It has been an interesting few days.  Our last archbishop, a man for whom I have a very large amount of time, said that the UK is now a post-Christian country.  Our Prime Minister said that Christians should be more evangelical in their faith, and was roundly rebuked by some of our more vocal athiests.  Finally, the Vatican beatified two former popes, the radical and liberalising John 23^rd and the conservative John Paul 2^nd, as if to balance one against the other.  Against all this background, yesterday’s gospel blazed its own eternal message.

We had the story of “Doubting Thomas,” a wrong translation because nowhere in the original Greek is Thomas accused of doubting.  He is disbelieving or unbelieving – but of what?  Certainly not Jesus.  There can be no question of Thomas’ loyalty even to his dead friend.  No, Thomas disbelieves in the resurrection.  Why?  Because unlike Mary Magdalene, unlike the other ten disciples, he has not seen the risen Lord.  When we accuse Thomas of doubting we must remember that he is asking for no more than his friends have received, physical proof.  So, perturbed in spirit by their extraordinary claims, he says he will not believe unless he sees Jesus for himself and puts his fingers in the wounds made by the nails and his hand into the hole caused by the spear in Jesus’ side.

Jesus comes a week later and goes straight to Thomas, inviting him to see and touch.  Despite some rather gruesome pictures by painters like Caravaggio, which show Thomas tentatively putting his finger in Jesus’ side, there is no evidence in the gospel story that Thomas did that.  It was enough for Thomas to see the risen Jesus for him to fall on his knees, crying out, “My Lord and my God,” the most powerful resurrection confession of all of them because the first one that names Jesus as God.

What is so important about Thomas’s story is that we are reminded as fully as can be, that the raised body of Jesus carries the wounds of the crucified man.  Lest we forget or haven’t really grasped it, this story serves to remind us that it was God who suffered and died on the cross and that God forever bears the wounds of this suffering world “in his own body”, whether that is on view in Jesus or in the heart of God.

Jesus died an ignominious, cruel death, was buried in an anonymous tomb and the authorities hoped he would be forgotten.  But death could not defeat him and neither will our present times.  Like a phoenix from the ashes this story will rise again and again because who cannot respond passionately to a God who has “borne our sins and carried our diseases” and who continues to carry and to suffer for his suffering world.

Janet Morley called her book of poetry for Lent and Holy Week, “The Heart’s Time,” and it truly is.  Lent and this Holy Week especially invite us to concentrate on what our heart really longs for, needs, desires and craves.  At the very deepest part of ourselves we long for love and belonging, and at the very deepest part of that deep place we know the love we so urgently seek is more than we can find in another human being.

Holy Week is especially the time for the heart but it is so easy to let it pass by without receiving even a little of what it has to offer.  Over and over again I see people bypassing the cross of Good Friday and moving to the jollity of Easter Day – and I say “jollity” rather than joy because you don’t get what Easter Day is really about without Good Friday – you don’t get the joy of new life in Christ, which is more than anything, the knowledge that God loves you right to the bottom of that deep down place – unless you see that love fully exposed on the cross.

Of course, it is totally understandable, to want to avoid the cross and its horrors.  We all know the temptation to turn away from bad news stories in the media, particularly those which are full of suffering.  The cross is utterly horrific.  No one denies that.  But the extraordinary thing about Christ crucified is that as you gaze on the figure you are taken to another level, a deeper level.  You go past the outside and see the point of the whole thing.  The cross connects heaven and earth in its vertical line.  The arms of Jesus stretched out on the horizontal beams embrace all the earth.  Jesus himself is the faithful human one who never turns away from God, who never turns away from us.  He allows us for the first and only time to see what it might mean to be truly human, as God intended us to be; in perfect loving and trusting relation to him; resting in his care for us.

Jesus is raised on the cross and we are invited to gaze on him to see that which only the heart can see, love made perfect, love that tells us who God is, love that at last rescues us from fear and separation, love that forgives us because it can do no other.

All this – and so much more – is missed, if we only want the jollity of Easter Day.

This is being written on April 6th, the fifth Sunday of Lent and the beginning of Passiontide. The gospel this morning was the raising of Lazarus and this story, according to some theologians, is where the “tide” really turns against Jesus. John’s gospel which can be divided into two parts. The first part is the one about the Signs that Jesus performed. The second is about Christ’s “Glory,” a word John uses all the time to talk of the Passion: Jesus’ arrest, torture, crucifixion and death. For John the glory of God’s love in Christ shows forth through these terrible events:

For God so loved the world…”

The raising of Lazarus is the last of Jesus’ Signs but also the event that determines the religious authorities to have him killed, rather than the remarks he makes about the temple, according to John. What happens, other than the most extraordinary event that would make you think they would turn to Jesus (the raising of Lazarus) to bring them to this pitch of fear and hatred?

There is some evidence in the text that there is a breakdown in attitude within the religious authorities themselves. At the end of the set gospel we read this,

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. (John 11:45)

When John writes “the Jews” this is his shorthand for the antagonistic Jewish authorities, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Priests – those who stood for the status quo and were against Jesus from the start. Before this incident with Lazarus there is a sense of a united front amongst the authorities, but here we read that some start to believe in him. If our gospel reading had gone on a little further we would have read:

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council…Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them…“50 You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”

The greatest fear when it comes to power is when those who we thought were on our side and thought as we did, change sides. Our position is crumbling. The authorities had begun by ridiculing Jesus. As his influence grew so did their smear campaigns and their intellectual attack. Now, afraid as they see even their friends succumbing to his influence and the terrible threat of Roman reaction, they are determined Jesus must be eliminated.

We may not think we are prone to such reactions but perhaps we should look at ourselves more closely; look at the way you feel about your culture, your belief system and your politics. Who threatens you? Who would you like simply not to be around so that you could be a little more comfortable inside your skin; a little less disturbed? And where does our pre-conditioned prejudice stop us from seeing and hearing the truth.

On retreat last week I was reminded of how important waiting is. It is not at all something that we are used to or good at in our world today. As someone pointed out one of our new gods is called “Instant;” another is called “Distraction” – the need to be entertained in every moment. Neither of these gods sits comfortably with waiting. There is a kind of courtesy involved in waiting. We wait for or wait on someone or something until they are ready. Waiting demands patience. It demands that we hand over power to the other. It lives by the old adage that the best things in life are worth waiting for.

What do we have to wait for? First thing, upon waking and best done gazing out the window, cup of tea in hand, we wait for the spirit of the day to make itself known. As we pause and gaze, resisting the temptation to switch on the radio or hurry up and get dressed, we allow God’s presence to be felt. You can’t force this. You have to wait. But the reward is that already the day has depth and meaning. Even if this is the only pausing we do all day it will change the taste of the day.

Leaving the house the temptation is to be full of what we are going towards, our journey to work, or what we have to do. We can be completely oblivious to life outside our heads. We are also living entirely in the future and not in the present moment at all. So the invitation as you open the front door and step out is to pause and again wait on the day. Let it come to you; let it greet you in the weather you step into: the physical feelings of warmth or cold on your skin, the sounds of birdsong, breeze, rain, traffic. Smell the smells: everything from tarmac to sweet smells of grass or box hedge to coffee or curry! Observe the trees; notice the ones coming into bud. Be aware of the people. Look at the sky, at the buildings, at the birds in the trees. And then just pause again. In those moments of being and waiting the day tenderly gives itself to you.

In everything we do we are invited to be patient and to wait so that the other may come to us. So we wait on a painting we are looking at until it begins to “speak” to us. We read a piece of scripture or a poem slowly and sometimes more than once and then just sit with it until something communicates itself to us. In conversation we wait for the other person to share without hurrying into our agenda. If the conversation gets deep we allow the silences. With a small child or animal we wait until they feel confident enough to come towards us. We respect their space and needs.

We can get into the habit of pausing during the day and allowing all the richness outside ourselves if we practice it. The more we practice just stopping and waiting for a few moments, the more habitual it becomes and the more alive we feel. It probably starts though with that waiting first thing in the morning. A new day full of its own life and I am allowed to be part of it, thanks be to God.