​I am the Way the Truth and the Life, No-one comes to the Father but by me. John 14:6

These words are amongst the most well-known and troubling in Scripture…You would probably have heard these words read at most funerals you have attended.  And at most funerals these words would most likely have been used as a kind of religious weapon, a an emotional blackmail to try scare people into making a Christian commitment. I am the Way the Truth and the Life… No-one comes to the father but by me.  At first reading it would suggest that Jesus is kind of like a heavenly gate-keeper… God’s bouncer in the sky determining who will get into heaven.  The implication in funerals is often made explicit by some preachers… if you don’t accept Jesus you won’t get into heaven and will face the danger of a life lived in hell for the rest of eternity.

The spiritual logic of that approach is interesting:  Jesus loves you… but if you don’t accept Jesus he will condemn you to an eternity of suffering.

And it raises all sorts of other questions, especially about people of other faiths and those who have had the hard luck of being born into a culture where they may never have had the opportunity even to hear the name of Jesus… Many have asked the question: what happens to such people when they die?

And so that is the exclusivist way in which those words have been been interpreted especially in evangelical circles.   But is that the only way of understanding and interpreting those words or is there another perspective?

The first things to notice is that these words are spoken by Jesus not as a threat,, but in fact as words of comfort to disciples who are confused and afraid.  Within the context of John’s Gospel Jesus has told his disciples that he will be leaving them (John 13:33, 13:36). They do not understand. They are filled with grief (John 16:6). They are confused. And into this situation according to John, Jesus speaks these words as part of a message that is meant to comfort them, not as a threat of exclusion.

The passage begins with these words:   Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me (John 14:1).

Jesus is not trying to trouble them more by giving them some kind of a threat as to what will happen to them if they do not accept him, he is seeking to alleviate their troubled hearts.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God. Trust also in me (John 14:1).

Many translations use the word believe: Believe in God, Believe also in me… as though what is being asked for is a kind of signing up to some kind of doctrine, dogma or belief system (John 14:1).  But the NIV translation is right in using the word Trust rather then Believe.   What is being called for here is not some kind of belief with our intellect… the invitation here is to a life of deeper trust… trust that there is a hidden wisdom and compassion behind all of life that we can entrust ourselves to.  The Christian faith is ultimately not about believing certain things it is an invitation to a life of deeper trust – a trusting ultimately in a goodness and a wisdom that underlies all of life.

When the disciples find themselves troubled, Jesus invites them to a life of deeper trust.

But Thomas is still confused… Lord we don’t know where you are going? How can we know they way (John 14:5).

And in response to Thomas’s confusion and his troubled heart, Jesus speaks these words to reassure him…

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

The first thing to notice is that Jesus begins with the words ‘I am’ (John 8:58).

John’s Gospel as 7 I am sayings of Jesus.
I am the bread of life (John 6:35) -
I am the light of the world (John 8:12) -
I am the door (John 10:9) -
I am the good shepherd (John 10:11) -
I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25) -
I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) -  I am the true vine (John 15:1)

These are a particular feature of John’s Gospel. You don’t find them in any of the other Gospels. And so it is very unlikely that they are words spoken by Jesus himself.   They are far more likely to be a literary and teaching device used by the writer of John to help his readers come to a deeper understanding of Jesus.

And the deeper truth John wants us to see in Jesus is that the Jesus makes known the Eternal I am to us (John 1:18).   The phrase I Am was the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).  John’s Gospel asserts that this Eternal I Am is now revealed in and through the humanity of Jesus (John 1:14).

Jesus reveals the Eternal I Am in and through his life, and as such he is the Way that leads us back to the ‘Father’, in other words, to the Loving Source from which we have all come (John 1:12-13).  Jesus is the Way that can show us back home to the one who is our original Source.

The words ‘The Way’ is very significant here.  He is not saying, ‘I am the password’ that will get you into heaven, rather he says I Am the Way… Jesus is pointing us towards a Way that is to be lived and embodied, a Way that will lead us back home to the Source of al life, love and joy.

What does this Way of Jesus look like in John’s Gospel:

It is the Way of Love that turns the water of religious legalism into the wine of love and joy (John 2:1-11).
It is the Way of Love that meets Nicodemus in the night-time and darkness of his ignorance and invites him into a transformed way of being that will feel like a rebirth into a whole new form of existence (John 3:1-8).
It is the Way of Love that meets the Samaritan woman at the well, affirming her and accepting her despite her chequered moral past and despite her being a distrusted and heretical Samaritan (John 4:4-26).
It is the Way of Love that invites those paralysed by guilt and shame to pick up their mats and walk again (John 5:8-9).
It is the Way of Love that invites us to open our deeper spiritual eyes to see the deeper truth of existence (John 9:39), that not only is Jesus the son of God (John 9:35-37), but that as Jesus points out: Do not your own scriptures say you are gods (John 10:34)… in other words in your essence You too are Divine.
It is the Way of Love that invites those who live in  Bethany the house of poverty to come out of their tombs of death and to be raised to newness of life (John 11:43-44).
It is the Way of Love that gives up the way of violent domination so popular in the world today and takes a towel, wraps it around his waste and washes his disciples feet – even the feet of the one who would betray him and those who would within hours abandon him (John 13:4-5).
It is the Way of the seed that gives up its small ego self, and falls to the ground and dies in order to discover it’s more expansive Divine Self (John 12:24).
It is the Way of Love that is willing to lay one’s life down for one’s friends, and in fact even one’s enemies, in order that All people might be drawn back home to the Divine (John 10:11, John 12:32).

Jesus is the embodiment of the Way that leads back to the Father, back home to the Divine Source from which we have all come.

When Jesus says: No-one comes to the father by by me, what he is saying is that no-one comes back home to the Father except by this Way that Jesus embodies.  If God is the source of Love, then no-one comes back to the Father except by this Way of Love that we have seen embodied in Jesus.

And according to John’s Jesus, it is ultimately the Way that will draw all people back home to their source. When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself (John 12:32). (Not some people – All people).

These are the words not simply of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, these are the words of the Eternal Logos speaking through the human Jesus, the eternal Wisdom through which all things have come into being and which enlightens all people coming into the world (John 1:1-9).

IF God is Love, as is made plane in 1 John 3:16, then the Way back to God can only be by the Way of Love embodied in Jesus. No-one comes to the God of Love except by the Way of Love… and that Way of Love seen so clearly in Jesus is silently at work drawing all people back to that Infinite and Eternal Source of Love, referred to by Jesus as Abba, ‘the Father’.

And this Way of Jesus can be found in people of other faiths…  Indeed there are people of no faith at all who have also discovered this Way of self-giving Love that leads to life and wholeness. As Jesus says in John 10:16 “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also…” Whoever walks this Way of Jesus, this Way of Self-giving Love will find their way home to ‘the Father’.

I grew up with my own father reading CS Lewis’s Narnia series to me and my brothers before we went to bed at night.  In the final book of the Narnia series, entitled the Last Battle, when after the final and terrible battle the Old Narnia disappears and there is a New Narnia, Emeth, a worshipper of the terrible and fearsome god Tash finds himself in the Land of Aslan, the great Lion who is a symbol of the Christ.  As Emeth stands before Aslan, he is confused and says… “All these years I have served and worshipped Tash and yet now I find myself accepted in the Land of Aslan, how can this be?”  To which Aslan replies:  “Whatever acts of love, kindness and goodness you have done in the Name of Tash I have credited as having been done to myself."

And so as Jesus says a few verses later in John 15, may we abide and rest in the Infinite, Eternal Love of Christ (abide in me and I in you) (John 15:4) that this Way of Christ maybe opened up within us too that we may discover the Father, the Source, who dwells within us:  “I am in the Father and the Father is in me…” (John 14:10),  “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)  Amen.

“He Made Them Male and Female” - Wrestling with Genesis 1:27

“He made them male and female.” Genesis 1:27

Those words from the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis are among the more familiar words of scripture. They seem, at first glance, beautifully simple - clear, ordered, and reassuring. Humanity, we are told, is created in two forms: male and female. A binary, distinct and complete.

And yet, as with so much in scripture, what appears simple on the surface begins to open into something far more complex when we look more closely at life, at science, the lived experience of human beings and indeed the Bible and theology as well.

I want to say at the outset that I approach this subject from a particular perspective, one that I don’t think is always heard in church. But it is not the only perspective. You do not need to agree with me. My hope is simply to open a space for deeper thought and reflection. 

My own perspective on matters of gender and sexuality was once very clear-cut. Right up to my late twenties, I held firm, definite and fairly conservative views. But then life did what life often does, it introduced me to real people… people of sincerity, integrity, and kindness… people whose lives bore the marks not of confusion or rebellion, but of a genuine and sincere desire to love and to live well, people whose desire and intent was to be of service to others often at cost to themselves. In other words they held many of the same values that I held as a Christian and follower of Christ. 

In meeting them, something in me softened. My certainty gave way to curiosity, y judgments gave way to listening and my strongly held opinions began to shift and change. 

Even before those real-life encounters, questions had already begun to arise for me - information and perspectives that didn’t fit neatly into my earlier understanding.

The first was a story I read in a South African Sunday paper. It told of a former Catholic priest.

This person had been born intersex. An intersexed person has a mixture of male and female biological markers not always immediately physically obvious. But in this instance, at birth, there was no clear physical indication that the child was either male or female, having a mixture of male and female reproductive characteristics. Faced with this uncertainty, the parents made a decision: they chose to raise the child as a boy.

For a time, that seemed to settle things. The child grew up, followed a vocation, and was eventually ordained as a Catholic priest, even teaching theology in a Catholic Seminary. The Church did not know that this person was intersex, neither clearly male nor clearly female.

But over time, something deeper began to emerge. Despite being raised as male, there was an inner awareness that this identity did not fully fit. More and more, the one everyone knew outwardly as “he” began to recognise inwardly that she experienced herself as “she,” (and perhaps this awareness was there all along.)

Nurture, family expectations, and religious expectations and formation could not override that inner sense of identity. And so at great personal cost, she eventually embraced her identity as a woman. Nothing physically had changed, but inwardly, everything had become clear.

The response from the Catholic Church was also clear: the priesthood was male-only, and so her ordination and licence were revoked.

That story planted questions for me. If a person can be born without clear biological markers of male or female, then perhaps the idea of a completely clear-cut binary is not as absolute as I had once assumed.

Science tells us that, at a purely biological level, around 1–2% of people are born with some form of intersex variation. Relatively speaking that is quite a high percentage. 1-2 out of every hundred people living in Dromore and Banbridge would fall into this category.  These are differences in chromosomes, hormones, or anatomy that do not fit typical definitions of male or female. Only a small proportion of these cases are obvious at birth; for many, the differences are less visible.

For example, a person may appear biologically female but have a male Y chromosome, or a person may appear male but have variations in chromosomes or hormone responses.

What this means, even for a small or medium size town like Dromore and Banbridge, is worth considering. In a school of around 1,000 pupils, statistically speaking, there could be around 15–20 children who, in some way, do not fit neatly into simple biological categories of male or female – and with those physical and biological markers one can easily imagine that such children, teenagers and adults might not feel they fit neatly into the socially acceptable binary categories of male and female.

A few years ago, the BBC aired a documentary asking: Do you have a male or female brain?

The premise, based on scientific research into average differences between male and female brains, is that there are some physical and functional differences. For example, some regions of the brain linked to spatial awareness and coordination on average tend to be more developed in males, while some regions linked to language, emotional processing, and social connection  tend to be more developed in female brains.

However, these are general patterns - not fixed rules.  What is increasingly recognised is that many people do not fit neatly into these categories. Some men show patterns more typical of female brains, and some women show patterns more typical of male brains.

This suggests that, biologically speaking, it is possible for a person to have a male body and, at the same time, patterns of brain development more typically associated with females—or vice versa.

This does not erase the categories of male and female, but it does suggest that they are not always as sharply defined as we might assume. (In other words things are sometimes fuzzier than we fist think)

These questions were deepened for me through reading Carl Jung one of the giants of early 20th century exploration into psychology and the inner workings of the unconscious. Through his work exploring the inner life, Jung came to the conclusion that within every person there exists both a masculine and a feminine aspect, just as all people have both male and female hormones.  He called these the animus and the anima.

For Jung, psychological growth involved learning to integrate these aspects in a greater balance:
For example, the average more typical man, with his more natural tendency towards assertiveness, learning tenderness and nurture, while the average more typical woman, with her more natural tendency towards receptivity, learning assertiveness and strength

In this way, Carl Jung came to see that masculinity and femininity are not strictly separate categories, but exist within each person—something more like a balance than a rigid divide.

I saw something of this in my own home growing up. My father carried a wonderful gentleness and a natural gift for care and nurture, while my mother had a strength and practical confidence—never afraid to pick up the tools and fix what needed fixing, whether it was the car or the washing machine.

And in their own ways, each of them reflected something rich and whole about what it means to be human.

Returning to the story of the former Catholic priest, what stands out is that upbringing and nurture alone were not able to override this person’s inner sense of identity.  She was raised as male, but it did not change her deeper inner sense of being female.

Many people who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender describe something similar. From their earliest memories, they sensed that they were different - not as a choice, but as something they always felt deeply about themselves.

Their journeys are often difficult, involving confusion, struggle, being bullied and sometimes facing rejection by their closest family members. It raises a simple question: why would someone choose such a difficult path - unless, perhaps, it was never really a choice in the first place?

If we reflect on our own lives, most of us would say that our own sense of gender and attraction was not something we consciously chose, it was just a given.  What if we extended that same understanding to others? What if if for them it is also just a given? 

Another factor that challenged my earlier certainty is the understanding that development in the womb is a complex process. Biological development along male or female lines does not happen all at once. It unfolds over time and involves a series of processes influenced by genetic signals and the release of different hormones at different stages of pregnancy.

In most cases, these processes follow typical patterns. But they are not always identical in every pregnancy, and growing scientific evidence suggests that variations in these processes, including the release of certain hormones at certain times during pregnancy may play a role in shaping a person’s later sense of sexual orientation and gender identity.

I remember speaking with a mother in a church I served in Johannesburg.  She was struggling deeply with what she saw as her son’s “choice” to be gay. She blamed herself and felt pressure from others who suggested she must have done something wrong.

But when she began to understand that development during pregnancy is complex - and not simply a matter of upbringing - something shifted.  She reflected on her pregnancy with her son and remembered that it had not been straightforward. Her hormones had been all over the place, not following typical patterns.  For the first time, she began to consider that perhaps her son had not chosen this at all.  It became a turning point for her.

Where there had been shame and distance, there came acceptance and love. She no longer felt it was her role to try to change him, but to love him and support him in becoming the best version of who he already was.

So how do we interpret Genesis?

God is One. This is the affirmation of all monotheistic faiths. And yet Genesis tells us that both male and female are made in the image of God suggesting that masculinity and feminity are qualities that emerge from a single Divine source. 

And if that is so, that the masculine and the feminine emerge from a single Divine Source and male and female both reflect the Divine, then Carl Jung’s insight - that something of both exists within each of us - is not so far removed from a theological perspective. After all, even biologically speaking each of us have both male and female hormones in varying degrees. 

The question then becomes: How shall we respond? How do we live in a world where most people fit into clear categories, but some do not?  How do we respond to the statistical fact that quite possibly 10-20 children who attend a local primary school are biologically intersexed… at a physical level not fitting into the neat binary categories of male and female. 

Do we make those who do not fit feel like outsiders?
Do we force them to fit into our ideas of how we think they should be – even when key biological markers shows that they don’t?
Or do we make space for them to be themselves? Just as we have been given space to be ourselves?
And what if this is done not in a reckless way, but with deep care. 

Is there guidance in scripture you may ask? Hopefully by now we have begun to see that the Bible is more complex than some kind of an encyclopedic rule or law book… It is clearly not that. 

For Christians, the example of Jesus Christ is ultimately central and against whom the rest of scripture is evaluated. And when we look carefully at his life, a pattern begins to emerge - again and again, he moves towards those who are marginalised and excluded. Those who do not fit. Those who are pushed to the edges.

While others draw lines and build boundaries, Jesus crosses them.  While others exclude, Jesus includes. While others judge by outward appearance, Jesus looks deeper - seeing the person, the heart, and the humanity within.

And this pattern continues in the life of the early Church.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the story of the eunuch baptised by Philip. Under Jewish law, eunuchs were excluded - unable to participate fully in the religious community. But Philip, moved by the Spirit (of Jesus), does something remarkable: he does not hesitate, he does not question, he does not exclude. He baptises him, welcoming him fully into the people of God.  It is a powerful moment of inclusion.

And it becomes even more meaningful when we understand that in the ancient world, the word “eunuch” did not always refer only to men who had been physically castrated. While that was its most common meaning, it could also be used more broadly for those who did not fit typical masculine roles in society - those who, for various reasons, stood outside the usual expectations of marriage, sexuality, and family life. 

So here, in this encounter, we may be seeing not just the inclusion of one individual, but a sign that the grace of God reaches even those who do not fit neatly into society’s categories.

And perhaps that invites us to ask again:  If that is how the Spirit of Jesus was moving then… how might the Spirit of Jesus be calling us to respond today?

Those questions, while they should be central for us as Christians, don’t however simply remove all complexity.  In our modern world, there are real and difficult questions - questions around areas such as sport, privacy, and safety. These require careful thought and discernment. There are also cases where situations can be misused and abused.

But the existence of such cases should not lead us to reject or ostracise those whose experiences are genuine - many of whom are themselves vulnerable.

Finally I would like to get to what for me has become the heart of the matter

In 1 Samuel 16:7 we are told that God “does not look at the outward, external appearance, but at the heart”.

As I wrestled with these questions over the years, I came to see that the deeper issue is not about external categories, but about the condition of the heart. This was clearly Jesus position on parallel issues… what is the state of the heart?
 
Not, who is someone attracted but, what kind of life do they - and we - live?

Do they display what Paul in Galatians refers to as the fruit of the spirit:  showing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  Because for Paul these were a kind of litmus test: he asserts in effect that wherever these are present, the life of God is present. And wherever the life of God is present, we are on holy ground.

A closing thought, getting back to the verse in Genesis that we started with:  “He made them male and female.”  Yes.  But perhaps those words are not meant to close down the conversation, but to open it. To invite us into wonder at the diversity of creation.

It is clear that God and the process of evolution favours diversity over a lack of diversity.   The process of evolution, guided I believe by the higher intelligence of the Divine Mind has not produced only one kind of tree or flower, but multiple kinds of trees, flowers, animals, birds and insects… and even human beings of diverse languages and colours. These are clearly not mistakes… this is the trajectory of evolution and therefore must in some way reflect the divine will and intention.  What if those who do not fit into our neat binary categories of male and female are not in fact aberrations but part of the diversity of the Divine will.  This would be a very boring world if we were all exactly the same.  There is something rich and beautiful in the diversity of creation… 

And perhaps what seems to be the Divine Love for diversity is call beyond fear into deeper understanding.  To remind us that human beings and human diversity are not problems to be solved but mysteries to be honoured.  And to lead us, above all, into a greater and a deeper love. Because according to Paul, if we miss love, we have missed everything. If I have no love says Paul I am nothing,  no better than a clanging cymbal. 

Whatever our views are on these things, (and ultimately we are talking now about ideas, but about people) how might we approach them with deep, sincere and Christ-like love? 

As always, just some food for thought… Amen.

We had hoped... Luke 24:13-35

This the third Sunday of the season of Easter.

And by this point, it is very easy for us to settle into the brightness of resurrection when we tend to  speak of hope, and joy and the celebration of new life.

But sometimes, in our eagerness to arrive at Easter, we move too quickly past the road that leads there. Because there is no Easter Sunday… without the journey that comes before it.

A journey that begins for many Christians on Ash Wednesday, with the words: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” a sobering reminder of our physical mortality.  It is a journey through the wilderness of Lent…Through the intensity of Holy Week… And into the deep, unsettling darkness of Good Friday.

And so if we want to truly understand our Gospel passage today, the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, then we have to carry that whole journey with us.

Because the Emmaus story is not just a happy ending, it is a story about what happens after everything has fallen apart. It is a story that takes place in the wake of the shock, grief and loss of Good Friday. 

One of the key lessons of Good Friday is the truth of impermanence.  The crucifixion and death of Jesus is a stark and shocking reminder of the impermanence of life in this world.  Everything and everyone you love is of the nature to change. 

If you think about your life, there are certain moments that define it. Moments of joy, and celebration, like births and weddings and achievments. But also moments of sorrow, like loss and death.  These are the moments that shape us – and for each of us those moments might be different. 

But there is something they all have in common. They do not last. A wedding day may be a beautiful and memorable experience, but it passes. The birth of a child may change a persons life forever, but children grow up. Bodies change. Circumstances shift. Everything in this life is moving… changing… passing. Nothing in this world is permanent. 

And yet, if we are honest, this is something we struggle to accept. Because deep down, we want things to last. We want loved ones to remain as they are. We want life to stay familiar. We want meaning to feel secure. And when things change… we suffer, not simply because something has ended, but because we had believed or we had hoped it would not. 

And perhaps the most difficult place to see this is not in the world around us, but in fact in ourselves. Because we tend to think of ourselves as fixed, as continuous, as the same person we have always been.  But are we?

Perhaps take a moment and reflect. Think of yourself, your name, your identity, who you believe yourself to be. And then gently ask: has that been permanent?

The child you once were, is that still who you are? The teenager?  The young adult? At each stage of life, something has fallen away… and something new has emerged. When a little girl turns ten, the six year old child is no longer there… she has changed, she has grown.  And the little 10 year old boy is no longer the same boy when he turns 13 or 14. 

All through life we find ourselves having to shed an old identity and take on a new one: 
A new identity when you left school. Another when you entered work. Another perhaps when you married. Another when you became a parent. Another when your children left home or you became a grandparent.  And these are just a few examples of our ever changing identities… our ever changing sense of self. 

Each time, something was born…  and something else had to die. This is the universal truth of Good Friday. 

And even in our deepest experiences of loss, this truth is quietly present. When someone we love dies, of course we grieve them. But if we are very honest, something else is also happening. An identity within us is passing away. “I was a son…”, “I was a wife…” “I was a friend in this particular way…” And when that person is gone, that version of ourselves is gone too.

And that is part of what we are mourning. The loss of something real… but also the loss of an identity that, though meaningful… was never permanent.

But this is not something to make us cold or detached. It is something to make us more awake, to help us see life more truthfully, to hold things more gently, to love more deeply - because we know how precious and fleeting everything is.

A friend of mine says that might be one of the reasons we call it is Good Friday, because it teaches us to live with the truth of impermanence and to treasure and value each unrepeatable moment. 

Now bring that awareness with you… to the road to Emmaus.  Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem. Away from the place where everything they had hoped for seemed to collapse in a matter of hours. They had found something in Jesus – a sense of hope, purpose, and direction. 
And somewhere within themselves, they had hoped and believed: “this will last.”

But then comes the cross and the death of Jesus, and everything changes. And so they say to the stranger they meet on the road: “We had hoped…”

Hope, for them, is over. Their expectation has died. And as they walk, so the story tells us, the risen Christ comes alongside them.  But they do not recognise him, which is astonishing. Here is the very presence of life… and they cannot see it.

Why are they prevented from seeing? Because they are still living in Good Friday. Because they are still holding onto what has passed away. They are still clinging to the way things were. They are still looking for Christ in a form that no longer exists. And so they miss the presence of Christ… as it is now.

And here is where the story opens into something profound, because the Gospel invites us to see that while everything in life is changing, there is something that does not change.

On Good Friday, Jesus - the human form – dies. But the Christ, the Eternal Divine Presence that was his true nature… does not die. The light does not go out. The deeper reality remains.

The Gospel of John says: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Even when darkness covers the land, the light remains. Good Friday reminds us: in the midst of death, there is a deathless reality. In the midst of change, there is the unchanging. And this leads us to Easter.

As a friend of min said recently: Resurrection is not something that suddenly happens after three days. It is a truth that is realised by the disciples after three days. The Eternal Light of Christ never died and therefore it does not need to rise. It always is. Easter is the awakening to that truth. And when you realise within yourself that which cannot die, you have touched resurrection.

And this is where we must go even further. Because the Christ is not only something or someone that walks beside us.  The Christ is the deepest truth of who we are. The light that no darkness can overcome… is not outside of you. It is within you. It is your own deepest nature.

This is why resurrection is not simply about something happening to Jesus. It is about a truth being revealed: that beneath all that changes… beneath all that is born and dies… there is something deathless and immortal in you that does not come and go, something that was never born… and can never die.

And so, as they walk, Jesus begins to reinterpret their story. He helps them see that what they thought was the end… was not the end, that what had fallen away was not the deepest reality just the outward impermanent form.

And slowly, something begins to shift. Not in the world around them, but in how they see. And this new way of seeing is made known at the end of the story… but on the road they have already had an intuition of it – their hearts have been burning within them. 

At the end of the journey, when at the table, he takes bread… blesses it… breaks it… and gives it to them...their eyes are opened, and they recognise him. And then - he vanishes.

Because once the recognition has happened, the form is no longer necessary. They are no longer clinging to an outer appearance. They have glimpsed something deeper. And this is resurrection.
Not the return of what was… but the awakening to what always is.

So perhaps the question for us, today, is this: Where are we still saying, “We had hoped…”?
Where are we clinging to the impermanent, to something that has already changed? Where are we holding onto an identity… a role… a version of life… that is passing away?

Because the invitation of Easter is not to deny change. It is not to pretend that loss is not real. It is to see more deeply. To recognise that in the midst of all that comes and goes, there is something that remains, an Eternal Light at the heart of all things that can never be put out.

There is a presence that walks with us…but even more than that, a light that lives within us.  A life that is not destroyed by change. A truth of who we are that cannot be lost even when the outward form of our bodies is shed and fades away.

And perhaps, like those disciples, as we begin to see more clearly…glimpsing the Eternal Light  behind the impermanent forms of this world, we too may discover, that even in the moments when everything seemed to fall apart… when everything around us changes… there is something hidden that does not change.  When everything else fades… there is a light that does not dim. And that eternal light, is the life of Christ within you, your true eternal nature. 

Amen.

Sent in Peace - “As the Father Sent Me, So I Send You” - A Reflection on John 20:19–31

There is something very human about the scene in our lectionary passage today from John’s Gospel.

The disciples are gathered behind locked doors. They are afraid and disoriented. Unsure of what comes next.

This is not a triumphant church. This is not a community full of certainty and bold faith. This is a fragile, anxious, uncertain gathering of people who have lost their centre. And it is precisely here we are told, not later, not once they have sorted themselves out - that the risen Christ comes and stands among them and says:  “Peace be with you.”

John places this moment in Jerusalem, behind locked doors, on the evening of Easter Day itself. 
Unlike Gospel of Matthew where there is no Jerusalem encounter with the disciples, and where the commissioning happens later, on a mountain in Galilee, here in Gospel of John the sending happens right in the midst of fear on Easter night.

There is no delay between the events of Good Friday and the commissioning on Easter Sunday evening. There is no spiritual preparation course, and no requirement of perfect belief.  Just fear… and presence… and peace… and sending.

And perhaps that is the first thing John wants us to see: The mission of the church to live in the way of Jesus does not begin when we are ready. It begins when we are met by the Divine Presence and a word of peace is spoken into the midst of our fear. 

John tells us the disciples were afraid of “the Jews.” But many scholars remind us that this is better understood as “the Judaeans” - those associated with the religious and political centre in Jerusalem.
This is not a blanket statement about a people. It is a symbolic contrast.

The disciples, who are themselves Jewish, are however from the margins, from Galilee, the edges.
The “Judaeans” by contrast represent the centre of power, control, and religious authority.  And so the tension here is not ethnic, it is spiritual and social: The way of Jesus emerges from the margins… and often stands in quiet resistance to systems of power that cannot recognise it.

And as the narrative unfolds, we find that three times Jesus says: “Peace be with you.”
Before any sending, before any commissioning, before any instruction: Peace.

This is peace, not as a vague feeling, but as a grounding presence. Because the work to which they are called cannot be sustained by anxiety, fear, or striving. It must flow from peace.

And then comes the commission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This is John’s version of the Great Commission and echoes the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.  But notice: Jesus does not say, “Go and build a religion about me.”
He says, in effect:  “Live the same life I have lived. Embody the same way of love. Become what I have been.”

This is a call to growth, a call to human maturity. In John’s Gospel Jesus represents not just the Divine Presence, he also represents the fullness of what it means to be a mature human being.  The commission to the disciples is to become what Jesus is in the world: As the Father sent me, so I am sending you… How was Jesus sent by the Father?  According to the opening chapter of John’s Gospel, he was sent as a light in the darkness, he was sent as the bringer of life in all it’s fullness, sent to enable others to become children of the Divine, sent as one who was full of Grace and Truth. And this is now the task of the disciples… and us. As the Father has sent me to I am sending you. 

Then comes one of the most profound moments in all the Gospels: “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” This is John’s Pentecost moment. Not 40 days later, as in Gospel of Luke and Acts, but here, and now in this room on Easter Sunday evening.

And the imagery and symbolism is unmistakable.  It takes us all the way back to Book of Genesis, 
where the first Human Beings come to life when the Divine breath is breathed into them. This is not just empowerment. This is new creation… The fearful disciples are being re-created, re-animated, re-born into a new way of being – breathed into with the peace of Christ… breathed into to live in the spirit of Christ.

But notice again: Nothing external has changed. The world is still dangerous. The powers that crucified Jesus are still in place. But something within them has changed.  The Divine breath of life and peace has entered their fear… and transformed it into a vocation.

And then comes one of the most puzzling and often most troubling of verses. Jesus says to them: 
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” What exactly does this verse mean?  In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, this has been understood as priestly authority to grant or withhold absolution. 

But what might it mean here, in John’s symbolic and spiritual language? Perhaps this: To live in the Spirit of Christ is to become a bearer of reconciliation.  When we forgive - truly forgive - we release others. We loosen the chains of guilt, shame, and estrangement. But when we refuse to forgive - when we hold onto resentment, bitterness, judgment - we participate in the retaining of those chains.

In other words: The Risen Christ is reminding us that we have enormous power and responsibility.  This is part of what it means to grow to full human maturity. We the power to create worlds of freedom… or worlds of imprisonment.  Not through divine decree, but through the way we live, relate, and love. The question is how will we use that power? How did Christ use that power?

And then in the narrative we meet Thomas.  Honest, courageous Thomas. “I will not believe” he says “unless I see… unless I touch…”

And a week later, we read that Jesus comes again. And this time, Thomas present and  is invited:
“Put your finger here… See my hands… Reach out your hand and put it into my side…”
Now, what do we make of this? Are we meant to imagine a literal physical verification? 
Or is John inviting us into something deeper?

Throughout this Gospel, “seeing” is never just about physical sight. It is about perception., recognition and awakening. Perhaps what Thomas represents is this: We do not come to faith by avoiding the wounds. We come to faith by entering them.  To “touch the wounds of Christ” is to participate in his way of being, to stand with those who suffer, to love in the face of rejection, to give oneself for others.

And it is there, not in some kind of abstract belief, but in lived participation that we come to see and understand the way of Jesus. And so Thomas responds: “My Lord and my God.” Faith arises from ‘touching the wounds of Christ’, from participating in the way of Christ, sharing in his sufferings, touching, as it were, his wounds.

And what does that exclamation of Thomas mean; My Lord and my God? Earlier on in John’s Gospel, Jesus quotes from the Psalms and says: Don’t your own scriptures say: You are gods? It is the same word Theos in both instances. When Thomas says ‘My Lord and My God’, he is not just recognizing the Divine in Jesus… he is seeing in Jesus a reflection of his own true nature… he too was made to be Divine… to be a barer of the Divine Nature. 

And so the passage ends with a word for us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is not a statement about blind belief.  It is an invitation.

We may not see Jesus with our physical eyes, like the early disciples who knew the historical Jesus.
We may not have dramatic encounters. But we are invited into the same path: To receive the breath.
To live the peace. To embody the love. To touch the wounds. To participate in the mission. And when we do that we too will see… not with our eyes, but with an inner knowing and an inner understanding: ‘Ah, now I see what Jesus was all about’!

And so we return to that central line:  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This is not just a commission, it is a calling into identity.  To be sent as Jesus was sent, is to live as an expression of divine grace and truth in the world, bringing life, shining light into the darkness.

It is to go where there is fear - and bring peace. To go where there is division and embody reconciliation. To go where there is suffering and dare to love.  And perhaps most importantly, to discover that it is in the going…in the living… in the sharing of that life… that our doubts begin to soften, and our inner vision begins to clear…That we come, in our own way, to recognise: The risen Christ is not only someone we are invited to believe in… but a life we are invited to live. Amen. 

​ What is the point of the resurrection?  Matthew 28:1–10 

What is the point of the resurrection?

That may sound like a strange question to ask on Easter morning. Surely the point is obvious?

And yet… when we listen carefully to the different voices of the New Testament, it becomes less straightforward.

Paul the Apostle, our earliest Christian writer, speaks of resurrection as transformation, a metapmorphsis into “a spiritual body”, not simply flesh and blood brought back to life. And his encounter with the Risen Christ was not with a resuscitated physical body but with a voice and a light on the road to Damascus.   Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, written after Paul’s writings, ends with an empty tomb and a promise, but no appearance of the risen Jesus at all.  Gospel of Matthew written about 20 years later gives us two brief encounters, mysterious, powerful, but not over-explained. And the later Gospels of Luke and John become more physical, more tangible in their descriptions of the Resurrection of Jesus.

And then in Matthew’s telling of the Resurrection story there is a strange detail, one no one else includes: The earthquakes. At the moment Jesus dies, the earth shakes, rocks split, tombs open. And again, on Easter morning, the earth shakes once more. Why?

If this were simply about reporting events, surely all the Gospels would mention something so dramatic. But Matthew alone tells it this way. Which suggests he is not only describing something that happened… He is telling us what it means.

For Matthew, the death and resurrection of Jesus are not small, contained religious moments. They are earth-shattering. They shake the very foundations of reality. The world, as we have known it - our assumptions, our certainties, our systems - is being shaken loose. It is as though something has come into the world that does not fit… and cannot be contained.

And that brings us back to the question: What is the point of resurrection?

Perhaps it is, first of all, this:  Resurrection is the announcement that death is not the end. That life is stronger than death. That what we see is not all there is. For people who live with the quiet fear that everything ends in loss… everything fades into nothing… Resurrection speaks a word of deep freedom:  You do not need to live in fear. Life is larger than you imagined. The story is bigger than death.  And perhaps that is why in Matthew’s telling of the story the first words of the Risen Christ to the women are the words: “Do not be afraid.”

But that is only part of it.

Because if resurrection were only about life after death, it could remain something distant—something for the future. Matthew will not let it stay there because the one who is raised is this Jesus. The one who taught love of enemies. The one who refused violence. The one who ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. The one whose radical love challenged both religious and political power. The one who embodied a way of being human that seemed, to many, naïve… impractical… even dangerous.

And what did the world do with that way of being? It rejected it. It silenced it. It crucified it.

Why?

Because the way of Jesus exposes something. It exposes how much of our world is built, not on love, but on fear. Not on truth, but on control. Not on trust, but on the anxious grasping of the ego.

And so here is the second meaning of resurrection:

It is God’s yes, the Divine yes, to the way of Jesus.

Where the world says, “This way cannot work,” Resurrection says, “This is the way of life.” 
Where power says, “Strength comes through domination,” Resurrection says, “True power is revealed in self-giving love.”  Where fear says, “Protect yourself at all costs,” Resurrection says, “Lose your life, and you will find it.”

And now, perhaps, we begin to understand the the deeper significance of the earthquakes in the story.

If Jesus truly lived in tune with the deepest reality, if his way is aligned with the very grain of the universe, then everything that stands against that way is, in some sense, unstable, out of alignment, built on shaky ground. And when that deeper truth is revealed - fully revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection - then the ground begins to move, the rocks split, the tombs open, the old world begins to crack. Because the resurrection is not just about what happens after death, it is about what happens when truth meets illusion, when love meets fear. When the way of Christ meets the ego-driven structures of the world, something has to give.

And Matthew tells us that it is the world, as we have known it, that begins to tremble. This is why the resurrection is not just comforting, it is also deeply unsettling. Because if it is true, if the way of Jesus is not just a beautiful ideal, but touches the deepest truth of reality, then it calls everything into question:  The way we live. The way we relate. The way we build our lives around control, status, security. All of it stands on ground that is not as solid as we thought.

And yet, this is not a message of destruction. It is a message of liberation. Because what is being shaken is not what is real - it is what is false. It is what cannot ultimately endure, so that something deeper… truer… more alive… can emerge.

And this is where Matthew leads us. The women meet the risen Christ. And what are the first words they hear? “Do not be afraid.” And then: “Go and tell…”

And at the end of the Gospel just a few verses later:  “Go and make disciples…”

This is the point of resurrection in Matthew’s Gospel. Not simply that Jesus is alive, but that a new way of being human has been revealed as true. That love is stronger than fear, that life is stronger than death. And that we are now invited, not just to believe it, but to live it, to become disciples of this risen life. And perhaps that is why Matthew describes the women falling down in worship and holding onto his feet.

What does worship actually mean?  The old English comes from two root words:  Worth and Ship  / Shape… and means to give worth or value… As they fall in worship and hold onto Jesus feet, they are affirming that in Jesus they have seen their highest value… holding onto his feet.

To worship Jesus it to declare that in Jesus we see our highest worth, to see in Jesus what is most valuable in life, To worship is to dedicate oneself to the way and the values of Jesus. It is not so much to put Jesus on a pedestal and constantly say how much better than us Jesus is. It is to commit ourselves to becoming like Jesus… discovering our own inner Christ-like potential and bringing it forth into the world, becoming who and what Jesus is. It is to put his teachings into practice. 

And perhaps that takes us to the symbolism of woman grasping Jesus feet? Firstly, it is a sign of deep respect. In the east, particularly in India to greet a great spiritual teacher one bends down and touches their feet.  It is a sign of humility, but also more than that, it is a symbolic way of expressing a desire to follow in the footsteps of the teacher, Feet are the means by which we walk through life, they represent the path we walk, to grasp Jesus feet is symbolically to affirm the way of Jesus. 

Resurrection message of Matthew is not just a message of admiring Jesus, it is in fact a call to follow Jesus. What t is the meaning of the Resurrection for Matthew?  It is a call to walk in the way of Jesus, to make the way of Jesus our own, it is to make his values and teachings our own, so that the Way of Jesus lives on in us -  love of enemies, being true to our word, loving our neighbours as ourselves, reaching out in compassion to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, those in prison. 

And when that happens the earth is once again shaken… 

And so perhaps the question for us this Easter is this:
Where in our lives is the ground beginning to shake?
Where are the old certainties cracking?
Where is the way of Jesus quietly, persistently, unsettling the way we have learned to live?

Because that shaking… is not the end. It is the beginning. The beginning of resurrection.

Amen.

Genghis Khan or Jesus Christ?  - (Palm Sunday - Matthew 21:1–11)

In a press conference last week, Benjamin Netanyahu remarked, “History proves that… Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan… if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good.” The words sparked an immediate reaction, with some hearing in them a hard realism about the world, others troubled by his dismissal of the way of Christ.

Netanyahu later clarified that no offence was intended, but that he was arguing that moral strength alone is not enough without military power in today’s security environment.

And yet, even with that clarification, the question still remains: Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan or to the crucified Christ? 

And it is precisely into that question that the story of Palm Sunday speaks.

There is something both joyful and deeply unsettling about Palm Sunday and Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Cloaks are thrown on the road, branches are waved, voices cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” It feels like a coronation ceremony.

And yet, within days, the mood will shift. The same city that welcomes Jesus will reject him. The same voices that praise will fall silent or even turn on him.

But Matthew is not simply recounting an event here. He is shaping a vision of discipleship. Writing to a largely Jewish Christian community, he draws deeply on the Scriptures of Israel to help them, and us, see what kind of king Jesus is, and what it means to follow him.

Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and sends two disciples to fetch a donkey and a colt. This is no small detail. It is a planned, deliberate, prophetic act.

Matthew tells us this happens to fulfil the words of Book of Zechariah:

“See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,

Now in the ancient world, kings rode warhorses into battle. A donkey was something else entirely, a sign of humility, of peace, of a different kind of authority. And so Matthew again, as he has done from from the very beginning of his gospel, shows that Jesus is redefining kingship.

He does not come as the conqueror many expected or longed for. Not as a military liberator. Not as one who will meet violence with greater violence (as many of us, if we are honest, secretly desire in our own hearts), but as a king whose power is expressed through gentleness, integrity, humility, courage and love.

And Matthew’s Gospel is written to create and shape disciples of Jesus, and so he wants his readers to understand: if this is your king, then this is also your way.

The crowd, of course, has its own expectations. They cry out words from Book of Psalms: “Hosanna… Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  They call him “Son of David”, a title rich with hope for national restoration, for deliverance, for the fulfilment of God’s promises…. And they are not completely wrong. But they do not yet see the whole picture.

Because the king they welcome will not overthrow Rome in the way they are hoping for.
He will not secure victory through force and violence. He will not become Genghis Khan in order to defeat Genghis Khan.

Instead, he will walk a path that looks, to the logic of the world, like weakness, but in truth, it carries a power that can change the course of history. Jesus is planting small seeds, mustard seeds, of transformation. Seeds that, over time, begin to challenge the very values upon which the Roman Empire itself was built: power, spectacle, domination, and violence.

And in time, those seeds begin to bear fruit. For example, in the year 391 AD, Christian monk named Telemachus travelled to Rome and entered the great Roman Colosseum where crowds had gathered to watch gladiators fight to the death.

As the spectacle unfolded, Telemachus ran into the arena and stood between the fighters, and is said to have cried out: “In the name of God, stop!” The crowd roared in anger. And in the chaos, one of the gladiators struck him down, killing him there in front of them all. And yet… something shifted, 

The story tells that the crowd fell silent. One by one, people began to leave. Something in that moment, something in that act of costly, self-giving courage, pierced through the hunger for violence… a quiet turning of hearts in the crowd.  And from that time on, the games began to lose their hold. The tide had turned.  It is a small story, almost hidden in the vast sweep of history. And yet it points to a deeper truth: that the way of Jesus can, in time, overturn even the most brutal systems. But it is a way that is not without cost.

And here, quietly but profoundly, the image of Isaiah’s Servant of God or Suffering Servant passages come into play. Though not quoted directly in this passage, the echoes of Book of Isaiah are unmistakable.

The one who comes gently, riding on a donkey, is the one who in Isaiah 42 does not cry out or raise his voice in the streets (Isaiah 42)… the one who according to Isaiah 53 will be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows.

Matthew has already linked Jesus with Isaiah’s Servant of God passages earlier in the Gospel. Now, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, that identity comes into sharper focus: The king is the servant. The one who is acclaimed will be the one who suffers. The one who is hailed as Son of David will reveal his kingship not through domination, but through self-giving love. This is the paradox at the heart of Matthew’s Gospel.

And so the question raised at the beginning begins to take on a different light. If the world says that only ruthless power prevails… if history seems to favour the strong…then what are we to make of a king who chooses this path?

Is this naïve? Is it impractical? Or is it, in fact, the deepest truth about the nature of God and the shape of reality? Is it the way that brings the Way of Heaven to the Earth? 

Because here is the quiet challenge of Palm Sunday:Jesus does not simply reject violence when he tells one of his companions in the Garden of Gethsemane to put away his sword. He refuses to become what he opposes. He embodies a way of being in the world that does not mirror evil, even in the act of confronting it.

At the end of the passage, the whole city is stirred and asks:  “Who is this?” And the answer comes: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” It is a true answer, but not yet a complete one, because Matthew leaves the question open, not just for Jerusalem, but for us.

Who is this?
Is he a prophet?
A teacher?
A symbol of goodness?
A the king who redefines power…?
the servant who reveals the heart of God…?
the one who shows us that true life is found not in grasping, and controlling but in doing justly and walking humbly with one’s God.

Often, like the crowd, we want a God who will fix things quickly, triumph visibly, and confirm our assumptions. But the Way of God revealed in Jesus comes gently, quietly, subversively, riding not on a warhorse, but on a donkey.

And so we too stand where the crowds once stood: caught between two visions of how the world works: One says that history is ultimately shaped by those who are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough to prevail. The other is revealed in the quiet, unsettling figure who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, who refuses the sword, who walks the path of self-giving love even to the cross.  And this way of Jesus can be seen to be echoed in other religious traditions as well, most notably in the Buddhist concept of the Bodhisattva, those who practice not just for their own spiritual awakening, but who dedicated themselves to the spiritual awakening of others, even when it is costly to do so. 

As we enter this Holy Week, we are not asked to settle that question in theory, but to live it in practice, in the choices we make, the spirit we embody, the way we interact with both friend and enemy.

For in the end, the question is not only about empires or nations, but about the very shape of our own ordinary lives:

Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan… or to the crucified Christ?

And perhaps just as importantly: which one are we becoming?

Can these Bones Live?  - John 11:1–45 & Romans 8:6–11 & Ezekiel 37:1-14 

In this week where we have just passed the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, our Gospel reading from the Gospel of John the raising of Lazarus  interestingly, symbolically reflects themes related to the season of Spring… new life where before the darkness of winter had seemingly prevailed. 

As we have seen in recent weeks, John’s stories tend to be much longer and more involved than the shorter stories of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And so he story unfolds slowly and dramatically. Jesus receives word that his friend Lazarus is ill, yet he delays his journey. By the time he arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Martha and Mary come out to meet him with words that echo the grief many people have felt: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Even the names in this story invite us to look a little deeper. The name Lazarus comes from the Hebrew Eleazar, which means “God has helped.” And the village of Bethany is often understood to mean “house of the poor” or “house of affliction.”

If John’s Gospel is speaking symbolically, as it so often does, then already the story is hinting at something deeper. In the house of affliction, in the place where human vulnerability and suffering are most visible, we meet the one whose name means “God has helped.”

Jesus is deeply moved when he encounters the grief of Mary and Martha and the sorrow of the crowd. In the shortest verse in the Bible we read simply: “Jesus wept.”

These two words reveal something profound about the heart of Christ. His heart is moved wherever he sees humanity bound in the tombs of suffering, wherever people are wrapped in the grave cloths of grief, fear, injustice, or despair. The tears of Jesus remind us that divine compassion is not distant or detached. It enters fully into the sorrow of the human condition.

Then Jesus walks to the tomb and asks that the stone be rolled away. Standing before the grave, he cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus emerges, still wrapped in the grave cloths. Jesus then says to those standing nearby, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It is a story that has stirred faith and imagination for centuries.

Yet many thoughtful readers naturally find themselves asking a question: Did this literally happen? Did Jesus physically raise a man who had been dead for four days? Or might this story be meant to point beyond itself, to convey a deeper spiritual truth?

It is an honest question, and it is worth asking.

One thing we notice when reading the Gospel of John is that it often speaks in a deliberately symbolic way. Again and again people misunderstand Jesus because they take his words too literally.

When Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be born again, Nicodemus imagines a literal second birth. When Jesus tells the woman at the well about living water, she imagines a magical water that would remove the need to draw from the well ever again.

In both cases Jesus gently leads them away from literalism toward a deeper meaning.

And the stories in John’s Gospel often work in the same way. They carry layers of symbolic significance.

Some readers have also noticed that if the raising of Lazarus were simply a historical miracle, it seems curious that it does not appear in the other Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, or the Gospel of Luke. One might expect such a dramatic event to appear in all the early accounts.

This has led some scholars to wonder whether Lazarus in John’s Gospel may function symbolically.

If that is the case, the question becomes fascinating: what, or who, might Lazarus represent?

Some have noticed a possible connection with a story in the Gospel of Luke: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In that parable, Lazarus represents the poor of the world, the forgotten ones lying outside the gates of wealth and comfort.

Seen in that light, the setting of Bethany, the house of the poor, becomes even more suggestive. The story may be pointing us toward those places in the world where suffering and exclusion are most visible. In such places the voice of Christ calls life out of what the world has written off as hopeless.

But the symbolism may reach even further than that.

Perhaps Lazarus represents all those who feel entombed in some way.

People who feel trapped by fear, addiction, grief, anger, resentment, or despair. People whose lives feel stuck, whose spirits feel numb, whose sense of purpose has faded.

And sometimes this can include people who appear outwardly successful. Even wealth or status cannot answer the deeper question of meaning. Anxiety about preserving what we have can itself become a kind of tomb.

In that sense Lazarus may represent the human condition itself, the way we can become bound up and confined in ways that slowly drain the life out of us.

The Hebrew Scriptures often speak about this kind of spiritual death using vivid imagery. One of the most powerful examples is the vision of the valley of dry bones in the Book of Ezekiel, described in Ezekiel 37.

In that vision the prophet sees a valley filled with dry bones, lifeless, scattered bones. When the breath of God moves over them, they come together and rise into living beings again.

No one imagines this was meant to describe a literal resurrection of skeletons. It is a symbolic vision of a people who felt spiritually dead being restored to life by the Spirit of God.

And this brings us to today’s lectionary reading from the Epistle to the Romans.

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul the speaks about death and life in a way that clearly points beyond physical death. He writes:

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Paul is not talking here about people physically dying and rising again. He is speaking about a spiritual condition that exists even in the present moment.  

A life dominated by fear, ego, anxiety, or self-absorption can feel like a kind of death. But when the Spirit awakens within us, something new begins to emerge, life, freedom, peace.

Paul even says that the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is already dwelling within believers, giving life here and now, giving life to our mortal bodies through the divine breath breathed into us.

Seen in that light, the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John begins to look very much like a story-shaped illustration of the same spiritual truth Paul describes.

Lazarus lies bound in the tomb.

Then the voice of Christ calls him out into life.

But notice something very important in the story: the community around Lazarus has a role to play.

Jesus tells them, “Take away the stone.”

They must roll back the barrier that seals the tomb.

And when Lazarus emerges, Jesus tells them again: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The people gathered there become participants in the miracle. They help remove the things that bind Lazarus to death.

Seen symbolically, this becomes a powerful picture of spiritual awakening, not just for individuals but for communities.

The voice of Christ calls people out of the tombs in which they have become trapped. But others help remove the stones. Others help loosen the grave cloths.

Communities of compassion, understanding, and support help people rediscover life.

And perhaps that is why the tears of Jesus matter so much in this story. They reveal a love that refuses to walk past human suffering. Wherever humanity is trapped in tombs of despair or wrapped in the grave cloths of fear, the heart of Christ is moved with compassion.

Perhaps that is what the Spirit of God is always doing, calling life out of death, hope out of despair, freedom out of whatever binds us.

The voice that called Lazarus from the tomb still speaks today.

It speaks into the quiet tombs we inhabit: fear, regret, bitterness, exhaustion, the loss of meaning.

And it calls gently but firmly:

Come out.

And then the community hears another command:

“Unbind him, and let him go.”

Amen.

​Seeing Clearly and Living Freely - John 9:1–41 & Matthew 6:24–34

Our Gospel reading today from John tells one of the most vivid and dramatic stories in the New Testament – the healing of the man born blind.

Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who has never seen – born blind we are told. Immediately the disciples ask a theological question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is the kind of question religious people often ask, trying to find blame, trying to explain suffering through moral accounting.

But Jesus refuses that framework. He says neither this man nor his parents sinned. Instead, he shifts the focus entirely: the situation will become an opportunity for the works of God to be revealed.

Jesus then does something unusual. He makes mud with saliva, places it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man obeys and when he washes, he receives his sight.

At first this seems like a simple miracle story. But John’s Gospel rarely tells simple stories. There are always layers of meaning beneath the surface. What follows is almost like a spiritual drama unfolding in stages.

The neighbours are puzzled. Some say, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Others say it only looks like him. The man simply says, “I am the one.”

Then the religious authorities begin to investigate like the Taliban. The problem is not the miracle itself, the problem is that it happened on the Sabbath. The focus shifts from compassion to rule-keeping. The man is questioned, his parents are questioned, and the pressure grows.

The Pharisees insist Jesus must be a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath. The man responds with beautiful simplicity: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, though I was blind, now I see.”

As the questioning continues, something remarkable happens. The man who was once blind begins to see more and more clearly – not just physically, but spiritually. Meanwhile the religious authorities, who believe they see clearly, become increasingly blind.

Eventually the man who has been healed is expelled from the synagogue.

When Jesus hears this, he seeks him out again and asks: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” When the man asks who that is, Jesus says, “You have seen him.” And the man responds with faith.

Then Jesus speaks the paradox at the heart of the story: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.”

This is interesting because earlier in John’s Gospel we hear that Jesus did not come to judge the world but to save it. The judgment here is not something Jesus imposes. The religious authorities have judged themselves by believing they can see when in fact they are blind.

Now alongside this story today we hear words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus says: “No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… Look at the birds of the air… Consider the lilies of the field… Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

To understand these words, it helps to remember the larger vision of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew presents Jesus as a teacher who reveals the deeper meaning of the Kingdom of God. Much of his teaching is gathered in the Sermon on the Mount – a vision of life shaped by trust in God. Again and again Matthew raises the same question: Where is your heart oriented? What master governs your life?

In that context Jesus warns that the human heart cannot serve two masters. It cannot be divided between trust in God and the pursuit of security, control, and status. The word often translated “wealth” is mammon. It represents the whole system of anxiety-driven accumulation – the belief that our ultimate safety lies in possessing and controlling.

And beneath that system lies a deeper issue: worry. Why do we cling so tightly to security and control? Because we are afraid. Because we struggle to trust that life itself is held within the care of God – within a deeper wisdom and compassion that ultimately holds our lives. So Jesus invites his listeners to look at the world around them: the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. They are not anxious about tomorrow, yet life unfolds within a larger providence.

The call of Jesus is not irresponsibility. It is freedom from anxiety. Freedom from the illusion that we must secure life entirely by our own grasping. Instead, he says: Seek first the Kingdom of God.
In Matthew’s Gospel the Kingdom is not simply a place we go after death. It is a new way of seeing and living – a life aligned with divine reality rather than with fear.

And perhaps on this Mothering Sunday that invitation takes on a very human shape.

One of the quiet things that mothers do for us – and indeed all who nurture children – is that they help us learn how to see the world. A mother teaches a child to notice things: the beauty of a bird in the garden, the wonder of flowers opening in spring, the small signs that life is good.

And mothers also teach something even deeper: they teach trust. A small child begins life vulnerable and fragile. But through being held, fed, comforted, and reassured, that child slowly learns something very important – that life can be trusted. That there is a greater love that holds us.

In a sense, mothers are often the first people who help us learn the very lesson Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount: not to live our lives consumed by fear and worry, but to trust that there is a deeper love and wisdom that sustains life.

If we return now to the story of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, we can see this teaching from Matthew in a new light. The story in John is really about two ways of seeing the world.

On one side are the religious authorities. They believe they see clearly. They have knowledge, status, and institutional authority. But beneath it lies fear – fear of losing control, fear of losing their system. And because they are bound by that fear, they cannot recognise what God is doing right in front of them. So when grace appears before them – a man receiving sight – they cannot celebrate it. They can only interrogate it.

Meanwhile the man who was blind begins the story with almost nothing. No status. No authority. No theological credentials. All he has is his experience of grace.

Yet as the story unfolds, he becomes freer and freer. At first he simply calls Jesus “the man called Jesus.” Then he calls him “a prophet.” Finally he recognises him as one sent from God. His physical sight becomes a symbol of deeper spiritual sight.

And notice something else: he is no longer afraid. When the authorities threaten him, he speaks boldly. When they try to silence him, he answers with clarity. Even when he is cast out, he stands in the truth of what he has experienced. The man who was once blind is now living the freedom Jesus describes in Matthew’s Gospel. He is no longer serving the master of fear. He is living from trust.

Perhaps this is why Jesus ends the story with that paradox: Those who do not see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.

Spiritual sight does not begin with certainty. It begins with humility. The Pharisees are trapped because they believe they already see perfectly. But the man who was blind is open enough to receive a new vision of reality.

And perhaps this is also where the words of Jesus in Matthew become deeply practical for us: “Do not worry about your life.” This does not mean life will always be easy. It means anxiety does not have to be the master of our hearts.

When fear and worry govern our lives, our vision becomes narrow. We begin to see the world only through the lens of threat and scarcity. But when we seek first the Kingdom of God – when we trust that life is held within a deeper wisdom and compassion – something changes in the way we see. We begin to notice grace where we had not seen it before. We begin to notice beauty where anxiety had blinded us. In other words, light begins to shine into our once anxious lives.

The story of the man born blind turns out not simply to be about physical sight restored, but about the eyes of the heart being opened. In the story, the opening of his eyes becomes the opening of his soul.

And perhaps that brings us back once more to the invitation of Mothering Sunday.

One of the deepest hopes of every loving mother is not simply to protect a child forever, but to help that child grow into someone who can live freely and courageously in the world. To see clearly. To trust deeply. To live without being ruled by fear. In that sense, motherhood itself reflects something of the heart of God – nurturing life, opening eyes, and encouraging trust.

And perhaps that is also the invitation of these Gospel readings today. Not simply to admire a miracle long ago, but to ask ourselves:

What might God be trying to show us that our fears prevent us from seeing?

What if the Kingdom of God is already present all around us – like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field – waiting for us simply to trust enough to open our eyes?

I realise I am preaching to myself here… because I often live with an anxiety that robs me of joy.

In the end we have two options:
to live with a deeper trust that there is a greater wisdom and compassion at work in the universe that undergirds our lives…
or to believe that everything ultimately depends on us alone.

And if that were the case, anxiety really would be our only option.

And so on this Mothering Sunday, may we begin to let go and trust, that the eyes of our hearts might be opened to see the signs of God’s nurturing love and grace around us, and that in place of anxiety we might know the gift of joy. 

​Living Water & Love-Beyond-Limits  (John 4:5–42 & Matthew 5:38–48)

Today the lectionary takes us to one of the most loved stories of John’s Gospel, the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5–42).

As we enter the story, Jesus is tired. It is midday. He sits beside Jacob’s well in Samaria. Already the story is charged.  Jews and Samaritans did not get along. They disagreed about worship.
They distrusted one another. The history between them was a long and painful one.

And then something unexpected happens. A woman comes alone, to draw water at noon, a strange time, perhaps suggesting she is isolated or excluded from her own community. And Jesus does the unthinkable. He not only speaks to her, but he asks her for a drink.  For Jews and Samaritans, this would have been a jaw-dropping moment. 

The boundaries and divisions in this encounter are large and thick: 

- Jewish vs Samaritan
-Male vs Female
-Religious insider vs Religious outsider
-Respected  Rabbi/Teacher vs Morally compromised and compliciated woman

And yet Jesus crosses these boundaries calmly and without hesitation as though what he was doing was perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable. 

In the encounter between them, He speaks of “living water” in response to her inner thirst for love and meaning. He speaks of living a life of worship “in spirit and in truth,” not bound by a building or place in response to her question about Jews and Samaritans having different places of worship. 
He reveals knowledge of her past without any sense of condemnation. He remains engaged in conversation with her even when the disciples urge him otherwise.

And in response the woman becomes a witness to her own village, bringing them out of the town to see Jesus. And by the end of the story, these Samaritan outsiders confess: “Truly, this is the Saviour of the world.”

We’ll come back to John 4. But now we turn the words from Matthew 5:38–48 where we hear Jesus saying: 

“You have heard… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
But I say to you… 
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Turn the other cheek”
“Be perfect or whole, as your heavenly Father is perfect or whole, who makes his sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, who sends his rain on the just and the unjust. 

Again, as we saw last week in Matthew 5:21-37 we hear the repeated pattern:“You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”

Firstly: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This teaching was not in fact meant to be barbaric. It was merciful. It was meant to limit revenge, to limit retaliation. It prevented escalation. It prevented doing more harm to another than they had done to you. Retaliate yes, was the old teaching, but no more than was done to you. 

But Jesus says:  “Do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” And then:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

These verses have often been misunderstood. They are not instructions for passivity. They are not commands to remain in abusive situations. They are invitations into a radically different way of being human.

Matthew’s Jesus is not abolishing justice. He is transforming the logic of retaliation. The old pattern said: harm must be answered with harm. But Jesus introduces a new pattern: harm can be turned around and transformed by love, wisdom and courage.

Last week we saw that anger fractures communion long before violence erupts. Now Jesus shows what it looks like when anger no longer governs us. To turn the other cheek is not to pretend evil is good. It is to refuse to let evil dictate who you become. 

And part of Jesus concluding challenge in Matthew 5:38-48 is that it is incomplete and insufficient to love only those who love us in return… for even sinners and tax-collectors love those who love them in return.  But disciples of Jesus are called to a love that is not transactional or limited. 

And then Jesus gives the reason: “So that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is an important Matthean perspective. For Matthew, discipleship is not about following laws and rules but about about growing more and more  to resemble the nature of the One Jesus calls Abba. 

At the end of this section we hear these words:  “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“Perfect” as I said last week is a poor translation of the Greek word ‘Teleio” which actually means something closer to being whole, complete, mature.

And what is the Father like? “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Matthew’s Jesus tells us that God’s generosity is indiscriminate.  God’s love is not reactive. Gods love is not determined by the worthiness or the recipient. And according to Jesus in Mathews Gospel, our love for others is meant to resemble God’s love for us and all humanity. 

And as we turn back to Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women at the well we see these teachings of Jesus being lived out by Jesus in John 4.  What if the story in John 4 is not only about spiritual thirst and living water. What if it is also about boundary breaking love lived out and embodied by Jesus? 

The old pattern in the ancient world was simple: injury for injury, tribe for tribe, loyalty to insiders and suspicion towards outsiders. Even without violence, there were the invisible lines. Jews did not even share eating or drinking vessels with Samaritans. They did not linger in conversation. 

Yet Jesus does not abide by these invisible lines of hostility and enmity taught to him by the culture of his day. Instead he initiates relationship across the lines of hostility.  He asks for water from someone who represents the “other.” He allows himself to be vulnerable.

In John 4, Jesus does not wait for hostility from the woman or the Samaritan townsfolk — he pre-empts it with openness.  His is a pre-emptive strike, not of violence or aggression but of openness and friendship

And so the boundary breaking love which Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount
is quietly acted out by Jesus beside the well. 

From a Jewish perspective, Samaritans were religiously compromised, historically suspect. They were the enemies and religious heretics. Yet Jesus does not approach this woman as an enemy to defeat in theological debate.

He listens. He engages. He speaks truth - but without humiliation or condemnation. When he names her past, but not to shame her.  He sees her fully and still treats her with dignity and respect despite her past. This is love beyond transaction or reciprocity.  He is not loving someone who already belongs. He is loving someone across divide.

He is reflecting the love of the Father “who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
In John 4, Jesus is completely aligned with the heart of the Divine.  There is no trace of tribal superiority. No defensive identity. No narrowing of compassion. When the disciples return they are bewildered that he is speaking to her. But Jesus’s wholeness allows him to remain steady. His identity is not threatened by crossing boundaries.

And that wholeness in Jesus becomes contagious. The woman leaves her water jar and becomes a bearer of living water to her community.  The village that might once have been considered “enemy territory” becomes a place of ‘harvest’.

And the story ends with the townsfolk saying of Jesus: “Surely this is the Saviour of the World.”  
Saviour of the world... Augustus Caesar had once used that title to refer to himself.  With all his military might, he was exalted as the benefactor and bringer of peace to the world. But in this passage it is not Caesar who is proclaimed as the Saviour of the World, it is Jesus. They see in Jesus something remarkable, a wisdom, a presence, an inner strength and composure, a love that has the power to heal the brokenness and divisions of this world.  And so in this simple story in John’s Gospel we see a widening of the horizon beyond tribe and human made boundaries. We see the kind of love that can save and heal the world. 

And what about us?  Who are the Samaritans in our own lives?  Who are the people we instinctively keep at arm’s length?  Whose story do we assume we already understand without truly listening to them? Who are those we consider ‘other’. 

John 4 shows us that enemy-love does not always look dramatic.  Sometimes it looks like sitting beside a well and asking for a drink of water.