During Lent I returned to one of my best teachers, Rowan
Williams,[1]
and in particular his recent book, The
Sign and the Sacrifice, the Meaning of the Cross and Resurrection.[2] In the final chapter he lists five ways in
which the resurrection of Jesus has deep meaning for our 21st
century lives. My hope is to take one of these on each of the next five
Fridays, the first one today.
First, he says …if
Jesus is risen, there is a human destiny.
That is to say, there is a human worth and dignity, a purpose and an
identity way beyond that assumed by the state or the secular culture. The creator of our life proves to be also re-creator,
making all things new. Jesus is our sign
that the dehumanising tyrannies of our day are not God’s last word on any
person God has made. The human race may
have, and does have, a capacity for destructiveness and cruelty and for
reducing this world to chaos and pain – Jesus tells another narrative. In the lovely poetry of Gerard Manley
Hopkins: There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.[3]
And then, still struggling how to think, let alone write or
teach clearly, or sensibly about resurrection, I was sent, on the 50th
anniversary of his murder, this prophetic quote of Dr Martin Luther King. I think it is from one of his sermons: When our days become dreary with
low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a
thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this
universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is
able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright
tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends
toward justice.
The lectionary for these Sundays in Easter provides epistle
readings from the First Letter of John.
These are almost the last writings to make it into the canon of
Christian scripture. God is light, we read there, and in him is no darkness at all.[4] If we are walking in the darkness, says John,
we cannot claim to be in company with Jesus – we cannot be resurrection
people. But if we are walking in the
light of resurrection, as Jesus is, we are in company with all others doing the
same. This is the new humanity. We know who we are, and to whom we belong, in
life and in death.
Another teacher, this one long ago and I have mentioned him
before, was Dr Helmut Rex. As Dr Helmut
Rehbein, refugee pastor from Nazi Germany, he was received by the NZ church and
obliged to change his name to Rex to avoid abuse and discrimination. Dr Rex taught us Church History for 3
years. His health had been broken by
malnutrition and by Nazi abuse. A
brilliant scholar and a true disciple.
And one day he said in class (I am quoting from memory): In
prison, you know, it’s not very happy. I
was allowed a Bible, and that was good of course. But the main thing at that time was my trust in
resurrection. Jesus lives. Nazism cannot. That is God’s signal to us.
[1]
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, now Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge.
[2]
Westminster John Knox Press, 2017.
[3] G
M Hopkins: God’s Grandeur.
[4] I
John 1:5ff
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