Choral Evensong on Easter Sunday

Canon Tim Schofield, Canon Emeritus of Chichester Cathedral

There is a curious story about a man in the Australian outback. For reasons we don’t know this man was alone, lost in the wilderness, a place of barrenness where there was nothing but a railway line. And it seems that when the man saw a freight train coming down the line, he ran and in desperation jumped into a wagon that had a sliding door partly open. As he caught his breath, he looked round the empty wagon and realised he had jumped into a refrigerated truck. Perhaps it was then that the train suddenly braked, and the sliding door of the truck slammed shut. Whatever the case he soon discovered there was no handle on the inside, and it must have slowly dawned on him that he was locked in this cold storage wagon. Eventually the train reached its destination and when the staff opened the door, they found the man dead inside. The really strange part of the story, though, is this. The staff discovered that the refrigeration unit had been switched off so the man could not have died of hypothermia and a post-mortem revealed no other apparent cause of death. Some have suggested that the man was so terrified by the thought of dying in this refrigerated prison that his fears became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The fear of feeling locked in, with no way out, has taken on a whole new dimension for us in the pandemic. Lockdown was for many an experience of being locked-in – and for some who are vulnerable that still goes on. And the fact that Covid continues to be very much with us, adds to the feeling that there seems no way out; we are locked in, in more ways than one. All this has left us with a residual sense of apprehension and insecurity which the events in Ukraine have only exacerbated. And for those already coping with depression or other mental health issues, lockdown and isolation have raised this anxiety to new levels.

 In our reading from John’s Gospel, we heard how the disciples were in their own type of lockdown – locked behind closed doors for fear that they too might be arrested and crucified. And then into this world of fear and anxiety the risen Jesus came and said, “Peace be with you”. Locked doors were no longer a barrier to the Risen Lord and his peace because Jesus had destroyed the ultimate experience of being locked down. In the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus there is a dramatic description of Jesus, after his death, descending to the spirits of the dead in Sheol or Hades; a grey, joyless place where, according to Old Testament writers, all were confined after death. And in that place where all abandon hope the Risen Jesus provided a way out. The gospel of Nicodemus talks of the gates of Hades being lifted up and burst apart by the King of Glory. The ultimate dead-end was smashed open by Jesus. So, in the Book of Revelation the Risen Christ can say: “Do not be afraid…I hold the keys of death and Hades…I have placed before you a door that no one can shut.” Those are wonderful words of hope for us – “Do not be afraid…I have placed before you a door that no one can shut”. Through the Risen Christ everything in this world has potentially become an entrance to new life and glory; there is a way out of being locked in.

But, having reassured the disciples that his presence, his peace, cannot be shut out or constrained he then shows them his hands and his side; he shows them his wounds. Not only does this remind us that Jesus has suffered with us but also that he is not ashamed of his wounds – and nor should we be ashamed of our hurts and wounds. And if that sounds rather glib then let me turn for a moment to Julian of Norwich who had some valuable things to say about wounds.

Julian lived in the fourteenth century, a time of unimaginable suffering. The Hundred Years War with France was not only taking many lives but also destroying the economy. As a result, poverty reached such a pitch in England that it led to the Peasants’ Revolt, a revolt in which the leaders were ruthlessly butchered. Three times in Julian’s lifetime the city of Norwich suffered an outbreak of the plague, the Black Death, which killed a third of the population in a most horrible way. At the age of thirty Julian herself experienced a severe illness that took her to the point of death. Julian knew all about suffering. And yet, she called our wounds, like the wounds of Jesus, “honourable scars”. She saw our wounds as fissures which can open us to the loving touch of the Lord; something not always possible when we are invulnerable and believe ourselves to be safe and secure. And indeed, it was in the midst of her own life-threatening illness that Julian received her famous Revelations of Divine Love. But let’s notice that Julian is not saying here that we are to endure suffering with grim determination.  She is trying to help us see that wounds can be the starting point for transformation, just as the wounds of Jesus were the gateway to resurrection glory.

And that takes us back to our gospel reading. For having shown the disciples his wounds Jesus then breathes on them and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit”.  The Risen Jesus has now returned to what one writer has called his “pristine glory”, to his Father in heaven. And what flows from this glorification is the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is a close link between glory and the work of the Spirit. At the very beginning of the Old Testament the Spirit swept over the darkness and chaos of raw creation and brought life, order and beauty to make a glorious world. A little later we hear how the Spirit, the giver of life, breathes the breath of life into a man giving not just physical vitality but that fruitfulness that reveals what it is for humanity to be truly alive.       

And on the first Easter Day Jesus breathed the Spirit on the disciples so that they might be a new creation. The disciples locked into the darkness and mental chaos that comes with fear, bereavement and exhaustion received the breath of life. The gift is given that they may have, not just renewed physical vitality, but that fruitfulness that comes from relationship with the Risen Christ and his Spirit.

The breath of the Holy Spirit, though, is more than the individual renewal of the disciples. The New Testament associates the Holy Spirit with the word fellowship, for the Spirit is a go-between who creates awareness and connections with others. The breath of the Spirit ends our isolation and enables us to connect and communicate with those around us and with the Lord in ways we had not expected. And what a hope that is in the context of the pandemic. Jesus not only breaks down the doors that lock us in and down. He opens a door that no one can shut and empowers us to go out to connect with God, with each other and with the world in ways that are new. 

We have been looking over the past week at signs of glory – the way Jesus reveals to us the presence, the glory of God, through our senses, through touch, smell, sight, sound and taste. The way he opens our eyes to see how God can work for good through all that happens in our world whether that be in suffering or strife, emptiness or ecological disaster, politics or power, death or destruction. Nothing is beyond the love and life of God to redeem and save, however unpromising things appear on the surface. So let us be encouraged to look for the signs of his glory amidst all the agonies of the present time. That is the beginning of the way that gives us breath and makes us people alive with the glory of the Risen Christ.