Author: Douglas Knight

Easter Sunday
Fear is natural, and so is grief at the death of another (Jesus, remember, shed tears for the death of a friend). Don’t attempt to avoid it or deny its seriousness. On the contrary, keep it in view; remind yourself of it. When the tradition of the Church proposes that you think daily about death and prepare for it, it isn’t being morbid but realistic: get used to it and learn to live with the fear. And meanwhile – Shakespeare was being entirely Christian in this respect – get used to loving and valuing things and persons irrespective of the fact that they won’t be there for ever. Love them now, and what you would want to do for them, do now. ‘Night is coming when no-one can work’, says Jesus. (John 9.4)

So what does it mean to say that, despite all this, death is ‘defeated’? When death happens and growing stops, there are no more plans, no more hope of control: for the believer, there is only God left. Just as at the very beginning of creation, there is God, and there is the possibility that God has brought into being by his loving will. When death has done all it can do, God remains untouched and his will is the loving and generating will that it eternally is. When we look at death, we look at something that can destroy anything in our universe – but not God, its maker and redeemer. And if we accept that we shall die and all our hopes and schemes fall into the dark, we do so knowing that God is unchanged. So to die is to fall into the hands of the living God.

Archbishop Rowan Williams Easter Day sermon

Bishops, would you kindly follow your Archbishop in getting your Easter Sunday sermons out on Easter Sunday through your own websites? It makes all the difference

Easter Saturday
The wood of the cross – that is the world. The wood is dead now, but look again and see this wood sprouting shoots and bursting into life again. That is what you see on the mosiac on the north transept side of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. There is Christ on the cross, but the cross is supported by him, as though strapped to his back like an easel. He is carrying this world on his back, and the dead wood of the cross has started to push out buds and become a tree.

The cross is all the antagonism and aggression we direct at one another. The cross is this world of cutting-off, letting-go and letting-die, in miniature. And it is the end, refusal and overcoming of this world of letting-go. Christ has taken all our cutting him-and- one-another-off, and absorbed it; he has refused to cut us off, or to let us go or in any way to reciprocate. He took what we gave, without limit, until we had for our part, cut him off entirely. We cut him off, but he did not cut us off. But what we gave him, he took, without giving back, and so he took it away from us. He took what we meted out, and held on, to us. We refused him our humanity, stripping him of every human relationship; all humanity stripped him and removed itself from him. But even our entire act of removing from him the sum of our ‘humanity’ did not result in any diminution of his divinity, that is, of the Father’s determination that this was his Son, and that this Son was us and is us. The sum of our humanity turned out not to conceal any divinity; divinity turned out not to be the sum of our humanity. When we lump all humanity together, all our history, achievement and civilisation, it turns out that divinity is entirely transcendent of it. Divinity is his, not ours, and so life is his to give, and not ours to withhold.

All our refusal of for him, and of one another, and all our effort in cutting him off, and in cutting one another off, proves unable to prevent his divinity from holding us and bringing us back to life. From him life seeps into us. The invincible unity and communion of the Holy Spirit that secures Christ from us and exalts him, will also raise us. Though we put him in a hole in the ground, and the earth closed over him, neither we nor the earth could hold him there. We are unable to prevent this divinity, the life of God, which to us is resurrection, from pulling him out of our grasp and exalting him. We cannot prevent God from exalting this human, and we cannot prevent God from deciding that in Christ all our humanity is safe and secure. For all our cutting ourselves off, from him, from one another, none of us is lost. We are not able to make our refusal stick or to carry our own destruction through. However I cut you off, Christ will raise you to me again, until at last I am ready for you. In him and from him the whole human race will sprout and grow again. The truth of this dead wood is its future as this tree. Joined to him we are this living tree, for on Christ’s back all humanity and all creation is bound to life, and I am bound for you and you are bound for me.

Today, according to the Lectionary, our readings are from Isaiah 49 – ‘in the shadow of his hand he hid me’, and I Corinthians 1 ‘The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’, and John 12. ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.’

‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ John 12.20-36

God has dropped a single seed, into the earth. Christ is this seed. Will he grow, will he survive, will he fruit? He lets go and gives himself away to us. The kingdom of God is like a farmer who sowed, and who does not know whether he will see any crop (Mark 4.). He hands himself over to us, entirely into our hands. The Lord God has taken a punt with us, has risked his own name on us. He does not want us unless we are ready to be wanted, and are ready to love.

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. This recklessness is our lot now. The Son of God is content to be the Son in the complete disguise – clothed in our creatureliness, our humanity and materiality. This concealment is what the passion of Christ is.

Holy Week 2 Tuesday

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12. 1-11

This anointing is the form Mary’s praying takes. Mary is praying without making any requests. She simply presents herself to the Lord, without word. In the same way we do not know what to say, but the Spirit prays for us from within us. She washes his feet and anoints them with this nard so the perfume fills the house. ‘Your prayer as been heard’, Jesus says on another occasion. The perfume is the prayers of the saints which rise up from the worship of the Church.

The whole earth is full of his glory. God has made the world, but his glory is hidden in it. But it is not obvious to us that this place is full of the glory of God. Creation waits for its redemption, and as long as it does so it groans. It is our job to lead this lament, and to say the world is not comfortable or settled, but we look forward to the time when this glory fills the house.

Holy Week 1 Monday

On Palm Sunday morning we met on the Kingsland High Road with St Paul’s West Hackney, and Hackney Baptist Church and processed back along Church Street the mile to St Mary’s singing

All glory, laud and honour
to thee Redeemer King
To whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

and

Ride on! Ride on Majesty!

and

There is a green Hill far away

and

Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burning…

We got through the whole lot twice, in rain, in good voice the whole way. The C of E – we have got the best songs.

That was Palm Sunday. Now on to Holy Week and our onward trek through the liturgical year.

During this period of Holy and Great Lent, our Church calls us to repentance. Doubtless, as contemporary man hears this invitation to repentance, he does not feel comfortable, because he has accustomed himself to a certain way of life, and does not wish to question his own rectitude. Calling one’s own rectitude into question produces feelings of insecurity, because the ideological structure within which you have sure and certain refuge is clearly risked.

The one who constantly repents, ever progresses, ever rejoices through new ascents, finds constant satisfaction in deeper understandings of all things. Through the transformation of mentality and understanding, the one who repents better understands the whole world, becomes wiser, more judicious, more discreet, nobler and a true friend of Christ. Therefore, the preaching of repentance should be favorably received by wise persons who are able to appreciate any improvement that comes from the renewal of the human person through repentance.

Therefore, brothers and sisters and beloved children in the Lord, let us accept the invitation of our Church to repentance. Let us who have fallen short through sin cleanse ourselves from sin through confession. Let us constantly examine our own presuppositions, so our judgments and thoughts may be godly and pure, just and true.

Holy and Great Lent 2008

BARTHOLOMEW of Constantinople
The fervent intercessor for you all before God

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Holy Week Lectures(PDF)

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Rowan Williams delivers a series of lectures after Evensong at Westminster Abbey

Monday 17th March Faith and Science
Tuesday 18th March Faith and Politics
Wednesday 19th March Faith and History

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Holy Week seems a good time to follow the Lectionary rather than to continue the thematic approach. I look forward to the day when our bishops demonstrate how to preach from the bible readings set by the Lectionary. My On the Way to Easter series on Resources for Christian Theology is my latest attempt. I am going to talk about preaching, lectionary and eucharist at Westminster Abbey’s Cheneygates Work-in-Progress seminar on April 24 at 12.30 (though the Abbey website gives no sign).

St Francis Episcopal Church San Jose offers an introduction to Lent and Easter. Did you know that ‘Maundy’ Thursday comes from mandatum novum, ‘a new commandment’ and Good Friday was originally ‘God’s Friday’? You can learn more about Lent, Easter and the lectionary from the excellent Ken Collins and from Textweek.