Well, he’s done it – for the first time since 1936, and in time for Evensong! And I’m here, I’m really here. Taking the long view, it’s taken since 1997 when I first thought God might be calling me into ordained ministry. More recently, it’s taken interviews, exams, essays, months of thought, preparation, and planning and a wonderful service in St Paul’s just over a week ago. And here I am, with a few ‘essentials’ – piles of books, a laptop, cushions and pictures for the Belfry Room and a very shiny new mobile phone which I’m just learning how to use. Oh – and the largest bunch of keys I’ve ever had in my life! It doesn’t seem possible to manage with any less!
Without for one moment casting myself in the role of apostle, I can’t help noticing that the Gospel passage for this evening (Mark 6: 7 – 29) starts with the sending out of the twelve apostles. Earlier in the Gospel we’re told Jesus called his first disciples by the Sea of Galilee. Then we hear how he appointed twelve to be apostles. Now they’re sent out on their first mission. No mobile phones for them of course, and no books to study; instead they had the companionship of Jesus himself! But not even the simplest of home comforts. They were to rely on the hospitality of people in the villages as they travelled through – probably in the lower Galilean countryside in the Valley of Jezreel where towns, villages and hamlets were close to one another. If people didn’t welcome them and listen to their message, they were to shake the dust off their feet, and move on.
You have welcomed me, very kindly with a party after church on Sunday, and another on Monday and another on Tuesday…..So – on balance – I’m staying!
So, the twelve are sent out on their first assignment – but what are they to do?
They’re sent out to be itinerant preachers and healers. This seems rather radical to us, but they wouldn’t have been unique in their time; there were other philosophical teachers and healers who travelled about in this way. They’re to continue to proclaim the message of repentance and forgiveness of sin and the good news of the kingdom of God which has been there right from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. First John the Baptist and then Jesus preach in this way. Now it’s the turn of Jesus’ disciples to take the message on.
So what was their message?
At first sight the Gospel passage gives us no help at all with this. The narrative suddenly shifts to an earlier point in time and the story of the death of John the Baptist. It feels like a complete disjunction. But this story has been included here in order to bring into focus one of the main themes of Mark’s Gospel, which is to answer the question ‘Who is Jesus?’
King Herod, we’re told, was perplexed by John. He respected him as a holy and righteous man; he liked to listen to him despite his uncompromising views on Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. It’s out of weakness and a desire not to lose face that he’s depicted as giving in to Herodias’ scheming and ordering John’s execution. And now Herod is perplexed by Jesus. Like everyone else he’s heard the rumours and the stories about him and his band of followers. Has John been raised from the dead? Has Elijah, who never died, but was swept up to heaven, now returned? Or is this a new prophet? Whatever this is, it’s something significant.
For the writer of Mark’s Gospel, John’s message foreshadows Jesus’ message and John’s death foreshadows Jesus’ death; the perplexed Herod foreshadows the vacillating Pilate. The reference to John’s burial by his disciples also looks forwards, with a degree of irony, to the burial of Christ, not by his disciples, because they had fled, but by Joseph of Arimathea.
So, as I said, we’re not told exactly what the disciples said on their first preaching assignment. They didn’t at this point know what was going to happen to Jesus. They didn’t have our advantage of hindsight.
But in the light of the whole story of Jesus life, death, and resurrection, the writer of the Gospel is in no doubt at all about what the message is for his hearers or readers, for he brings these early chapters to a climax as Jesus asks his disciples ‘Who do people say that I am?’ They reply that some say he’s John the Baptist, others Elijah and still others one of the prophets. ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Jesus persists, to which Peter answers. ‘You are the Messiah’, and in Luke’s version of the story, he adds ‘the son of the living God.’
Last Wednesday we celebrated the Feast of Thomas, the disciple who doubted the resurrection until he was able to see and touch the wounds of Jesus. Thomas is an encouragement to all of us who face doubt, who find ourselves asking the same questions about Jesus. Who is He? What is the meaning of His extraordinary life and death? Thomas’ reaction, when he finally believes, is perhaps even stronger than Peter’s. One imagines him falling to his knees at Jesus feet as he says ‘My Lord, and my God!’
So what is it about Jesus which prompts such confessions of faith? Why do we, like the disciples, recognise His divinity? The Gospels show Jesus healing and telling wonderful stories, confounding the Pharisees and demonstrating His power over the natural world. We catch glimpses of His strange and magnetic personality, and we see its effects on those who come into contact with Him. Jesus’ first disciples were only able truly to grasp His divinity by encounter with Him, and in the light of his death and resurrection. Paul puts it like this. Jesus: “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;……He is the head of the body, the church; ….in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things….” (Cols 1: 15f) Like Paul, we don’t have the privilege of literally living alongside Christ, but we still encounter Him as our risen Lord through the sacraments, the Scriptures and prayer. Or he may simply come to us, make Himself known in ways which perhaps only we can understand. Listen to this poem which speaks of one person’s experience of Christ:
The Uninvited Guest
He seems to come in like the leaves –
Blown in at the open window,
And always on a light and airy day.
Never in stormy weather.
And always, I’ve noticed, at an inconvenient time –
Right in the middle of the washing.
He looks at me and shows me these holes in his hands.
And, well, I can see them in his feet.
‘Not again,’ I say.
‘Please don’t stand there bleeding
All over the kitchen floor.’
Sometimes he comes softly, sadly,
At night – close by the side of my bed –
Sometimes I latch the door –
But he never goes away. Thelma Laycock
Mark’s message is centred on the identity of Jesus, and that was the message the twelve were sent out to preach on their first assignment. I expect they got better at it with experience. And that will be my message too – that Christ the risen Lord is with us.
‘My Lord, and my God!’
Amen.