It’s Empty

Texts: Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12

Even those who know very little about the Christian story today probably know a bit about Christmas and Easter. They know that Christmas is something about the birth of a baby in Bethlehem; and Easter is something about Jesus rising from the dead. For we Christians, today is the day above all other days on which we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. That won't surprise you much. What may surprise you is that today's gospel passage is not about any of the resurrection appearances that are familiar to us. There's nothing about Jesus suddenly appearing to his disciples in the upper room; or along the road to Emmaus; or on the shoreline of Lake Galilee; and nothing about him inviting Doubting Thomas to look at his wounds and to put his hand in his side.

In fact, Jesus isn't in today's gospel story at all. What is going on – has the Church, or at least those good people who choose the readings for each day – gone mad? Well, I don't think they have. What we're having today, I think, is a page break. Let me explain.

For years in various parishes I have done a weekly pewsheet of the kind you have before you this morning. And if you look at the inside – open it out – you will see that it has a left hand page and a right hand page. Every week I bring up on my computer last week's version of the pewsheet. And in order to do this week's notes on Today's Readings, I have to delete last week's notes. And as I do that, what happens? The text from the right hand page, News & Events, rushes over to the left- hand page and fills the gap. Then as I type in this week's notes, the right-hand page text gets pushed back again.

Not a huge insurmountable problem, but it can be irritating, and not always very clear how much space I have left for the notes. I always knew there was some way of stopping this from happening, but I never took the time to work out what it was. Until this week. Finally, after literally years of muttering about it, I sat down and worked out how to fix it. I inserted a page break. It took perhaps 15 seconds. Well, actually, a wee bit longer, because what I needed to do was insert a column break, rather than a page break – but the point is, it was a simple solution.

And I thought of this during this particular week after preparing the service for Passion Sunday last week. Those of you who were here last week may remember that we read the whole of the Passion Narrative according to St Luke. It was a very long reading – 2 complete chapters, 127 verses. It told the story from the time that Judas agreed to betray Jesus right through to Jesus' burial in the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea. If you like, we scrolled through the whole story.

And that's a good thing to do. It is good preparation for entering Holy Week. It gives us the whole story, whereas on every other Sunday we have just short extracts from different parts of the Bible. But scrolling through the whole story like that necessarily means that we can't take in all the details; we are continually moving the story along, and we do not have much time to stop and ponder any particular piece of the story. The story can become contracted – before we know it Jesus is in the tomb.

The same thing could happen if we raced today through the Resurrection stories. We would go from the empty tomb to the Ascension in ten to twelve minutes. Such scrolling at high speed would not be helpful for us. We need a page break. And today we have one, inserted by the Church in its wisdom between the story of the empty tomb, and the Resurrection stories. We are being urged to spend a little time pondering the inescapable fact that the tomb was empty. Next Sunday, and some Sundays following, we will spend time with the Resurrection stories. But not today. Today we stay at the empty tomb.

And in doing so we are in touch with the very earliest of the gospel traditions. If you look at St Mark's gospel – generally accepted as the first one to be written – you will see why most scholars believe that in its original form it finished at 16:8. Here's what that verse says: Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Jesus is not there. The women see some sort of quasi-angelic figure, who tells them that Jesus has risen from the dead. But that's all we get from the earliest form of Mark's gospel.

St Matthew's gospel doesn't give us much more to go on. He gives us a hair-raising account of a violent earthquake, caused by an angel of the Lord rolling back the stone from the entrance to the tomb, and again the angel tells the terrified women that Jesus has risen. But then Jesus himself briefly appears to the women, but that encounter is all over in three verses. Finally we get another five verses at the end of the gospel, which is generally understood to be set at the time of Jesus' Ascension. But no real Resurrection stories.

For those we have to turn to St Luke and St John. St Luke gives us two. St John gives us three in the original version of his gospel, and a fourth in a later addition (chapter 21. In short, only two of our four gospels put any real emphasis on the Resurrection experiences. But all four agree about one thing. The tomb was found to be empty.

It's as if they are saying to the doubters and disbelievers, Look, we could argue for ever about the reality of the Resurrection appearances. We know that they were real, because they happened to us; but we can understand how difficult it is for you to believe us when you haven't had similar experiences. And we find them pretty bewildering ourselves. We're sure it was Jesus and yet he was different. We did have trouble recognising him at first. After all, we knew he had died so we weren't expecting to see him again. And while he had a body that we touched – and he ate a meal with us – yet he could appear and re-appear at will. He could enter a room when the doors were bolted shut.

So we have many unanswered questions ourselves. But of one thing we are absolutely certain: the tomb was empty. We have given you our explanation for that: now what's yours?

Of course, the fist thing that might occur to anyone in such circumstances is that someone has taken away the body. After all, it was by no means clear that Joseph intended his tomb to be the permanent resting place of Jesus' body. The burial was hurried because there was only a small period of time between Jesus' death on the cross and the start of the Sabbath. So perhaps Joseph or somebody else had beaten the women to the grave and taken the body for re-burial. In the dark?

Or perhaps the authorities had taken away his body to avoid the area becoming a shrine, a gathering point for these difficult Christians? So why didn't they ever produce the body to refute the Christians' claim of Resurrection?

Well, maybe it was a simple case of grave-robbing – body-snatching – by criminals on the make? They would certainly not have wanted any publicity. They would have kept their mouths shut. What about that explanation?

But that one, like all the rest, face one major problem. The so-called empty tomb was not completely empty. The strips of burial linen were still there. Why, if anyone was stealing the body, or removing the body for whatever reason, would they first unwrap the burial linen and leave it in the tomb? That would have taken much longer, increasing the chances of being caught. That would have been near impossible in the dark. That would have meant that a relatively clean bundle became an exposed bloody mess. Why would someone prefer to carry the blood-stained mutilated body of the victim of crucifixion unwrapped?

Peter was one of those who saw the linen, and went on to become a great apostle of the Christian faith. St Paul did not. He met the Risen Christ on the Road to Damascus, and went on to become another great apostle of the Christian faith. We'll come to all that in the weeks ahead.

But lets not scroll too fast. Let's take a page break outside the almost empty tomb. Let's ponder and believe.

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Louise Booth

Inconvenient Truth

Texts: Acts 9:36-43; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30

I haven't seen Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, so I have no idea whether it is as good as people say; and I certainly have no idea whether the case he makes in it is valid or not. But one thing I do love about it is its title – An Inconvenient Truth. It's got all the ambiguity and depth to make great poetry. But it also makes a very telling point about our human nature. When truth gets in the way of our deeply held beliefs it is, to say the very least, inconvenient.

This week I was reminded of this when I watched a rather scary documentary about Myra Hindley, the infamous female half of the twosome responsible for the Moors murders in Britain in the 1960's. The documentary focused on this woman during her 35 years or so in prison, her attempts to obtain parole, her attempts to escape, her profession of Christianity, her illness, and her death. Some of that I was vaguely aware of, but what I hadn't realised was that for many years she had professed her innocence. She was the innocent, naïve girlfriend, she insisted. Whatever Ian Bradley had done, it wasn't her doing, etc.

And remarkably enough, some people passionately believed in her innocence. In fact, to me the most interesting part of the documentary concerned one of her supporters. Bradley and Hindley had been convicted of the murder of three people, but two other children had gone missing in the same area, and the Police had always believed that they had also been murdered by these two people. However, their bodies had never been found, and there was no direct evidence to implicate Bradley and Hindley, who had always denied any involvement.

Hindley was caught in the classic bind whenever she applied for parole. She never could show remorse, even for the murders for which she had been convicted, because she claimed that she was not guilty of those murders. The Parole Board said, no remorse, no parole. More difficult was the issue of the missing children. The Parole Board seemed to be taking them into consideration as well, and this was what really fired up Hindley's supporters. So in the documentary we see this lovely, passionate young woman insisting that Hindley had no involvement with these children, and that this was just political hysteria, bigotry, etc.

But several years later came a bombshell announcement from Ian Bradley. He confessed that he and Hindley had murdered these other two children, and he told the authorities where to look for the bodies. One of those bodies was found there, although sadly the other one has never been found. At first Hindley continued to deny her involvement; but there came a time, perhaps under guidance from a priest, when she decided to tell the truth, and confessed her guilt. The documentary showed how shattering this was for her supporters.

And that's the bit I want to focus on this morning. It reminded me of a discussion I had many years ago with the then chief psychologist in the Justice Department about a similar situation he was aware of from his studies in psychology. I forget the details, but the gist was that of a small dedicated group of supporters who had campaigned for years on behalf of a convicted murderer who protested his innocence but who eventually confessed, less than half of that group accepted his confession as genuine! The majority had become so committed to their belief in his innocence that they could not accept that they had been wrong. His confession confronted them with a truth that was simply too inconvenient to accept.

That classic dilemma is at the heart of our struggles to teach the Christian faith to others. And it always has been. There are many examples of it in the New Testament, and they almost always involve the miraculous, or (as I prefer to call it) the supernatural element of Jesus' life and ministry. If only he had stuck to teaching, he would have spared us all a great deal of angst; and he would certainly have spared himself a great deal of angst. To take just one example: if he had left Lazarus in the tomb – if he had simply done a nice funeral service for him, commended him to God's mercy, and then joined the family for light refreshments in the local hall afterwards, the authorities wouldn't have minded. If he had simply consoled and comforted the mourners, fine! But he didn't, we're told. He raised Lazarus back to life.

That was the truth of the matter and it was highly inconvenient. Why was it inconvenient? Well, let St John himself remind us: So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. Inconvenient truths divide: they divide those who have a passionate belief to the contrary from those who are open-minded on the issue, and can therefore accept the new idea.

We see a very similar case in our lesson from the Book of Acts this morning. A much loved member of the Christian community in Joppa sickened and died. Hearing that Peter is in the next village they send for him urgently. We're not told why. Did they want him to conduct a funeral service for her, or to provide comfort and support to them in their loss; or did they really believe that he could bring Dorcas back to life? We're not told.

What we are told is that, regardless of their expectations, Peter prayed for Dorcas and she recovered. And then we get St Luke's account of what happened next: This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. Many, but not presumably, all. And this may be a good moment to pause before looking at the gospel reading, and to ask ourselves, as honestly as we can, how we feel about this particular inconvenient truth.

It doesn't accord with our own experience, does it? I suppose I have conducted somewhere around 100 funerals over the years, and not once has the deceased revived. And I have to say that I'm not at all sure that I would have coped too well if anyone had. Just think for a moment what would happen if, during a funeral service, the casket suddenly opened and the deceased got up and walk down the aisle. How would we respond to such an inconvenient truth? Would we all leap to our feet and praise God?

I have to say that, if I survived the shock at all, my immediate thought would be: "who the hell signed the death certificate?" In other words, I am not at all sure that I would be open to a truth as inconvenient as that. You see, we might laugh at that scenario, but the fact is that in stories such as the raising of Lazarus, and today's raising of Dorcas, we are confronted with exactly that scenario. So why don't we burst out laughing when we read these stories? Why when they are read in church the congregation doesn't fall about in hysterics? I wonder about that – I really do. I wonder if, at the deepest level, I don't really believe these stories. Their truth is too inconvenient for me.

Our gospel passage gives us another angle on all this. Here Jesus' critics do not deny the truth of his miracles. What they object to is his explanation of them. He insists that it is God working through him that enables him to perform these miracles. That as the Son he simply does the work of the Father. But no amount of hard evidence – of witnesses' accounts, and so on – will ever convince them because his truth is too inconvenient. It would turn their religious understanding on its head. They simply reject his explanation because it is inconsistent with their passionately held beliefs.

That temptation is for ever before us today. The popularity of people like Bishop Spong and Lloyd Geering and Ian Harris depends very much on their willingness to present a Jesus stripped of all his inconvenient truths. The miracles never happened, the Resurrection never happened, Jesus was simply a wonderful, charismatic teacher and healer.

Of course, to an open mind Joppa may raise some interesting questions. Today it is called Jaffa, and is a suburb of the capital city of Israel, Tel Aviv. It has three convents in that small area, a Greek Orthodox convent, a Roman Catholic convent, and an Armenian Orthodox convent. They claim that there has been a continuous Christian presence there from the beginning of the Christian Church. If nothing happened two thousand years ago at Joppa, if Peter was never there, if Dorcas wasn't raised back to life there, then how do we explain such a long history?

Al Gore is right. The truth can be so inconvenient sometimes.

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Louise Booth

In A Little House in Bethany

Texts: Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

I want to focus this morning on this little house in Bethany. It was obviously a very important little place in the very early traditions of the Christian Church. Three of the gospels include this story of a woman anointing Jesus with expensive perform, and all three agree that it was in a little house in Bethany. Bethany was a small village about two miles outside Jerusalem, and these three gospel accounts seem to agree that it was there, in this little house, that Jesus and the disciples made their last stop before entering the city.

St John's version of this story is markedly different from the other accounts in a number of important respects. St Matthew and St Mark identify the house as belonging to Simon the Leper, and do not name the woman who does the anointing. St Luke has the famous story about Martha and Mary hosting Jesus on another occasion marked by sibling rivalry; but his story of the anointing of Jesus is removed from Bethany, comes much earlier in the gospel narrative, and is performed by a penitent prostitute. Only St John names Judas Iscariot as the one who objects to the scandalous waste of this expensive perfume – St Mark and St Matthew says the disciples complained about it.

But let's not worry too much about these details and differences this morning. Let's enter into this poignant scene and see what it might be telling us this morning. At the centre of the story is Jesus; his public ministry has finished. In St John's timetable it finished at the end of chapter 11, following the raising of Lazarus. Because of the enormous interest that event attracted the authorities were actively conspiring to arrest Jesus. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. [John 11:54]

But with the Feast of the Passover approaching, Jesus comes to Bethany. There are now just 6 days until his death. In this little house, there is a table set for dinner, a dinner given in Jesus' honour. Who else is present? Well, Martha and Mary are there – according to St John's account it is their home, which they share with their brother, Lazarus. And just in case we have already forgotten, St John reminds us that Lazarus is the one whom Jesus raised from the dead. He tells us something else about Lazarus, too. He says "Lazarus was among those reclining at the table" with Jesus.

Now there's an interesting word – "reclining". We'll hear that word again a little later in the passion narrative when we have the account of the Last Supper. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. [John 13:23] This is one of the little subtle hints that St John is so good at. In everything he writes he reminds us of the things that have happened, and the things that are about to happen. This meal is shared in the house where Lazarus died; it looks forward to the Last Supper from which Jesus will go out to his death.

And, of course, someone also went out from the Last Supper into the darkness – Judas the betrayer. In their accounts St Matthew and St Mark remind us of this by following their accounts of this anointing episode with the story of Judas doing a deal with the chief priests. St John makes the point more dramatically by identifying Judas as present at this cosy little dinner party; and, of course, takes the opportunity of reminding us that this is the fellow who will later betray Jesus. In this account it is only Judas who objects to the anointing; and St John can't resist assuring us that his concern was not genuinely for the poor. As the group's money-man, he was on the take. So Judas was present at this little gathering in this little house in Bethany.

Who else? Well, did you notice how I mentioned the two sisters a moment or two ago, but then immediately started talking about Lazarus? That's the problem with something spectacular – a miracle. It detracts from everything else. This story is not supposed to be about Lazarus, yet in a way his presence continues to dominate. We'll come back to him in a moment. But let's first make some space for the sisters. Mary, of course, is given the starring role, but Martha gets the first mention. It's not a very big mention, however – in fact, just two words: "Martha served".

"Martha served". That's the sort of thing that gets feminist bible commentators very agitated. And yet, what a wonderful thing this is. On the day before Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, he comes to this little house in Bethany for one last meal with his friends, and Martha has the privilege of serving him. Who is this Martha in St John's gospel? She is the one who made the supreme confession of faith in Christ, that's who she is. The other gospels insist that it was Peter who first confessed Jesus as Christ. Not according to St John: we won't find any such confession from Peter in this gospel. Instead we find it was Martha who said to Jesus: "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." [John 11:27] How appropriate, then, that she should now serve Jesus at this dinner.

And so to Mary. She, too, serves Jesus. Indeed, she takes upon herself the servant's role of tending to his feet. Again, we can get a bit more of the significance of what's going on here if we compare this account with those of St Matthew and St Mark. They say the woman poured expensive perfume over Jesus' head; St John says Mary poured it over his feet. Again, no doubt, we're being reminded of something that is going to happen at the Last Supper: After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him. [John 13:5]

Mary doesn't use a towel – she uses her hair. This is a wonderfully sensual image of her tender love for Jesus. It is also a great sign of her humility. Women of status would not (literally!) let their hair down in front of other people; but Mary was not into standing on her dignity. Her devotion to Jesus was complete.

Besides those various individuals, there are two other groups of people referred to in this story. First, there are the other dinner guests, nameless and unnumbered, but nevertheless there, for St John tells us that "Lazarus was among those reclining at table with him". They may have been the other disciples, or simply other friends of Mary and Martha invited to the meal. They take no particular part in the proceedings but they are nevertheless part of the dinner party.

The other group of people in the story are more numerous; they are outside clamouring to get in. There in verse 9: Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. Lazarus had become an object of curiosity, so to speak – a tourist attraction. Hardly surprising in the circumstances, really, but here's another tantalizing hint that St John may or may not be giving us. St John refers to the crowd outside as 'Jews", and by this stage of the gospel he uses the term to signify those who will not accept Jesus as the Messiah – those who oppose Jesus and ultimately conspire with the Roman authorities in his death.

Perhaps we should remember a story from St Luke. Remember the one about the rich man and the beggar at his gate. They both die, and when the rich man finds himself in hell he asks Abraham to send the beggar back to earth to warn his brothers. Abraham refuses: If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced if someone rises from the dead. [Luke16:31] And the beggar's name was – Lazarus.

In this little house in Bethany a meal is shared in Jesus honour. Martha serves; Mary adores; Judas criticises; guests eat; crowds outside are interested to learn more about the one who was raised back to life, but may never be convinced.

It's a great story. And it's our story. Let's take a moment to reflect on it in our own little house to which we have come to share a meal in Jesus' honour. Amen.

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Louise Booth

Add On or Start Again?

Texts: Acts 9:1-6; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

As we continue through the Easter season reflecting on the Resurrection, we're offered three visions this morning, one from the Gospel of John, one from the Book of Revelation, and one from the Book of Acts. And here's today's question: which one of those is the most convincing?

Let's start at the bottom. For my money this last chapter of the Gospel of John is not only the least convincing of this gospel, it is the least convincing of any of the gospels. It looks like what it undoubtedly is – an add-on. Now it happens that I recently read an article about the advantages and disadvantages of adding to your existing home, compared with selling it and building a new one. The writer said when we are thinking of an extension of our present home, there are two things to aim for. First, and most obviously, the extension must be well built. But secondly, and equally importantly, it mustn't look like an add-on. It must look as though it had always been part of the original design.

This chapter of St John's Gospel meets the first criterion – it is well constructed, even though it uses a strange mixture of re-cycled and new materials – but it fails miserably to meet the second. It looks like the add-on it is. Chapter 20 ended with these words: Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

That was clearly the end of the gospel – the backdoor, as it were. It should have been removed if the house was to be extended in that direction, but it wasn't. Another sizeable chapter was added with another backdoor included. It looks remarkably similar to that first backdoor: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would have been written."

Then there's the problem of John, son of Zebedee. Nowhere in St John's Gospel is this man mentioned – giving rise to the supposition that when we get references to "the disciple whom Jesus loved" we are to understand that this is John, son of Zebedee. But when we get to this add-on we find a reference to the sons of Zebedee and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. Bad look.

But most awkward is the obvious break in the narrative flow between chapters 20 and 21. Chapter 20 is all about the Risen Christ returning to his disciples in Jerusalem, forgiving them, blessing them, empowering them with the Holy Spirit, and sending them into the world. There is a feeling of completion and renewal. They are now equipped to be apostles, to preach the Gospel of the Risen Christ to the world.

So what happens next? Well, according to this add-on, Peter decides to go fishing, and the others decide to join him. They have gone back to Galilee, where they had abandoned their families and their boats, and yet here they are fishing all night from a boat. And here's where the story starts to sound rather familiar. They fished all night but didn't catch anything. However, when what they thought was a complete stranger called out to them to cast their net again, they did so and caught an amazing number of large fish. We don't have to be too cynical to suspect a little plagiarism here: this is surely a re-working of the story St Luke tells (Luke 5:1-11) in connection with the calling of the first disciples. This part of the add-on is made out of re-cycled material

Then comes the new bit, the so-called re-instatement of Peter, and we begin to realise what this extra chapter is really about. It's about a peace deal between John's community, whose hero was the disciple whom Jesus loved, and the rest of the infant Church, who had accepted Peter as the leader. Look back through the Gospel and you will find about 6 episodes in which Peter and the Beloved Disciple both appear, and in each case the comparison favours the latter.

What seems to be happening here is discovering a way for the community of John to accept Peter, not because of any office Peter might hold, but because it is now established that Peter meets the only real criterion for Christian leadership – love of the Lord. In other words, this chapter is not really about proving the reality of the Resurrection – that was already done and done superbly in chapter 20. This is about Church history and Church politics.

So this morning the bronze medal goes to the gospel reading. Second place and first runner-up goes to the Book of Revelation. It's not, of course, a direct reference to the Resurrection, but it can be described as the logical outcome of the Resurrection pushed to the extreme. As a Lenten exercise this year I read through The Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was held in prison for over two years by the Nazi authorities, and finally executed by them. It is a remarkable and deeply moving collection, giving a picture of serenity and faith in extreme hardship.

But nowhere in it does it refer to anything approaching a vision or mystical experience of any kind. In that respect it is in stark contrast to this last book of the Bible, written by another prisoner who was suffering for his faith. St John's vision could be said to cover that whole expanse of time, in which we are living today, from the Resurrection through to the end of time. The central figure is the Lamb, and when John first sees it, it looks as if it had been slain. Yet, as we were reminded in our reading this morning, he also sees "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them" all worshipping the Lamb.

That's where the logic of the Resurrection is leading. But from an empty tomb to a full heaven and earth is quite a stretch. We live in between, looking back to the tomb and forward to the unity of all creation. On the way, faith must do its work. More and more people must become convinced. Our reading from the Book of Acts tells us how one of the most important conversions took place.

And we notice right away the absence of a detail. Saul and his companions are on the road to Damascus. There is a brilliant light, leaving Saul temporarily blinded. He hears a voice identifying itself as "Jesus whom you are persecuting." And that's virtually it. What happened? How do we understand or explain it? In one sense, we can't, but in a very important sense we can describe it. It was undoubtedly life-changing. Read through the Book of Acts and all the clues are there. Saul the persecutor suddenly becomes Paul the apostle – and is met by a great deal of suspicion. It is some years before his conversion is accepted as genuine.

What makes it so convincing? The complete transformation of his life. Exactly what happened on the road to Damascus doesn't matter too much. But just as we can say to the doubters about the tomb, 'Here is our explanation of why the tomb is empty, now tell us yours', so we can say the same thing to those who doubt the reality of Saul's encounter with the Risen Christ. Something happened that changed him completely. Here is our explanation, what's yours?

And I end with a similar, although less spectacular, experience recounted by the great Orthodox writer and teacher, Metropolitan Anthony. In his book, The Essence of Prayer, there is a transcript of an interview he gave about his conversion, and it includes this:

While I was reading the beginning of St Mark's Gospel, before I reached the third chapter, I suddenly became aware that on the other side of my desk there was a presence. And the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it never left me. This was the real turning point. Because Christ was alive and I had been in his presence I could say with certainty that what the gospel said about the crucifixion of the prophet of Galilee was true, and the centurion was right when he said, 'Truly he is the Son of God.' It was in the light of the Resurrection that I could read with certainty the story of the Gospel, knowing that everything was true in it because the impossible event of the Resurrection was to me more certain than any event of history. [For me the Gospel] began as an event that left all problems of disbelief behind because it was a direct and personal experience.

All I wish to add is that, on very rare occasions, I have experienced something very similar while celebrating the Eucharist. That's why I believe completely that Jesus Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed!
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Louise Booth

A New Democracy

Texts: Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

The country was stunned this week by one event, an event the experts said had no precedent since the Second World War. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition met together, agreed together and appeared together to propose a common solution to a problem that was dividing the people of this country. And, of course, not everybody was pleased about it. Mr Key, in particular, has been accused of "letting Labour off the hook".

The remarkable thing about all this, of course, is that it is so remarkable. That is not how we expect our politicians to behave – particularly not our Leader of the Opposition. We take it for granted that in our democracy everybody will pursue their own opinions and their own interests, and somehow out of all the squabbling and argy-bargy a way forward will emerge. We say we want consensus politics – we say we are tired of all the slanging matches – we say that when we voted for MMP we wanted a more cooperative approach to politics – but when it happens we are stunned, and not all of us like what we see.

We needn't worry too much. We don't have to be too cynical to know that this example of cooperation and consensus –seeking won't last very long. We have the annual Budget coming up later this month; and we all know the ritual involved in that. In Parliament, the Opposition Parties will criticise the Budget and move a motion of no-confidence in the Government. The motion will be defeated. Outside Parliament all the various interest groups will be sought by the media for their comments, and all will complain that there is not enough in the Budget for their sector.

That's how the game is played under normal conditions. In our democracy everybody is entitled to express his or her opinion, and we take it for granted that we will exercise that right from a purely self-centred point of view. That's human nature, isn't it? Well, yes it is, but the question for us is, is it redeemed human nature? Or to put it another way, should the same principle of self-interest guide us in the church? It seems from the demonstrations in Parliament Grounds on Wednesday that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ believe it should. Shout for all your worth, drown out those advocating a different point of view, and claim that God is on your side and not theirs.

That's what happens when the spirit of democracy invades the church, unmediated by the Spirit of Christ. In a very real sense, Christ's teaching is opposed to our democratic practice if by that we mean that we all push our own barrows. Think for a moment of his teaching on leadership. When the disciples were arguing among themselves about who among them was the greatest, Jesus told them that such an argument was okay for civil society, but it must not be like that within the Christian community. Whoever wants to be the greatest must be the least; whoever wants to be the leader of all must be the servant of all. The Christian community must be a democracy in the important sense that all members are of equal value, but it is to be a new kind of democracy, one in which power struggles give way to love. Self-interest gives way to the interests of others.

And nowhere is this teaching about a new democracy more obvious than in the Gospel of St John. Nowhere but in this gospel do we find Jesus washing his disciples' feet, demonstrating that the leader of all is the servant of all. Nowhere but in this gospel do we find Jesus' prayer for unity among his disciples and followers. And nowhere but in this gospel do we find this so-called New Commandment.

Think for a moment about the other gospels, and you will realise that they are much more concerned about the 'outside world'. All three of them have the so-called Great Commandments, what our liturgy now calls the Summary of the Law. Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. Two of them come very close to arguing that salvation depends on how we treat our neighbours – almost a gospel of works. St Matthew has the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, which seems to suggest that whether we are or are not admitted to the presence of the King depends on how we have or have not ministered to those in need. St Luke gives us a similar message through the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

And, of course, St Matthew and St Luke have the shocking suggestion that Jesus commands his followers to love even our enemies! [Try telling that to our brothers and sisters in Parliament Grounds this week!]

But we won't find anything of this in St John's Gospel. Instead, we get this New Commandment, addressed only to his disciples. Love one another as I have loved you. Compared to the teaching in the other gospels, this is very introverted, if that's the word. It's about what goes on in the church, not outside it. It's a rather limited version of love in the sense that it limits the class orf recipients. That's bad enough, but it gets worse.

Jesus spells out why he wants us to love one another. That love is to be the identifying mark of his church. Not the quality of our service or ministry to others, nor the correctness of our belief, and not even the quality of our worship. The mark by which we are to be known and recognised as his disciples is to be our love for our fellow members of the church. Not just those members we find personally congenial, not just those who agree with us, not just those who are no threat to our own position in the church, but all members. The church is to be a new community, a new democracy in which all members are equally valued, and all members submit their own interest to the interests of the others.

It gets worse. Jesus tells us the standard of love required. When we're told to love our neighbours, the standard is that of our self-love. Love your neighbour as yourself. In other words recognise your neighbour's interests as of equal importance to your own. That's tough enough sometimes, but that's not the standard required in connection with this New Commandment. The standard here is that of Christ's own love for his followers. And, of course, he reminds us that involves laying down one's life for others: Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. That wasn't said or written for Anzac Day. That was said and written for his church for every day.

One more thing while we are on the subject of love. It is often said – and we say it ourselves- that God's love for us – Christ's love for us – is unconditional. If by that we mean there is nothing we can do or need to do to earn God's love, then we are quite right. We do not have to become a better person before God will deign to love us. As we say in one of our liturgies "God's love is shown to us: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That's exactly right. God loves us before we love him.

But then what? What if we then reject God's love? Where does that leave us? What if, having accepted God's forgiveness for our own sins, we refuse forgiveness to others? The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant tells us what the consequences of that may be. What if we fail to minister to those in need? The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats suggests that such failure may have eternal consequences.

And here in St John's Gospel, we find the same cautionary note. In chapter 15, Jesus is quoted thus: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love….My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. The implication is, surely, that if we fail to love one another, we will not remain in Christ's love.

The point is that we are called together into the church, the new community of God, as the first stage of the renewal of the whole of creation. Our lesson from the Book of Acts this morning foreshadows the next stage. Peter as a good Jew understood God's command to love God and to love his fellow Jews. Then, through the actions of the Holy Spirit, he understood that the same love he had for his fellow Jews was to be extended to the Gentiles, meaning everyone else. Why? Because only thus would it reflect God's own love for the whole of humanity.

And so the love within the Jewish community starts to spread beyond it. But it spreads through people, through faithful people, committed to God's commandments. It spreads through the faith of the people of God, hearing God's teaching, accepting God's teaching, and acting in accordance with God's teaching. It is not some sort of spiritual force that takes over the world, whether we humans like it or not. It is love incarnate in the followers of Christ.

Through us it is to fill the Church, and to overflow into the world, until the whole earth and the whole heaven is renewed, as we see it in the Revelation of John. Every time we fail to be loving within the Church we hold up that process, when we succeed we speed it up. How we treat one another is that important.

It is easy to be cynical about the minor miracle we witnessed in the political arena this week. Or perhaps we should be thankful for it as a sign of the new community into which all of creation is being called – starting with the Church of God.

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Louise Booth