This six-week long class will give you the opportunity to learn the ancient Greek alphabet and grammatical structure, read original texts, and study Scripture. Class will meet Monday and Thursday evenings, beginning June 25 and ending August 2, here at All Saints. Each session will last approximately one hour and will follow Mounce grammar text. Everyone is invited! Register for 12 sessions, only $110, by emailing Sean McDermott at mcd.seanedwards@gmail.com. Please register by June 18.

I want to begin today with a different perspective on the events that occurred in the Upper Room, the perspective of a non-Jew observing Jesus and his disciples in the Upper Room, though he is unaware that he is observing the Messiah.

Our protagonist’s name was Patricius, a young Roman, in his late teens and we join him in Jerusalem the evening before Christ was crucified. He was with his father, Septimius Patricius Cornelius of the Aventine – an extraordinarily successful merchant. He and his son moved from Rome to Caesarea Philippi to be close to some of their investments and for the boy’s practical education. They owned the largest vineyard in Galilee, a fleet of fishing boats and several herds of sheep. The boy was happy that they only had one more year and they would return to the Aventine in Rome and to his mother and grandparents and all his cousins who were growing up and marrying proper Roman girls.

Passover was big business for his father and he insisted on being in Jerusalem so that his son could observe the whole operation. As the sun was setting that day Patricius walked out to their patio. From that vantage point he could see the street in front of their villa all the way up to the Antonia Fortress. This was the street known as Straight. It was much wider than most streets and usually very busy with lots of commerce. But that evening everything had come to a standstill; all was silent and nearly abandoned. Jews from all over the world were behind closed doors with their families celebrating Passover.

Right next to his villa stood another and Patricius saw people gathering in the top floor of the building. The big open windows allowed him to see the room and most of the people. It was odd. They seemed to be all Jews and they were keeping Passover or something like Passover. From Patricius’ perspective, the host appeared angry, apparently about not having servants to perform courtesies like washing the guest’s feet because he, the host, began to wash everyone’s feet himself. Patricius smiled when he saw how that upset everyone. “Jews are very peculiar people,” he thought. The host took his place at the head of the table and passed around a cup of wine. He served the choice cut of the lamb – obviously to his favorite. But then, his favorite abruptly left. It was dark, but because of the full moon, Patricius watched him as he first walked and then ran off toward the Temple. He turned his attention back to the room. The host said his father had called him home, Patricius assumed, for some urgent family business. Powerful fathers were not to be crossed! The host promised when he arrived at his father’s villa he would send a subordinate back here to run things.

Patricius grew bored and went back into the villa and he soon fell asleep. Very early in the morning, before sunrise, he woke drenched in sweat and he went back to the patio to cool off. The room next door was pitch black, but he could see that all the people had just left and were walking together toward the olive grove. He went back inside and as he fell asleep he said to himself: “A crowd that size would have consumed at least two of my father’s lambs and a case of salted fish.”

That’s a different perspective. Now let’s enter the Upper Room ourselves, through the eyes of another young man, John the Beloved Disciple.

“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

This is our third week in John 16 and the whole time we have been aware of the anxiety, the sadness, and the fear that was swirling around that room that night. The disciples frankly had experienced very little peace since they had entered Jerusalem. But here at the end of John 16 we are at the very breaking point in many ways. This Farewell Discourse marks the end of a time, the end of a season with Jesus and the beginning of a new era. The anxious questioning is coming to an end. Observe how incongruent their behavior is when couched in the context of Jesus’ final words. I say final words because immediately after he declares that his conquest of the world is over and done with, we enter the holiest chapter in the whole Bible, Chapter 17 and Jesus’ long prayer to his Father for his church and his very specific consecration of himself for the high altar of Calvary and then with chapter 18 we are told, “After Jesus spoke these words he crossed the Kidron valley where there was a garden…” So these words from John 16 today are literally the last words of instruction and comfort Jesus gave to his disciples. He will not instruct them again till after his resurrection.

The upshot of Jesus’ last bit of instruction and encouragement is a paradigm shift: the disciples will now address the Father directly albeit in the Name of Jesus:

“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”

The disciples have not ceased questioning Jesus and especially so about the future. Jesus now tells them that they share a common destiny of complete, unstained joy. They have nothing to fear because Jesus’ conquest of the malevolent forces in the world that might tarnish their lives with bitterness and fear is a done deal. And from now you the disciples are to approach the throne of the Father, in the Name of the Son. Why? Because the Father loves you, that’s why. Not only does Jesus love you, but his Father loves you as well. The Father loves the Disciples of Christ because they love and trust Jesus. And soon, very soon they will no longer be asking questions, they will no longer be full of anxiety because they will understand everything and they will rest in the Father’s love.

There you have it! Two very different perspectives. Which one is true? One perspective is that of a Christian whose life was committed to Christ and the other perspective is that of a man who was in a sense neutral concerning the person of Christ. And since he didn’t know whom he was observing we might even call it a blind study.

I am sure you realize that I have a motive behind these two narratives and this is it: I want to say something about the way we talk about the truth and reality of Christianity. Today most people believe that matters of faith are private while matters of reason are public. Most people believe that reason trumps faith because they believe reason is reasonable while faith is unreasonable. If faith was not unreasonable, they reason, it would not be faith it would be reason. How we think about things, how we make good decisions, how we know, how we understand anything has been ceded to the methods of the physical sciences on the grounds that they are truly objective and truly neutral. Therefore the only good evidence for anything is evidence that is equivalent to the evidences of physical science. And that means that only claims that can be publically and repeatedly tested and verified through peer review, through neutral observation is reasonable and therefore true.

Now since many theologians have taken hook, line, and sinker the myth that physical science’s method is the key to the Universe, they have put up an “Out of Order” sign on History. History can never give us truth. The New Testament is not a historic account anyway; it is a testimony of faith written by those who had already made a decision of faith.

This started out with one of the most influential theologians of the last century, Karl Barth, stating that he believed that the Resurrection of Christ actually took place in history, but it cannot be proven. “There is no proof and there… ought not to be any proof for the fact (that the resurrection of Christ) took place.” Christianity requires a “decision of faith” forsaking historical proof, in order to be a real, authentic Christianity. Faith cannot be grounded in history because history is unreliable. Therefore faith is something very much like a leap into the darkness in hope that God will catch you. From this perspective, the Christian faith rejects reason.

What happened next was that the event itself became less important than the disciples’ experience. And then the narrative, the story (later on even people who said they believed in the historic resurrection came to refer to it as the myth or the saga) of the event came to be the sole focus of faith. Now, today if a theologian says he or she has “faith in the resurrection” that does not necessarily mean that they believe Jesus was actually raised from the dead in the past. What really counts today is the “meaning” that the narrative has for the faith community. The historic event is irrelevant to Christian faith, from this perspective. What is important is faith, not the content of faith, but having faith. The stories and the pictures that guide our faith community are enough. You can have the “Jesus of history,” who is impossible to know, or you can receive the “Christ of faith” who lives in our hearts and our communities.

Now in all seriousness I submit to you that based on such thinking you cannot reasonably know that Thomas Jefferson ever set foot in Charlottesville, Virginia. Furthermore, and this is way more important, you cannot be reasonably sure that your wife loves you. Of course you can sit around with your friends and tell stories about Thomas Jefferson or stories about how you and wife first met if it makes you feel better. Or you might even dig up some old love letters or birthday cards and photographs; or recall the promises you both made when you were joined in Holy Matrimony – but if you do that you are ignoring the “Out of Order” sign that bars us from meddling in history. Good! The past matters very much to us personally and it matters to the Church. We cannot trade our faith in the space/time Resurrection of Christ for someone’s contemporary interpretation of the meaning of something that may or may not have occurred. The fact of the Resurrection, not just it’s meaning, is the foundation of the Church.

I have another proposition: it is unreasonable to ever seek neutrality when it comes to deciding what is real and what is false. The purpose of reason should always to be aligning itself with the nature of reality. You can hang out on the patio with young Patricius and fake yourself into thinking that is an objective, neutral place to discover the truth. There is another option. We have to distance ourselves from the prejudices of our day in our reading of the texts. You may reject the radical break between faith and historic evidence. Jesus said, “I am the Door, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” The other option is to walk through the door that is already ajar in John 16 and listen to what Jesus has to say.

“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

See you tonight for chapter 3 (if the BAR-B-Q festival leaves any energy left for listening).

Ken

MASS SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK OF ROGATION (May 13, 2012)

14, Monday – Feria
15, Tuesday – Feria
16, Wednesday – Feria
17, Thursday – Ascension Day
18, Friday – Feria

+ Don’t forget that this Wednesday, May 16, is our Last Wednesday School & Agape till Michaelmas! I will be cooking (for at least 10 hours) authentic, North Carolina Vinegar-based Barbeque -something that Virginians have failed to accomplish since the settling of the New World. Bring a friend, a Virginian is possible, and know that God may well deem it a work of supererogation.

+ Ken Myers will be teaching this Wednesday class this week on Music in the worship, doctrine and life of the Church. Dinner is served at 5:45 PM and classes for all age groups begin at 6:30 PM.

+ All Saints’ Men’s Group will meet May 14, 7:00 a.m. in the undercroft.

+ Daily Mass at 12:15 p.m. Please take an All Saints parish prayer list home with you & remember your fellow parishioners in your prayers!

+ It’s Not For Women Only! Weekday Bible study of the Gospel of John meets Mondays at 10:30 a.m. If you have questions, please email Priscilla at kingplk@gmail.com or call her at 540-456-6458.

More tonight!

Ken

VALENTIN DE BOULOGNE 1625-26

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

Here is the situation. The Last Discourse presents us with the Beloved Disciple’s account of Jesus’ last evening with his disciples. John continues putting before the reader the overwhelming sadness in the room, Jesus’ constant references to returning to his Father, and this new information that once he returned to his Father, he would send the Paraclete. “Your hearts are full of sadness.” They hardly understood anything Jesus was saying and it would be sometime down the road before the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit would give them insight into what Jesus calls “the way of all truth.”

For a moment let us examine the meaning of the word “Comforter.” The Greek word in the text is Paraclete. Literally it means “one called alongside to help” and so we get English translations like Advocate and Comforter. The identity of the Comforter is the Holy Spirit. If we look at how the Paraclete functions in this passage this is what we get: Beginning sometime soon after the events described in the Farwell Discourse, He will essentially stand in for Jesus till the General Resurrection. He will bring back to the Apostles’ memory the words of Jesus and he will give them insight into their meaning. He will enable the apostolic eyewitnesses to function as Apostles. But it appears that the overarching work of the Paraclete will be to act as the defense witness for Jesus in the context of his trail before his enemies. Furthermore it is as though Jesus’ trial before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and Pilate (which from their point-of-view is only hours away) will not be over when Pilate delivers his verdict, but when God delivers his final verdict.

Furthermore, our participation in Christ is to be so through going – note his prayer in John 17 “I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them… “ And again, “For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.” Our identity is so radically altered by our participation in Christ that his trial is our trial and our trial before the world is his trial. It is as though we stand accused alongside Jesus and he stands accused alongside us in the world so that the allegations brought against us in this world are tantamount to re-trying Jesus. But we have nothing to fear. Because the Holy Spirit will defend us just as Jesus had said: “When they haul you into court do not worry about defending yourself for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what to say.” It is not enough that the Holy Spirit will act as our Advocate; He will also turn the tables and prosecute those who brought charges against Jesus and those who presumed to judge his disciples. In his defense of Jesus and in his defense of Jesus’ disciples, the Holy Spirit will shine a light on this world’s bankruptcy of truth and legitimacy.

So first, the Accuser of the World, the Holy Spirit

“will prove that the world is in sin…”

The Paraclete will show the disciples that the enemies of Jesus are all guilty of the sin of deliberate disbelief in Jesus. Our Lord himself said,

“The Light has come into the world, but men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil.”

These evil deeds are specifically the refusal to believe in Jesus and the collateral damage that entails that disbelief. That sin reaches its sickening conclusion in the Cross. But further the Paraclete will show that the sin of unbelief is not limited to that historic circle of evil men who put Jesus on trial. No! That very sin of unbelief is the sin of the world today. We may think that is a bit harsh. After all we may reason, “Just because a person does not believe in Jesus doesn’t mean they are hostile toward him.” If they are not hostile it is because they think it silly to believe in such nonsense or they do not know the historic Jesus.

“(He will prove) the world is not righteous, because I go to my Father”

The Paraclete reveals that the world’s sense of justice is in fact immoral because Jesus is innocent of the charges laid against him. Before and during his trial he was accused of blasphemy for claiming to be equal with God. “I and my Father are one.” He was guilty not only of astonishing arrogance, but he was a sinner, a deceiver and blasphemer according to his enemies. They were sure he was not God’s son and sentenced him to death. But in fact, he tells his disciples repeatedly that he is returning to his Father. The Paraclete will come to the disciples only after he has returned to this Father. And that is what happened. On Pentecost Peter and the other Apostles took it to the street in Jerusalem and proclaimed Jesus’ as the Saviour of the World. Only a few months later St. Stephen himself, full of the Holy Spirit, as he was about to be stoned to death in Jerusalem, bore witness to Jesus’ innocence and victory:

“I see the glory of God, and Jesus standing right next to his Father.”

Finally the Paraclete will prove that in judging Jesus guilty and not believing in him, the world’s judgment has recoiled upon itself.

“(He will show that) the world is judged, because the prince of this world is judged…”

His enemies thought they had victory. But in the Cross Jesus confronted the prince of this world and Jesus now stands justified before his Father. In his Resurrection he has conquered death and hell and it is the world that is found guilty.

Now with all three of these actions, the Paraclete infuses courage into the disciples in those critical early days after our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension and especially after the persecutions began. But I want to underline this: the courage, the resilience, the strength Jesus promised in the Paraclete was meant for the whole Church in time and space and not just the disciples who were with him that evening.

Imagine what it was like for these little parishes scattered all over the world when the last of the apostolic eyewitnesses died. The Apostle was a living cord joining the Church to Jesus of Nazareth. As long as they were present these apostolic eyewitnesses could interpret the meaning of the gospel narrative, the meaning of Jesus’ very word and deed for every situation the Church faced. For example, these apostolic eyewitnesses would have to interpret the meaning of the persecution of the Church after the deaths of James and Stephen. They gave voice to what Jesus would have said about the existential realities and exigencies they were facing, many of which were horrible.

Imaginatively place yourself in one of these tiny parishes that had grown up around the apostolic eyewitnesses. What do you think would happen when these eyewitnesses began to die? James died in Jerusalem in 62 AD. Stephen too. Paul was beheaded in Rome around 66 – 67 AD. Around the same time St. Peter was crucified. It is the universal testimony of the Church that last Apostle to die was the Beloved Disciple, John. He was a very old man and he died around the year 100 AD. Now that is amazing since that date is within a handful of years backward or forward for the ministry of St. Polycarp who had spent a good deal of time with John. That would also be contemporaneous with the life of St. Ignatius of Antioch, whose letters we have.

Now when the Beloved Disciple finally died I imagine it was a major crisis for his churches, not unlike what he and the other disciples had experienced when Jesus informed them that he was returning to his Father. As long as Jesus was with them they were safe. In the same way, as long as John was alive he was a sure interpreter of everything Jesus said and did. John’s own disciples – the deacons, priests and bishops he had ordained could return to him time and again to asked questions and obtain his directions. They could hang out with him like Polycarp did. John had been a companion of Jesus. When John laid his hands upon you, you knew that those very hands had touched and had been touched by the hands of Jesus Christ.

What got these little parishes through the crisis of the death of the Beloved Disciple? I will tell you what got them through. It was that document he had written and re-written, and rewritten which final form we know as the Gospel of John. And in particular the Farwell Discourse. Yes, these apostolic eyewitnesses were the Pillars of the Church, living links between Jesus of Nazareth and the baptized. But it was not merely their own memories or even their own personal experiences that made them the trustworthy interpreters of all that Jesus did or said. No, it was not merely their personal experiences, it was the gift of the Holy Spirit that not only quickened their memories of the words of Jesus, but also gave them, as it were, Jesus’ own interpretation of his words and deeds – that made them reliable. The Church at first probably placed her confidence in the personal experiences of the Apostles, but in time Holy Mother Church came to place all her confidence the gift of the Holy Spirit. She came to understand that the Paraclete guided the eyewitnesses, like the Beloved Disciple, and he would continue to guide the Church and her members after the death of the Beloved Disciple. The Paraclete indwells Church and all her members. And because of that, those men and women who buried the Beloved Apostle and Ignatius and Polycarp, and those of us here today who believe in Jesus and kneel to receive his Body and Blood are as close to Jesus as were the apostolic eyewitnesses themselves. That is what the Church believes.

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS

MASS SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK OF EASTER IV (May 6, 2012)

7, Monday – Feria
8, Tuesday – Feria
9, Wednesday – Gregory of Nazianzus
10, Thursday – Feria
11, Friday – Feria

+ Ken Myers will be teaching this Wednesday class this week on Music in the worship, doctrine and life of the Church. Dinner is served at 5:45 PM and classes for all age groups begin at 6:30 PM.

+ Don’t forget that next Wednesday, May 16, is our Last Wednesday School Agape and Class time till Michaelmas! I will be cooking (for at least 10 hours) authentic, North Carolina vinegar based barbeque -something that Virginians have failed to accomplish since the settling of the New World. Bring a friend, a Virginian if possible, and know that God will deem it a work of supererogation.

+ All Saints’ Men’s Group will meet May 8, 7:00 a.m. in the undercroft.

+ Daily Mass at 12:15 p.m. Please take an All Saints parish prayer list home with you & remember your fellow parishioners in your prayers!

+ It’s not for women only! Weekday Bible study of the Gospel of John meets Mondays at 10:30 a.m. If you have questions, please email Priscilla at kingplk@gmail.com or call her at 540-456-6458.

+ Gregory of Nazianzus (Bishop, Confessor & Doctor, c.329 – c.389) was the Bishop of Nazianzus and is numbered amongst the Cappadocian Fathers, along with Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa.
The son of a bishop suffragan, Gregory was educated at the highly esteemed University of Athens, which would later aid him in defending the Nicene proclamation of Christ’s divinity against Arianism. He subsequently gave up his solitary life as a monk and was ordained priest and later bishop. Gregory is best known for the role he played in shaping the conclusions of the Nicene Creed during the Council of Constantinople in 381. His deep knowledge and love of scripture allowed him to convey through poetic language the ineffable love that exists between the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.Called “the Theologian,” Gregory was given to the Church to teach the faith and guide God’s people in the way of everlasting salvation. (the day’s collect page F 26, People’s Anglican Missal). Pray that God continues to give us learned and holy teachers, so that we do not lose our way in this generation.

THE CAPADOCIAN FATHERS: GREGORY OF NYSSA, BASIL, & GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS

RUBENS - WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father…”

If we are blessed to avoid sudden death, one day we shall yet all lay a-dying. Over the years I have been with many of my parishioners in their last days and last hours of this mortal life and I have never had one request that I read from the works of Aristotle or Socrates or the Constitution. But I have frequently read from the Bible, the Psalter and the Book of Common Prayer and I have habitually recited passages from the Fourth Gospel – all to their comfort, the comfort of their loved ones and my own comfort. Today we open up one of those sections of Scripture that has brought comfort to the dying, the dispossessed and the bereaved. From today till Trinity all the Gospels are taken from what is call The Farewell Discourse. It begins in the 13th Chapter of John, verse 31:

“Therefore when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

The 18th Chapter of John, verse 1 marks the end of The Last Discourse:

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook, where was a garden, into the which he entered and his disciples. Judas also knew the place.”

These are well known scriptures – some meant to comfort the disciples, some meant to instruct, and the whole of Chapter 17 is Jesus’ prayer to the Father which both comforts and instructs. So remember this setting: Our Lord had celebrated his last Passover with his disciples, he has instituted the Holy Communion, Judas has left the well-lit room and entered the dark night deliberately to betray Jesus. At the beginning of the evening the disciples were happy because they were celebrating Passover with Jesus; but as soon as Judas left, Jesus’ tone changed. The disciples became confused and a deep pall of sadness fell over the room.

“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father…”

The disciples responded like any of us would have: “What is he saying to us, A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me…”

Our first impulse is probably to understand it this way: Soon Jesus will die and so they will not see him. But in a little while they will see him because he will rise from the dead. This is certainly true. This is exactly the experience that was upon them at that very moment. But I want to suggest that the Church has, rightly, taken these troubling words of our Lord as words of comfort that go beyond the immediate experience of the disciples.

“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father…”

The disciples could not possibly understand what Jesus was talking about. It would have been futile for him to go to greater lengths to explain what he meant. They had no categories nor did they have any real life experiences to help them make sense of what Jesus was saying. But after his Resurrection and his Ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the meaning lit up for the Church. These words point to our common destiny. Yes, these words do refer to his death and resurrection; and later on this promise brought consolation, reassurance and cheer to the Church. So this enigmatic saying is a reference to his death and resurrection, it is also a reference to the descent of the Holy Spirit and it also refers to the Last Day, the Last Hour, and the Second Coming of our Lord. Those disciples gathered around him in the Upper Room did see him after his Resurrection. With the gift of the Holy Spirit we do “see” Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. But there is another “seeing” that is yet to be.

Before I go any further let me say something about the word “comfort.” The word “comfort” as it is used in the Book of Common Prayer and in the older translation of the Scriptures is, ironically, obsolete today. Today we shorten the word comfort to comfy. It commonly means ease or warmth, or to console or to cheer up. But when used in the BCP or the Bible it means to “instill courage” or “to bind with strength.” The Comfortable Words in the Mass are meant to make you stronger. The words of Christ in the Farewell Discourse over the years has given folk fortitude; in our hour of darkness these words are meant fortify us, to build us up.

“And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

But sorrow has not vanished from the human family. It has not vanished from my family or your family. Sorrow has not vanished from the life of the Church. No, our sorrow is not the hopeless, nihilistic grief of the world. But we still experience profound trouble and bereavement. And yet, Jesus has promised us a joy that will overwhelm any malignant power that comes against us. This is a future joy. It is our common destiny.

“I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

Even in light of “seeing him” at his Resurrection, even in light of “seeing him” in the descent of the Holy Spirit and the gift of the Church and the Sacraments, there is an even greater “seeing” that will come. It will be the permanent and final presence of Christ. And as needful, glorious and wonderful as the Holy Communion is for us now, in that great “seeing,” when we behold the man, nothing will match his splendor! On that day he will wipe the tears from your eyes and you will know a joy that you cannot possibly understand today. This puts you in the very position of those disciples gathered around his Passover table on the night he was betrayed. This is a joy that surpasses our understanding. But it will be fully realized at our Lord’s Second Coming.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”

This is what is sometimes referred to as the Messianic Travail. The solemnity, the heaviness in the room at that moment is appropriate. Though they hardly understood all he said, the tone of sorrow, trouble, and distress is fully understandable.

The image of the woman in birth pangs is a reference to the free-will suffering of the Good Shepherd for the life of the world – and more. The hour of Jesus’ glory was the Cross. The hour of the woman is the time of her delivery. The birth of a child brought a woman close to death. Childbearing in antiquity “did not have the benefits of modern means to reduce pain, and a mother’s pain became proverbial for great travail.” The woman’s hour, her birth pangs in the Old Testament and the New Testament came to be associated with the last hour of this world as the new world order of God’s kingdom would be realized in the God’s victory. It is Christ’s revelation that God’s victory is final with Jesus Cross and his victory will be visible with his resurrection and his second advent. Jesus’ choice of the woman in childbirth is intentional.

And don’t forget the first day of his resurrection. The risen Christ opened up Old Testament for the Emmaus disciples on the first day of his resurrection when he said:

“’O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

It is the parable of the woman in childbirth that would lead the disciples back to Genesis 3:14-16 where God declared that the woman will suffer birth pangs in childbearing, but he also promises that the woman will bring forth a child who would crush the head of the serpent, though the serpent bruise his heel.

Again in Isaiah 26:17:

“Like as a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs, when she is near her time, so were we because of thee, O Lord…”

“Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!”

“Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.”

The woman in childbirth points to the suffering Messiah, the victory of Christ over death and sin and the new order that God will bring upon the world with the second advent.

Later on St. John the Divine would see terrible things and record them in the Revelation:

“A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun… she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon… stood before the woman who about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth…”

The child here is sometimes interpreted to be Jesus, and sometimes interpreted to be children of God. The woman is sometimes understood as the Blessed Virgin Mary and sometimes understood as Holy Mother Church. In any case the red dragon is destroyed and the Woman and Child are saved. So as you can see, our Lord’s use of image of the woman in childbirth is not merely an accurate image, it is loaded up from Genesis to Revelation with the suffering of the Messiah and the victory of God. And something else as well, just as the woman in childbirth gives birth as she enters her travail, so our Lord Jesus Christ, as he enters his travail upon the Cross gives birth to the people of God. Jesus’ disciples may be “born from above” because of the birth pangs of the Cross. And just as birth pangs are temporary and finally issue in a longer lasting joy; so we, the children of God, receive a joy that no one can take from us.

“I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

Fourth Sunday after Easter (May 6, 2012)

Opening Hymn:  “O worship the King” (#288)
Sequence Hymn:  “Te Deum laudamus” (#613/617)
Sermon Hymn: “O Spirit of the living God” (#256)
Communion Hymns:  “O God, unseen yet ever near” (#198, st. flavian)
“This is the hour of banquet and of song” (#206)
Closing Hymn:  “O for a thousand tongues to sing” (#325, arlington)

Anthem:  “If ye love me”
Music: Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)
Text: St. John 14:15-17

Communion Motet:  “Verily, verily, I say unto you”
Music: Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)
Text: St. John 6:53-56

Choral Amen:  “Fourfold Amen” by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

Third Sunday after Easter (April 29, 2012)

Opening Hymn:  “Praise my soul the King of Heaven” (#282)
Sequence Hymn:  “Te Deum laudamus” (#613/617)
Sermon Hymn: “Before thy throne O God we kneel” (#499)
Communion Hymns:  “O saving Victim” (#209, martyr dei)
“Jesus, Thou Joy of loving hearts” (#485, abends)
Closing Hymn:  “All praise to Thee” (#366)

Anthem:  “O praise the Lord”
Music: Adrian Batten (1590-1637)
Text: Psalm 117:1-2

Communion Motet:  “Ave verum corpus”
Music: William Byrd (1540-1623)
Text: 14th Century Eucharistic Hymn

Translation: “Hail the true body, born of the Virgin Mary: You who truly suffered and were sacrificed on the cross for the sake of man. From whose pierced side flowed water and blood: Be a foretaste for us in the trial of death. O sweet, O gentle, O Jesu, son of Mary, have mercy on me.”

Choral Amen:  “Fourfold Amen” by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)