18th March 2008HOLY TUESDAY
Fr Julian Browning
Introductory Meditation
A liturgy of shadows and darkness will never be a popular service. Light is what modern Christian services keep going on about: let's live in the light, in certainty, knowing everything, nothing need be hidden any more, no more shadows. An attractive prospect, but without darkness there can be no light
We recall the Passion, the suffering, of Jesus. What he was experiencing was the suffering of his world, and what happened in his world is not much different from what happens in our world.
The events of Holy Week are all about the shadows we live in, and
the shadows we cast. Betrayal, Desertion, Trial, Denial, Rejection, the
Cross, and Death. It sounds too gloomy for words, but if Christianity
is to be a living religion, and religion in which we can live, then it
must take account of the world we live in, and what happens in it. We
recall the Passion, the suffering, of Jesus. What he was experiencing
was the suffering of his world, and what happened in his world is not
much different from what happens in our world. We might be more
sophisticated, but we still cast shadows. We all have a shadow self,
which we are good at hiding from others and from ourselves. We live in
a world in which many suffer, and in which we cause suffering.
Christianity doesn't change that. If anything, Christians might find
the world a more painful place, because in our religion the suffering
of others is something we share in, as much as we share in the joy and
wonder of life.
How we wish we could make sense of it all. The trouble with shadows is
that they keep moving, changing in intensity, and we can't see what's
going on. This is one of the features of Holy Week each year, our
helplessness, our lostness, our lack of light. We are forced to be the
bystanders, the ones who watch from a safe distance, until we reach
what Edwin Muir describes in our final poem, as “the day they
killed the Son of God”. But that raised a question for us. If we
are at a safe distance, watching in silence and resentment, how can we
take up our cross and follow him?
The fact is that events overtake us this week. We're never ready. We're
always shocked. It isn't faith that keeps us going, so much as
curiosity, just to see it through. What is our response this year to
the events of Holy Week? This service is our response. We try to banish
the shadows, by looking at Holy Week in the light of our tradition. We
take refuge in the best of our scriptures, our music, our poetry, our
prayers, our hymns. Music and words help to bring order out of chaos,
they delineate the shadow world for us, they make some sense out of our
aloneness, our sense of separation from God and what is going on.
Contrary to what we sometimes think, we have a part in God's story.
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.