Today in the Church calendar is the feast day of St Mark the Evangelist, by whom is meant the author of the Gospel of Mark. The first difficulty is that we aren’t completely sure who that was. The Gospel itself is essentially anonymous, with both the author and the intended audience left unidentified within the received text. A tradition that was strongly developed very early in the history of the Church is that the Gospel was composed by a Mark who was a close associate of the apostle Peter and who wrote down what Peter taught him about what Jesus said and did.
The beauty of Easter is that we celebrate it for a very long time and intensely. First we have the Octave, which is an eight day celebration of this great event in the history of creation with the same solemnity as the resurrection Sunday itself, followed by at least six weeks(42 days to be precise) of what we call Eastertide to allow the message sink. The gospel readings during this period are passages that deal with one or the other account of the appearances of the risen Lord
Today’s passage majors on Thomas, popularly known as the doubter but was he really? Humanity has a way of putting labels on people based on perceived negatives at the expense of the numerous positive or good things the same individuals may have done. If we follow scriptures closely, slightly before Jesus went to Bethany to raise Lazarus, shortly after the Jews attempted to kill him by stoning and the disciples were cautioning him about it, it is Thomas who is quoted declaring… “Let us also go that we may die with him” (John 11:16). That right there is courage even in the face of death but instead of Thomas being called the ‘courageous one’, all we seem to remember is the doubt. Thomas is portrayed as a person who operated from the mind or experiential knowledge level and therefore had to see in order to believe. Some preachers make Thomas sound like he wanted to believe but his mind or intellect, or call it want of empirical knowledge, kept him from following his heart in what it desired.
The sermon, in my opinion, is really meant as a time to explore the Gospel. And we generally think of the Gospel as the books known as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Well, today I intend to talk only about the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, but I don’t intend to even mention Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John…
As Lent progresses we are called to turn our thinking from repentance, our work at the start of Lent, to focus on Jerusalem – specifically on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Today’s scripture readings are clearly part of that shift.
The shift is not just a call to think literally about the city of Jerusalem and the pending crucifixion. Embedded within the shift is a call to change the way we think about God.
Today’s Gospel reading starts halfway through a conversation Jesus has been having with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to visit him at night. Nicodemus has been struggling with what Jesus has been saying about the need to be born again from above in order to enter the kingdom of God. Nicodemus knows that Jesus has come from God, and so he perseveres.
Whatever difficulty Nicodemus might have had with understanding Jesus, there was at least one thing that Jesus said that left an impression on him. Later, when a group of chief priests and Pharisees are trying to have Jesus arrested and have just cursed a crowd of people for believing in him, Nicodemus reminds them that their Law requires that they give everyone a hearing before judging them. Perhaps Nicodemus hoped that Jesus would have the same effect on them as he had on Nicodemus, if only they would listen to him.
Some passages in the Gospels all but preach themselves… today’s passage from Mark is not one of those passages… Some passages grab us with inspiring prose… and also, today’s passage is not one of those… I find this passage from Mark pedestrian at best. And as I looked around the internet at other people’s sermons for today, I discovered that I’m not alone. For many this Gospel passage seems to sit somewhere between dull and annoying.
Today in the Church calendar is the feast day of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle. Last Thursday was the feast day of the Confession of St Peter the Apostle. What with one being designated the apostle to the Gentiles and the other the apostle to the Jews, the week in between has been dedicated to an intensification of prayer for Christian unity.
The story of Paul’s conversion is very prominent in the New Testament. The story itself is told three times in various ways in the Acts of the Apostles, the last of which telling we heard this morning. We also heard Paul allude to it in his letter to the Galatians, as he does in several of his other letters.
The Gospel of John has no shepherds directed by angels nor magi guided by a star. There is no baby born to bewildered parents. Instead, we are given what seems closer to a God’s eye view of the Christmas story. The eternal Word of God, the One through whom all things were made and by whom all things are sustained, came into the world, becoming flesh and blood and living among us, in the form of Jesus Christ. The details of how it all came about seem not to matter much to John the Evangelist, the mystic who seems more interested in what it all means.
Today a few things come together that may not seem to have much in common. We are in the Octave of Christmas. And today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which is part of Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth. It is also, as chance would have it, the twentieth anniversary of my Monastic Profession in the Order of the Holy Cross.
Well – happy new year! That big event coming up where all the world watches a lighted globe drop atop a building at Times Square and fireworks at the V&A waterfront, or in various places (and, giving my ancestors their due) celebrates Hogmanay, is all an imposter. In the Church Year – the one that matters – the first Sunday of Advent is the beginning of a new year, the true new year… The church has no grand title for the year of our Lord 2024. It’s just humble year B… but a new year nonetheless…
Now if we go hang about the Whale Coast Mall, everything will assure us that this season is all about getting ready for Christmas, the coming of Jesus into the world. I’m not sure our retailing brothers and sisters are all that clear about Jesus’ role in the season. But it is beautiful and comforting to have decorations and Christmas Trees strewn about, so I’m all for it. This world could use a little comfort.
