The scandal of the cross and the shock of the empty tomb!

 The preparations for the Easter Triduum are entering their final stages and we are called to ponder how we enter into the central part of the Kerygma of Jesus Christ. The fact that God cares so much for us that he is willing to undergo suffering and death so that we may experience resurrection. This seems to run contrary to our expectations of God in that we seem to encounter one on the cross who seems powerless, poor and destitute. This is not how we would want God to be. We would much prefer a God who appears powerful, wealthy and in control. This is the scandal of the Cross that changes how we relate to God and how we pray. No longer are we relating to a God who holds us at arm's length but rather a God who holds us close in our suffering, pain and uncertainty? When we encounter God in this way it changes our own way of living because we experience a level of intimacy that does not abandon us and leave us to our own devices.

Yet we know this is only half the story. The Paschal mystery does not end on Calvary but draws us into a deeper silence. The profundity of this experience is that we are rendered speechless when everybody else seeks to explain what happened. This way of being led into what appears darkness shows us that even in the darkest night his light may shine. We are called to wait upon the Lord in places where we feel afraid and uncomfortable with what may come next. The experience of the echoes of the empty tomb seem to match our own when we have lost someone we loved who has died. There is an aloneness that no one else can fill and we long to be filled. Yet this loving emptiness allows us the opportunity to make space for the Risen Lord. It is the place where we can surrender ourselves to a God who brings a deeper appreciation of what brings faith, hope and charity at the centre of our living.

In an age where we seem to be scandalised by the trivial and consumed by so many things these three days allow us to ponder who God is calling us to become. We are called to enter into the mystery of Christ who sustains us even in our deepest fears and in our greatest uncertainties to build a world that is not our own. God draws us closer and loves us more deeply than we can imagine. God allows us to live in a new way.   

Who is welcome at our door?

 When a guest comes knocking at our door will we let them in? We see this contrasting expectation in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Initially, he is welcomed and the crowds gather to anticipate a new beginning. However, this quick turns to isolation, rejection, and death. At the heart of the Easter mystery, we see it played out so often in our everyday lives. We know of instances where people who can gather the crowds, appeal to the apparent immediate needs and promise results they cannot deliver. Yet Easter is not just about opinion polls but about who helps us encounter God who can love even in the face of isolation, rejection, and death. We discover a God who will walk with us even when many shy away from encountering us in our deepest struggles.

This is a God willing to act as a servant and wash our feet, as a person who discovers the anguish of discovering their true self, who can bear the departure and betrayal of close friends and be falsely accused and humiliated by others. This person helps us not focus solely on the cause of our sufferings or even how we are called to endure suffering but rather on the loving presence of one who carries the weight of that within oneself. We discover through the Easter Triduum a person who makes sense of nonsense and counters the argument that only death can relieve the pain of living with contradictions. He is in the words of Ireneus a man who is fully human and fully alive who seeks to break the chains of slavery that can bind us. He seeks to show us how even in the scandal of the cross he becomes most fully himself.

The scene played out at Calvary is never more important, especially in an age where people are only valued by their utility rather than by their personhood, by what they can do rather than who they are, and by their opinions rather than their intrinsic worth. In a world that can seem turned upside down Calvary turns things the right side up. It helps us to encounter God who cares more deeply than we can imagine. A person who frees us from what imprisons us even from our greatest fears. May we walk more closely with each other on this pilgrim path from sorrow to the joy of Easter.

Learn to know the Lord

 We live in a society where literacy is taken for granted. The ability to read and teach others is a skill that helps people learn more quickly and grow in confidence to apply what they have learned. Yet in a society that can know so much there often needs to be a greater level of discernment about what we read and whether it helps us to grow in our relationship with God and with others. It is all too easy in an age where information is prepackaged, edited, and targeted to particular audiences that we can lose a critical element of our own ability to know what is good for us. We can discover that others can deluge us with information, especially through social media, television, radio, and other mediums that we often want to push the pause button.

This is where the Gospel passage we start to notice a longing to meet the person of Jesus. Not as a prepackaged commodity but as a true encounter that helps our hearts to expand in fidelity and integrity in discovering the truth about God. This is where we need to become people of prayer who can study our environment and act in a way that reflects that relationship. God seeks for us to allow ourselves a quiet space where we can be alone with the Word of God and reflect on how we will live that daily.

As we come closer to the end of Lent, the world slows down for a short while. We can pause to take a breath and look at how we commit ourselves to discovering the person of Jesus who walks close by our side. In these moments we start to discover that our lives are called to grow in that relationship especially when we struggle to make sense of the world in which we live. Trust in God that we can learn to know the Lord not just know about him.

We are God's work of Art

 Often when I visit an art gallery or an exhibition it is hard to know what you are looking at. Our eyes have been trained over time to be engaged by movement and action whereas an art piece like a painting or a sculpture can seem fairly static. When we look at a piece of art if it does not immediately engage us we often quickly move on or when we are caught by a particular image the crowds move us on. We don't have the time to pause and soak it in.  There can also be an inner reaction that questions what message an artist may be sending us. We are drawn occasionally to that which makes us comfortable and at peace rather than what challenges us to become one with the peace of art.

Recently, I was part of an exhibition about the artwork of David Hockney. What stays with me is his insight into reverse perspective when we gaze upon art. Often we look at art from our own perspective rather than that of the artist. In reverse perspective, we are drawn to see how we are part of the artwork and it draws us to participate and become with what we gaze upon. This is present especially in Iconography where the artist writes an Icon to draw us to contemplate how we are drawn into the heart of God. This is a way in which our gaze draws us to the centre and allows us the opportunity to notice how God leads our hearts to contemplate how we participate in this divine life.

This is at the heart of what we celebrate in Lent. God seeks to shift our focus from that which disfigures, disguises, and disembodies the reality of how God created us to be in a loving relationship. Too often we can become conscious of what obscures or misdirects in life to seek our own path. God gently draws us back not by focusing on our sin, weakness, and vulnerability but rather by reawakening with us what we truly desire. God seeks to enlighten us so that we can see clearly with fresh vision.

God sees us to view the whole of creation with wonder and grace. This is by spending time relishing how we are God's work of art. This may mean that we spend time restoring, renewing, and repairing what causes us to doubt that God sees us in this way. God adjusts our vision and our perspective to draw us closer to be present with our whole self and not just with a passing glance at who it is that brings us life and meaning.

Keeping God at arm's length

 One of the realities of Lent is that God comes close, sometimes closer than we expect, and more than we desire. We discover a God who cares passionately about our own welfare and seeks to cross the barriers that we put in place. He seeks to revolutionize our relationships by seeking to cross that divide. In particular, God wants us to notice the ways that we can trivialize our relationship by seeing it as transactional rather than life-changing. When we are used to buying things that we want when we want them it is possible to approach our relationship with God in the same way. 

Yet God seeks us out in unexpected ways and overturns the tables in our temple. God seeks to deepen our relationship by understanding us and how we can seek to hide our deepest needs. God wants to consume us rather than turn us into consumers of grace. This trust of our lives in the person of Jesus seeks our belief that liberates us from that which binds us to our own limited vision of God. We discover a God who seeks to remove the barriers that we erect to that relationship. 

As St Paul notices when we discover the foolishness of God and the presumed weakness of God we notice a profound wisdom and divine power at work at the heart of creation. We notice a God who seeks to love us with a passionate and heartfelt desire to enter into the heart of the lawgiver. This is not just following a set of instructions or seeking a magical solution to our problems rather it is the freedom to notice how deeply God cares for our salvation. Just as God is at the heart of all things there is a longing not to just go through the motions of Lent but to fall into God's warm embrace.