just as Christ’s victory is complete, we can live in His victory. Jesus died at the hands of sinful men and their sin. But He died, being dead unto sin. Sin had no claim or power over Him. Christ conquered sin through His obedience to God the Father and because He has always been alive unto God. (Idem) In the Resurrection, Jesus Christ invites us to begin to participate in His obedience to the Father. Christ, even in death, was alive unto God. So now, even as we live and struggle against sin and death, we are invited to seek those things which are above. (Col. iii. 1) Not above and beyond our reach, but above and beyond our wildest expectations, above and beyond what we desire or deserve, above and beyond what Man can do for himself in any age. And yet not above and beyond what God’s love can and will do for us as Heaven reaches down to earth to lift us up back into His loving embrace. Not above and beyond God’s healing touch, His quickening Spirit, His ever-present and all-powerful presence, even here and now. But yes, above and within the heart of Jesus, whose Glorified Body and Being are with the Father pleading our case in all ages. Yes, above and within Jesus Christ Himself, in whom every aspect of our lives can become a new occasion for our rising up and out of ourselves, mortifying [our] members which are upon earth; [up and out of] our uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry…(Col. iii. 5) In our bodies, because in His Risen and Glorified Body, Christ is always in God. In our souls, because in His Risen and Glorified Soul, He (is) in us, and we (are) in Him. Christ is risen from the dead. Sin is finished, death is finished, and Satan is finished, if we shall discover our need for Him even now. Our lives are hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3)

One last point. St. Paul uses the word hid, as related to hidden. Of course, St. Paul does not mean that we should hide our faith, leaving it under a bushel, as a light (St. Matthew v. 15) without function and utility for others. No, rather, we must let the light of our faith shine forth. But what St. Paul means is that the source of our life in Jesus Christ is hid with God securely concealed and invisible to the powers of this world, from most men, and even from the Devil. What this means is that we can be assured that our new life in Jesus Christ is safe and secure from all alarm and any harm with which the world threatens. What St. Paul means is that our true new life is in Heaven, beyond the control of human senses and earthly manipulation. What St. Paul means is that our new life is hidden with Christ, whom we do not see yet truly believe. Faith, knowledge, and love ultimately are hidden virtues that are generated by God’s hidden Grace and power in the human soul that leans on God for meaning and definition. And so, what the world should see are the effects of that hidden operation, whereby we are dying to sin and coming alive to God’s righteousness through the gift of His Grace from Heaven, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. (Hebrews vii. 25) And it isn’t that the world shouldn’t notice it. But what the world might sense is a way of living in us that is beyond their normal experiences, something urging them on to seek out that hidden power seen in the unusually good habits of our lives that might stir them on to believe and discover God’s hidden work. 

On this Day of our New Life, as creatures Resurrected from sin and death, let us begin to live freely. On this day may true joy fill our hearts. Let us, therefore, thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ for dying for us, rising for us, and assuring us that if we believe, our lives are Hid in Him with God. Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead was for the Apostles a process. Slowly but surely, they began to realize that true life has come from God and can return to God because in Jesus Christ nothing on earth, and especially our own sin, need separate us from that love that conquers all for eternal life with unending joy.
Amen.
©wjsmartin

 

 
Today, we come to the Cross of Good Friday in order to discover the true meaning of Lent in the sacrifice, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ. I pray that as we quietly and silently look and listen, we shall discover what Jesus Christ alone can do for the world. We must try to penetrate and explore the love expressed in the crucifixion of our Lord. We should try to see how our sin has brought Jesus to His Cross. At the outset, we ought to pray for the courage to confess our guilt and to subject ourselves to the punishment that Jesus metes out to us today. Our sin wants God, His Word, and His Spirit far removed from human life. So today we shall be granted our wish. Today, a day to be remembered for all time, our sin has tortured and crucified the Son of God. Sin kills the Son of God made man.

But more significantly, God allows our sin to kill His innocent Son Jesus in order that He might respond to it. Christ will respond by taking our sin and its punishment into death. He will conquer the one and redeem the other for our salvation. Sin is irrational and malicious. Christ will allow it to have one last go at Him on the Cross. There, He will slay it. Christ alone can withstand its attack whilst remaining obedient to God to reveal His truth and righteousness. St. Paul reminds us that, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us (Titus 3. 5), and, by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2. 8-9). Or as Article XI of the 39 Articles reads, We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Jesus Christ’s work alone can endure the worst that sin can do to Man. Jesus Christ alone can endure the pain while revealing also that God’s power, wisdom, and love are overcoming it.

So, we must come to the Cross today as those whose sin kills God’s Will and Way in Jesus Christ. He has said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (St. Luke ix. 23) He tells us that if we have a mind to come His way, we must renounce ourselves. (St. Matthew xvi. 24) Jesus intends for us to find God in Him. His light and love will offer us a path of spiritual death to all but His Father’s will in our souls. Jesus opens up those chilly horizons beyond death, when we shall be stripped of achievements, hobbies, comforts, and possessions, and left with nothing to live upon but love of God and man. (Farrer: Lord I Believe; Cowley, p. 52) 
        
Few men have ever taken Jesus seriously. Redemption and salvation, even for Christians, seem part-time jobs with occupational hazards. And yet Christ insists that Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul, or be cast away? (St. Luke ix. 24,25) Jesus asks us to see that our determination to put the happiness of our temporal lives before the call of Heavenly Joy results in our crucifixion of Him and risks damnation.
Our sin tries to eliminate God from the world. It has its reward. (St. Matthew vi. 2) But God’s Word made flesh will not allow our sin, though it tortures and kills Him, to make His suffering and death final. We may make Jesus Christ our enemy, but He forever remains true to God the Father’s desire for our salvation as our friend. He obeys God even to the point of death on the Cross because He is determined to reveal the Father’s love for us. In the face of the Devil’s temptations, He trusts God and refuses to honor and save Himself. His mission and calling are to us, overcome our sin, liberate us, and give us a chance to be one with God once again.  Thus, from beginning to end, Christ battles sin and refuses to lend it any power whatsoever. 
We love God, because he first loved us (1 John 4. 19), and in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. (1 John 4. 9)
 
Christ submits Himself to His own law for us, the law of sin and death, because He loves us and wants to save us. That he should be punished without just cause shouldn’t startle us. His death sentence in crucifixion resulted from irrational envy, resentment, and revenge from one quarter, with compromise, cowardice, and sloth from another. Yet still, He is determined to remain constant and resolute in His obedience to the Father, to reveal God’s power in loving suffering and death. Even more, Christ will reveal to us how suffering and death are the good tools of our salvation. Here, Christ continues to sacrifice Himself for us to do the Father’s will. Christ not only suffers the effects of sin but also identifies with the weakness and frailty of every human being who struggles to remain faithful to God in the face of all forces that oppose it. 

Today, Jesus Christ has put Himself in the place of every fallen man, both he who willingly sins against God and he who has been so wounded and abused that the very thought of God seems cold comfort. Enduring all the effects of sin, He will not fight sin with sin. Rather, He will suffer gladly, refuse to blaspheme and curse God, and trust in what comes next in His mission from the Father. On the Cross, the logic of sin must run its course and be brought to death. Because He will not sin, His righteousness will persist and win our salvation. His righteousness will conquer the sins we commit against Him, which put Him on the Cross. His righteousness will conquer the sins we have suffered from others that equally tempt us to live out our lives as victims in despair. No one is left behind. Nothing can stop Christ from answering sin with righteous forgiveness that makes death into new life.

Because Jesus Christ conquers our sin today on the Cross of His Love, we have reason to hope. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. (St. Luke xxiii. 24) Christ dies for the wicked who sin willfully and whose hearts are still hardened. Today, shalt thou be with me in Paradise. (St. Luke xxiii, 43) Christ dies also for those who find him in the last gasp of life and repent, like the good thief. Woman, behold thy son. And to his disciple, behold thy mother. (St. John xix. 26,27) Christ dies for the faithful who have never abandoned him, but whose faith cannot yet make sense of His unjust and unearned death or His loving sacrifice. The Blessed Virgin and St. John can love one another while they wait in hope for Him to unfold more of the great mystery of Godliness. My God, My God, why hast thou forsake me? (St. Mark xvi. 34) Christ dies for those who have approached the precipice of despair, He feels their agony but overcomes their temptation. I thirst. (St. John xix. 28) Hungering and thirsting after righteousness, God will quench His thirst for our salvation. No matter what battles we face, through Jesus, inwardly and spiritually, we must cleave to the one whose love saves us. It is finished. (John xix. 30) The ransom for sinners is paid in full, justice is served, and His redemptive work is complete. Satan is left powerless. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. (St. Luke xxiii. 46) Christ returns Himself as a living sacrifice to God. The Second Adam, sheltering us in His heart of hearts, returns us to God, inviting us to find in Him the way of return, through His perfect obedience, to the Father.
 
For as long as we live, we can go to the Cross of Jesus Christ and find His victory over our sins. For as long as we live, we can go to the Cross of Jesus Christ, repent, believe, and accept the invitation to participate in His death. His death is the gateway into new life. If we go to His Cross today, let us consider denying ourselves and taking up our crosses, blended with His, so that we might journey through Him home to Heaven.
Amen.
©wjsmartin

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He riseth up from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself.
(St. John xiii. 4)

Tonight, you and I are invited to the Last Supper of Christ. With the Apostles, we move into a realm that is fraught with fear and trembling, not grasping the meaning of it all or what will come tomorrow on Good Friday. The Apostles have been following Jesus for some three years, and they have experienced the hand of God extended to them and others through the life of their Master. There was so much to be thankful for, many miracles, much useful teaching, and more that man could ponder. But tonight, we sense that it all must come to an end. With the Apostles, we fear the premature suffering and death of the Master.

And yet, against our fears, before the agony in the garden, the torture, and the unjust death, Christ offers God’s goodness to us. Christ doesn’t sit down to explain what will transpire, or how and why He must die. Strangely enough, He leaves that for the future. For now, He must impress His Apostles with some degree of goodness that they can remember and repeat. Christ is focused on God’s goodness. And goodness must even characterize Christ’s sacrifice, suffering, and death. Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. (St. John xvii. 1) 

Tonight, the goodness that Jesus offers to us is found in the Last Supper. It is the Feast of Passover. The Passover celebrates God’s passing over the homes of the Jews in Egypt to spare them from the last plague that He visited upon the Egyptians. The Passover celebrates how God enabled the Jews to pass over from Egypt to the Promised Land. Tonight, Christ prepares us for how God the Father formulates a new kind of Passover. Tonight, Christ prepares us to accept that He alone is the true Passover, God in the flesh who passes over us and takes upon Himself the hard task of defeating sin and death to carry us over into new life.

So tonight, Christ gives us two forms of future goodness that will ensure our passing over into the good work of Good Friday. The Apostles didn’t understand it then. Christ was laying the groundwork for what they would remember and understand later. The first form is the Holy Communion, and the second is the call to servanthood.

St. Paul reminds us that The Lord’s Supper, The Eucharist, or the Holy Communion was instituted on the night in which He was betrayed. (1 Cor. xi. 23) Tonight is the night on which Christ was betrayed. In the midst of this evil, Christ promises to be with His friends in the future. His promise will be stronger than all Man’s efforts to impede the salvation that He brings into the world. His promise will be even stronger than His bodily Resurrection on Easter Day, which was necessary but temporary. So, St. Paul tells us that Christ

took bread; and when He had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my Body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do in remembrance of me. (ibid, 24,25)

The goodness that Christ will bring to us is threatened tonight by betrayal and tomorrow by cowardice, malice, vengeance, and death. But tonight, Christ gives us strength in a form that will enable us to fight off all these potential sins. The new Passover is being established by Christ in His body and through His blood. St. Eusebius of Caesaria tells us that:
Since the body he had assumed was about to be taken away from their bodily sight, and was about to be carried to the stars, it was necessary that, on the day of His last supper, He should consecrate for us the sacrament of His body and blood, so that what, as a price, was offered once should, through a mystery, be worshipped unceasingly.

Christ prepares His Apostles then and us now for the mystery of our participation in the goodness of His redemption. We are invited to believe that bread and wine can become His body and blood for us. We are invited to believe that this special meal of earthly elements will become our share of spiritual nutriment at His Divine Table. Christ the God/Man will return to the Father. Christ the Logos will return to us through the Holy Ghost, as the Word to be made flesh in us, Sacramentally, until the end of the ages.

What Jesus did and said, He offered as a friend. 

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. (St. John xv. 14, 15) 
 
Friends, Do this in memory of me. (idem) Bread is broken and wine is outpoured. On Good Friday, a Body will be broken, and Blood will flow. Friends, remember this. The two acts will not be divided in the end. Jesus Christ is man–body, soul, and spirit. He is also God, the Logos. The Man and God are one for us. Bread and Wine will be Body and Blood as one for us.

Tonight, the Body and Blood –soon to be broken and letted, are offered to the future memory, understanding, and will of His followers. Tonight, also, the Body and Blood stoop down to wash and to cleanse the dirty feet of His disciples. The Body and Blood of Christ minister to us, feed us, heal us, and restore us. Today, He is the servant who feeds with bread and wine, and cleanses with water. Tomorrow, He will wash us in the Blood of His dying Body. Both will be one. Tonight is tender and tame. Tomorrow will be callous and cruel. Christ considers both to be equally good and necessary.

But there is more that we should see and grasp before we move from the Last Supper to Good Friday. What Jesus does is who He is, the will of the Father in human flesh. Who Jesus is, is what He intends we should become. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet…These things I command you, that ye love one another. (St. John xiii. 14, xv. 17) The suffering servant will give us bread and wine so that His Body and Blood, His nature, might be assimilated to ours. The suffering servant will wash the dirty feet of our souls so that we too might repent, believe, and offer ourselves to all others. To be nourished for servanthood will be perfected in the sacrifice He makes for us on Good Friday.

Tonight, we find ourselves the unwitting recipients of God’s goodness in Jesus Christ. Jesus does what he does, and we have no part of him if He does it not. Jesus comes to wash our feet, and, with Peter, we ignorantly resist. Lord, thou shalt never wash my feet. (St. John xiii. 8) Our instinct is to refuse to allow God in Jesus Christ to stoop down to feed and cleanse us. We prefer a God who does not stoop down because of our pride. We’d rather He not notice our sins and our fallen condition. We pretend that we don’t want Him to stoop down and bother Himself with our filth. We really prefer not to think of our filth. We’d rather He pass over and pass by our sins. We’d rather He forget.

But in Jesus Christ, nothing must be forgotten. Friends, do this in remembrance of me. Maundy Thursday is one day. There will be more to remember on Good Friday.  With Father Jean Mouroux, we must begin to realize that Christ must endure our sin and suffer our punishment of Him in death to overcome it.  Out of a means of destruction Christ made the very means of life; of a punishment the means of healing; of an annihilation the means to a resurrection. (The Meaning of Man, p. 88) In response to our sin, Christ still loves us and wants us for His Kingdom. Christ wants us to remember His measureless love, insistent love, persistent love, and love in search of His friends from the Cross. The Cross must define the Sacrament of Maundy Thursday.  

If the Sacrament instituted tonight is to have any effect, we must follow Christ, the suffering servant, to the Cross. Bread and wine will remain bread and wine until we embrace His Body as the place of our healing through the Blood He sheds for our salvation. From the Cross of His love, God’s suffering servant stoops down to cleanse and heal us. St. Paul tells us that for as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come again. (ibid, 26) Christ’s death is the gateway to eternal life. We must not only remember it but also embrace its all-effectual power to save us. The Body broken and the Blood outpoured will be with us for as long as we live. Our calling must allow His brokenness and bloodletting to heal, repair, and redeem us. In Christ’s death, through the Holy Eucharist, we can die to sin and come alive to righteousness. The Holy Eucharist must join our hearts to His in death and beyond.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. (1 Cor. v. 7)
Amen.
©wjsmartin