Lord of all truth, as we open our hearts to your word, we pray that you will lead us into a deeper knowledge of the truth which comes from God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
To-day is Passion Sunday, the beginning of the two weeks leading up to Easter when our attention is focussed on the sufferings of Christ, leading to his death and through death to glorious life-giving resurrection. But Passiontide is not just a recollection of these past events, however solemnly we may call them to mind, re-enacting them in our music and in our liturgies. Paul says: I want to know the power of his resurrection. I want to enter into his sufferings. I want to know Christ. I want to be found in him. In our gospel reading, Mary has found her own way to say the same thing, without words, as her love prompts her to pour out her costly devotion at Jesus’ feet.
There was a glimmer of all this in our Old Testament reading. Isaiah speaks of rivers in the desert, and in the wilderness waters and a way. The wilderness was a frightening place, symbolic of chaos, of uncreation, of all that was most resistant to God’s saving power. I wonder how many of us experience the context of our lives as a wilderness – a chaotic, stressful, dangerous environment with no path to follow. Yet it is in just such an inhospitable environment that God has promised to do something completely new, breaking out in the desert of our lives to bring water, refreshment, life. We have become so familiar with the events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection that we risk losing the wonder that was experienced by the first disciples. Perhaps this morning, in the company of Paul and Mary, we can rediscover something of that wonder, and make it our own.
Let us look first at what Paul has to say. As the end of the tax year approaches, we all have to do our sums for the Inland Revenue. Paul has been conducting just such a review of his spiritual assets. He piles them all up – a good Jew by birth, a devoted teacher and observer of the law, a zealous hero of the struggle to defend his traditional Jewish faith against the Christian heresy – but then he tosses all these apparent assets into the rubbish bin. What he has discovered is first that being at peace with God is not something he can earn with all his brownie points. It’s a gift which comes from discovering that God loves him, not for any good he may have done, but simply for being the person he is, and then accepting that love with gratitude and joy.
That’s Paul’s starting point. That’s our starting point. But we all want to please the one who loves us, and this is what drives Paul on. He wants to respond to the love which has reached out and taken hold of him by sharing that love with others, through his writing and preaching of course, but much more importantly in the living out of his life. If the unconditional love which inspired Jesus took him into all kinds of trouble and danger, but through all that suffering and even death to the triumphant joy of the resurrection, then Paul, inspired by the same love that was in Christ Jesus his Lord, knows that pain and suffering, as well as joy and triumph, are likely to be his destiny too. But he is not discouraged. On the contrary he experiences the pain barrier like a marathon runner who has to keep going and get through it if he is to finish the race. I find Paul’s energy and commitment very daunting, but it’s his way of responding to the costly, unconditional love that took hold of him on the road to Damascus. It’s his way of experiencing the spirit of Christ at work in his life, his way of entering into Christ’s passion, his way of knowing Christ, not at arm’s length, still less through a telescope from 2,000 years away, but from the intense, immediate experience of Christ dwelling in him as he dwells in Christ.
But then, what of Mary, does she have the easier part? I don’t think so, just very different. She is acutely aware of the dangers which Jesus faces as he goes up to Jerusalem for the Passover. Probably some of the other disciples are still hoping that somehow it will turn out alright, but Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening intently to what he has been saying about his destiny, knows in her heart that he faces death. And she is devastated. She knows that he has power even over death. She has after all seen her brother Lazarus brought back to life. But she senses that he cannot or will not do that for himself. She may or may not be the same person of whom Luke reports a strikingly similar incident earlier in Jesus’ ministry. If she is, she may be deliberately re-enacting that gesture of heart-felt gratitude for her acceptance and forgiveness. In any case she must seize this last opportunity to show him just how much he is loved and will be missed. Whatever may have moved her, Jesus recognises in what she is doing an expression of wordless love which he accepts and values, and defends against Judas’ insensitive criticism of the cost. Of course we must give generously to care for the poor, but there is no conceivable trade-off against the cost of what we are moved to do for love’s sake for those who are dearest to us.
What a fascinating contrast. Paul responds to the love of God by an active commitment to pouring out his own life in the service of his Master. Mary responds by accepting her share of Jesus’ suffering, by being there for him, letting him know how much he is loved, giving him a token of her devotion that may perhaps do a little to sustain him through the days to come. John, the reflective disciple whom Jesus loved, will have understood what moved Mary, and what it cost her, and in his gospel he shows us that her response is just as much valued as the futile attempts of some others to be more active. As we prepare to gather at the foot of the Cross, there is nothing we can do except be there with him. Often that is all we can do for others when they are caught up in suffering. And noone should call that steady, loving presence an easy option.
For my part, I believe that both responses are equally valid for different people at different times. Jesus himself is perhaps the perfect model for both modes of response to his Father’s love. For the greater part of his life, he was just there, making himself useful to others, listening, sharing, being the child, the young carpenter, the good friend. Equally, when the call came to fulfil his destiny, he did not shrink from taking the initiative, doing what he had to do in obedience to the will of his loving Father. Perhaps that’s the balance we all need to find. Some of us may by nature be more Paul than Mary, others more Mary than Paul. All of us need to learn when to speak and when to be a quiet supporting presence, when to get up and do things for his sake, and when to just be there for someone.
I want to know Christ in the power of his resurrection, and in his suffering. As we gather around the Lord’s table to take the bread and the wine that are to us his Body and his Blood, we pray that we may come to know him more and more, and be found in him, being like Mary or doing like Paul, as he dwells in us and we in Him.