Over the next three days we are in the midst of the great
Mysteries of our faith. Mystery not in
the sense of something to find out like a detective using deductive logic, Nor
even mystery as something that can’t be understood intellectually, but mystery
in the sense of something mystical, something that needs our contemplation,
something that in our contemplation of it transforms us and the world. Or in other words we here in this three day liturgy
come face to face with our salvation. We
should be prepared to not be the same, we should prepare to die and rise again,
to new life.
What are these mysteries: Tonight we recall the mystery of
the Eucharist. On the night before he was betrayed, Jesus takes the Passover meal and transforms
it. We celebrate the Passover, and like
the Hebrews, being freed from Egypt we eat the lamb and in bread and wine. We also recall the mystery of transformation,
as we pass through darkness; we come to touch something of how the disciples
were thrown into confusion on that night.
God offer’s himself in Jesus Christ to us and the world by becoming human
and ultimately undergoing suffering and death on the Cross; we who are Christ’s
have the heavenly food that is Christ himself, we are never far from that
night, the joy, the confusion and the life of Christ. Freedom can be scary, freedom can mean dying
to a way of life that is familiar and safe.
Thus, we will sit and contemplate the mystery of the cross
and the suffering of Christ, the passion.
In this we are not only there with the woman and apostle at the Cross
distraught and Christ death, but we celebrate that through the Cross and
Christ’s suffering God enters into and transforms suffering. Because of this mystery we freed from Sin and
Death. Here there is a bit of a puzzle,
we face something odd, for it is not only that there was a dark time, but God
overcame it, Rather God in Jesus Christ enters death, actually dies. And not only dies, but dies as a criminal, a
criminal, a terrorist, King of the Jews, that is someone who threatened the
imperial rule over Palestine. God in
Jesus Christ becomes the outcast. On the Cross God in Jesus Christ takes upon
himself all the oppression, the suffering, injustice and sin of the World. But even as we contemplate this mystery we
are not left with death, for The Cross has meaning only if Jesus was raised
from the dead. One man 2000 years ago in
a backwater of the Roman Empire being crucified, makes no difference; many other
Jews of Jesus’ age were so crucified.
The cross becomes meaning full in that God acted; God chose the weak and
despised things of this world as the means of our transformation and
salvation. The Resurrection oddly enough
tells us that God in Jesus Christ actually suffered, and retains the marks of
his suffering. God doesn’t come ultimately with Shock and Awe (as he did in
Egypt) bringing death, but undergoes death to free from death. And so an implement of execution and torture
becomes an object of beauty and contemplation, and we honor the Cross, we bow
to what God has done in that one moment, for in the Cross there is life already
even in death.
And then we come to our Passover in the Easter vigil, as we
and Christ Passover from death to life, to True life, Resurrected life. Yet in Resurrection we never leave the Cross or
the works of God throughout history that Jesus fulfilled on the Cross. The Resurrection
only has meaning in the cross and death of Jesus. The resurrection shows us that the way of the
cross is the path to transformation, the dying does lead to life, that God can
transform our suffering. God has indeed
begun the transformation of the world.
In the Easter Vigil we know that though it may often look like evil and
death and injustice still reign, God is transforming the whole cosmos, and we
who have come to believe in the Cross and Christ Jesus Raised from the dead participate
in that transformation. In our contemplation of Christ passing from death into
life, we find our own path as we die to ourselves and take up our cross that we
may continually find Resurrection. There
is then a responsibility in all this contemplation, for we become the locus of
God’s saving transforming work in this world.
We are the ones who know the mystery and have experienced it and we are
to be open to God’s ongoing transforming work in the world. The world should be different because we who
contemplate and celebrate these mysteries also live out these mysteries in the
world in our daily lives by the power of the Spirit. We who have gone through the waters of
baptism and died and been raised to life in the waters of Baptism, are to live
into this new life, growing ever more into the age that is to come.
Yet this too is a mystery for we don’t always live this way,
we still struggle with these mysteries, we still need to come back to this
moment when God beat down death and injustice by suffering injustice and death.
Ultimately this mystery is one of Love, a costly love, a love
we are called to participate in a love we are to share with each other and the
world. This Love is shown in service, in
washing of the feet. Washing the feet is
a symbol of this way of the cross and of practicing resurrection. In this act of having our feet washed and
washing each other’s feet we come to know in our bodies the love of God, for ourselves
and for all. We symbolically show God’s
love to each other in an act that isn’t comfortable, and which is awkward. Peter found it uncomfortable and awkward. We do this that we may learn what it means to
be like Christ in the world. In foot washing
we enter into the mystery of the Three Days, so that we may carry this mystery
with us into the world in service to Christ and the world. We let our feet be washed and wash other’s
feet, so that we may remember in our bodies the Love of God and the way of the
Cross. The servant is not greater than
the master; we take up towel with Christ, and walk to Calvary and are raised
again to new life. So, come and symbolically
enter into the way of God’s transformation, and learn to be a servant like Christ
in your body. Come and feel the love of God in your body.
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