REFLECTIONS


These pieces are written each month by members of our clergy team.

April  Parish Magazine Leader:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Kept in heaven for you. 1 Peter 3:1-9

So wrote St Peter in about AD 60 just decades after the death and resurrection of Christ. We know more about Peter than any of the other disciples. We have accounts of how Jesus called him In Luke 5 and how he became the de facto spokesperson for the other Apostles. We learn of his quick temper, his impetuosity and above all of his outright denial of Jesus and his failure to remain faithful when Jesus was being tried and crucified. Peter’s journey of faith was by no means easy, he had his doubts, his misunderstandings, times of fears and times of elation and a time when he knew Jesus to be the Messiah. Peter had to live with the fact that he had not only failed Jesus, but he had failed himself as well. Peter experienced Jesus' crucifixion as a complete disaster and a time of fear and great sorrow. Three days after Jesus' death Mary Magdalene tells Peter that Jesus' tomb is empty; the assumption that they both make is that Jesus' body has been stolen.

At this point Peter has finally had enough and decides to return to his old job fishing on the lake of Galilee. Whilst he is fishing Peter looks up and on the shore he sees Jesus, such is his utter joy that he jumps into the water to get to the shore quickly. Seeing the risen Lord is clearly an overwhelming experience for Peter, but what comes after is not easy. Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, each questing matching the three times that Peter denied Him. On the seashore Jesus reinstates Peter as his disciple and commissions him to care for his church. And so, the story comes full circle. Jesus called Peter by the sea of Galilee and reinstates him in the same place despite his failures. No wonder that Peter could write the verse that I began this piece with. He had failed, he had been angry and confused, defeated, and cut off, but Christ found him and loved him back to life. God loved Jesus back to life, for love raises people to life and resurrects those who are dead. That is why we must love our Lord and trust him.

Like Peter we know that life and faith are not always easy, ‘but blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who by his great mercy has given us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’

Matthew

Reflection

Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name 12 times in all four of the Gospels and is listed in Luke 8 as one of the women who followed Jesus and helped support his ministry, “out of their resources.”  In Mark 16 it is mentioned that Jesus had ‘cast out seven demons from her’.  Mary Magdalene was also one of the few disciples to remain present with Jesus during his crucifixion.  It is clear from the Gospel accounts that no one was as loyal and devoted to Jesus as Mary Magdalene. Clearly in some way had transformed Mary’s life in a very profound way.  

In the above reading we see something of Mary's intense devotion and love for Jesus.  Like many grieving people Mary had made her way to tend Jesus’ tomb shortly after his death.  When Mary gets to the tomb she is shocked to find that the stone has been rolled away and the tomb is in fact empty.  Her immediate reaction is to go and fetch Peter and the beloved Disciple, (whose name we are never told).  They run to the tomb but return to their homes totally shocked and bewildered

Having told Peter and the other disciple about the empty tomb Mary returns, but behind Peter and the other disciple whom the account tells us both set off at a run.  By the time she gets there Peter and the other disciple have already left, alone and confused she begins to cry.  Through her tears she hears words from two angels reinforcing the message of Jesus’s resurrection.  Then Jesus himself asks her why she is weeping, mistaking him for the gardener she asks him where the body of Jesus has been taken to.  It is only when Jesus mentions her by name that she realises it is actually the risen Christ who is standing in front of her.  Her instinct is to cling on to him, as any of us would if we saw our loved ones again.  Jesus reminds her that what has happened, and is happening, is not just a continuation of the same, his resurrection is not to be the selfish preserve of one person, but is to be shared with the other disciples and then later the whole world. Mary’s final words in the Gospel are, ‘I have seen the Lord.’  

What are we to make of this extraordinary account of the discovery of the empty tomb and the risen Christ? When we come to think of Christianity as a whole we have to ask ourselves an important question.   What was the event that transformed a group of defeated and demoralised disciples, who had seen their hopes dashed and their leader crucified, into a group of men and women who went out and transformed the Roman Empire with the message of Christ's death and resurrection. There must have been an event which had a very profound life changing effect on them. We have to conclude that if Jesus had not been raised from the dead then there simply could not have been any future faith that was worth proclaiming. Christ and his message would have died at the cross and Mary would have just been placing flowers on another sealed tomb along with other visitors.  It can only be the resurrection of Jesus Christ that goes on to explain the extraordinary spread and persistence of the Christian faith to this day.   

Moreover it is the real presence of Christ alive through prayer and faith in our own hearts and in the hearts of millions and millions of people that brings a  reassurance that Jesus is alive today, never to die again.  Peter and the beloved disciple returned home, but Mary of Magdalene lingered in the garden near the tomb.  Maybe faith is like that, it is just being prepared to linger a bit longer in a place, in an experience, with a question, with a verse from the Bible, with a prayer, with a vulnerable person unit we too encounter the risen Christ.  Yes, sorrow and tears can blind us to the presence of Christ as it did with Mary. Yet Jesus’s call to us is by our name.  It is always personal, for it was when Jesus said ‘Mary,’ that she recognised him.