Tuesday in Holy Week

Today at the eucharist at which the clergy of the diocese renewed their ordination vows and the bishop blessed the holy oils we use for baptism and healing, the preacher, Julia Slayton (from the Bethany House of Prayer, spoke about the opening line of the gospel reading:

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

I want to go with this thought because I had never looked at today’s gospel reading in quite these terms.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus. We want to get closer to see and know him for ourselves.’

She reflected on how there are people whom we want to see, those people who draw you to them for reasons you sometimes don’t know. Perhaps you’ve had that happen?

We want to know those people in life who bring Jesus closer to us, don’t we? They exist. Some of us have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity in our lives to meet such a person. Desmond Tutu always comes to mind but there are others.

Upon arriving home from the cathedral, no sooner had I walked in the door, when I got a phone call from someone I have never met but who is almost a blood brother to me. He is a 77 year-old retired Episcopal priest in Buffalo, dealing with asthma, congestive heart failure, and the issues of mortality that come along with ageing. Our connection is through El Salvador. He knew Oscar Romero and worked with him for five years. He was there at the time of Romero’s death and burial.

I said it must have been incredible to have been in Romero’s presence. He answered that Romero was one of those people who could take your pain away. Just spending time in his presence was enough to release the suffering. The church’s human rights officer, who would come into Romero’s office with 100 new cases of disappeared or tortured people in his hands, would walk out a restored person because of Romero’s healing touch on his forehead.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus… now.’

There is the desire of meeting the person of Jesus and then the desire to meet him now.

‘Now’ is the operative reality for the gospel. Now, the present moment. Now is the time to live fully our baptism that has been given us through Christ’s life, death and baptism. Not tomorrow, not yesterday but fully in the present.

The Ash Wednesday epistle, which we heard six weeks ago says: ‘See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!’ Now is the time to enter into the life of dying and rising anew.

Our Christian life can be lived on the spot where we stand. This spot can encompass dying and rising anew. It can encompass the cross and resurrection. We just need to make our hearts open to that journey that happens in the present.

Do we know the hour, the now, the here?

The now is in Darfur. The now is in Sudan. The now is in the children’s hospital. The now is in the Anglican Communion. It is here now and always.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

Of course, when we say ‘We wish to see Jesus,’ it sometimes will take us where we don’t want to go. There are ‘now’s which seem too much for us. Taking care of an ageing parent. Walking alongside a dying person. Dealing with a child suffering from learning disorders. Giving up everything to follow Jesus. Don’t we go through those moments saying: ‘There’s no way I can be doing this. It has to be God who is doing this through me’?

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This Tuesday in Holy Week, the gospel asks us: Where are you bidden to abide, to stay, to watch, to pray?

Is it in the home of Mary and Martha with Lazarus?
Is it at table with Jesus and the twelve?
Is it at the trial?
Or in the garden?
Or on the cross?
Or at the tomb?

Where and when will Christ’s hour come for you?
Where is God’s glory redeeming the world now?

Remember, we cannot limit God’s power to our own terms or imagination — God’s power is far greater than that. So where do we see God’s glory redeeming the world now?

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Hymn 333 uses the words of Jaroslav Vajda that express this sense of here and present:

Now the silence
Now the peace
Now the empty hands uplifted
Now the kneeling
Now the plea
Now the Father’s arms in welcome
Now the hearing
Now the power
Now the vessel brimmed for pouring
Now the Body
Now the Blood
Now the joyful celebration
Now the wedding
Now the songs
Now the heart forgiven leaping
Now the Spirit’s visitation
Now the Son’s epiphany
Now the Father’s blessing
Now
Now
Now

Christ’s now is here with us. Here, now. Let us glorify God now, here.