“If anyone
wishes to serve me, he must follow me; where I am, there shall my servant be.”
From this
morning’s reading from St John’s Gospel, here’s one of the hard sayings of
Jesus. It may not have seemed so hard just then, when I read that single
sentence. I don’t know what your image is of “where Jesus is”, but the picture
that always springs up in my mind is one from my Sunday school bible, of Jesus sitting
on a peaceful hillside, with a blue sky and the tints of heather all around, surrounded
by sheep peacefully grazing. And that all seems very nice.
But Jesus
has just said, “He who loves himself (or, he who loves his own life) is lost” –
another hard saying, and pretty blunt if I may say so; and he goes on to talk
about his death. So when you place those words – “where I am, there shall my
servant be” into context, they are indeed hard words. Many of those who
followed Jesus, including Philip and Andrew who were with him when he spoke
those words – many of them would lose their lives as martyrs. The peaceful
village churches and chapels we know and love were all founded in blood; as
Tertullian wrote in the early years of Christian history, “The blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
Jesus
himself said, of course, at the beginning of the Gospel reading I used this
morning, that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it
remains that and no more; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.” Today the
traditional season known to the Church as Passiontide begins. Two weeks before
Easter Day. With the shops just now full of eggs and Easter bunnies, it’s hard
to forget about Easter; but for these two weeks I always try to do my best to
forget Easter, so that, like the first disciples I can experience something of
the mystery, the pain, the tragedy of these days.
As we read
the Gospels, we find that Jesus talked quite a lot to his disciples about the
fact that he would die, and die in a tragic way, at the hands of others. Most
of the time they didn’t understand, not then, or else they deliberately stopped
their ears and refused to listen. “No Lord, this shall never happen to you!” as
Peter said, that time. For all his teaching, it will still have seemed to the
disciples of Jesus as though everything had gone wrong, as though all their
hopes and expectations had been dashed; indeed, it will have seemed to them
that the forces of darkness had won, and they’ll have been confused and very
afraid. The time came when they all fled and abandoned him. I want to feel
something of that confusion and fear myself, each year at this time.
They’ll
have felt guilt, as well, by the time these events were over. Think of Peter
collapsing in tears as he hears the cock crow, knowing he’d done just what he
said he’d never do, denied he’d ever known his Lord. But it wasn’t just Peter;
they’d all promised they’d never abandon him, that they’d always stand by him.
How must they have felt, knowing they’d all run away? I want to feel something
of that, too, at this dark time in the Christian year. My hands helped hammer
in those nails; I can’t escape that, I am to blame.
Yet many of
those failed and guilty followers of Jesus would go on to share in his
sacrifice, dying as martyrs themselves. John, the writer of this Gospel, was
unusual in having lived to a great age and died peacefully. They dared to die
because they’d realised the truth that their Lord’s passion and death wasn’t
everything going wrong but everything going right. The seed not remaining a
single grain but yielding a harvest only death could bring. A little earlier,
John chapter 10 verse 10, Jesus had said, “I have come that they may have life,
and may have it in all its fullness.” This is how it happens.
Darkness
and light are great themes in Christian scripture, great themes indeed in all
faiths. The Gospel accounts of the crucifixion speak of the sun’s light
failing, and darkness falling over the face of the land, lasting from midday
until about three in the afternoon. Well, we’ve just experienced an eclipse of
the sun, and we’d all been well prepared for it, knowing just what time it
would happen, what glasses to wear if we wanted to look at the sun, or we could
even just watch on TV with informed commentary from the likes of Professor
Brian Cox. But maybe in all of that we might still have managed to catch just a
flavour of what our ancestors must have felt when something like that happened,
the fear, the shock, the sense of impending doom. What had happened to the
light? Would it ever return?
Whether
there was an eclipse of the sun on the first Good Friday or whether what we
have is a literary device on the part of the Gospel writers I shall leave for
better brains than mine; but clearly what those accounts want to express is the
sense that the whole creation was knocked off balance by what happened there
that day. As I go through this year’s Passiontide I want to feel something of
that, too. And yet this is what Jesus was bound to do; this is where Jesus was
bound to go. This is the love of God revealed in all its glory; this is God’s
loving plan for his world accomplished.
Where I am,
there shall my servant be, says Jesus. I am come, he says, that they may have
life, and may have it in all abundance; but this will be, or may be anyway, a
hard road to travel. The news of bomb attacks on Christians at worship in
Lahore in Pakistan last Sunday reminds us how hard that road still is, for many
of our sisters and brothers who are Christian. There are still many Christian
martyrs.
Some of
those who witnessed the devastation caused by those bombs in Lahore reacted
with violence themselves. Two people suspected of supporting the attacks were
set upon and beaten to death. I’m bound to condemn that, but I’m also bound to
wonder what I’d have done had I been there, had it been me seeing a holy place
desecrated and loved ones killed. And I’m bound to admit too, and confess –
none of us has clean hands.
Only Jesus
dies deserving none of it. Only this one death can remove the stain of my own
sin and failure and fear. But he still calls on me to follow, and to be where
he is, and to go where he will go. Whatever the cost; however foolish that way
may seem, as the world measures things. And all our living must be
sacrificial, forgetful of self, challenged and directed by the impulse of love
– the same whether my particular road is hard and difficult to travel, or else
easy and full of sunshine. My challenge, and yours too, is to be a blessing to
others, and to do my best to reflect the love and light of Christ into a world
that is often hateful and often dark.
Methodists
attend a very inspiring service at the beginning of each new year, where they
use prayerful words originally penned by John Wesley to remind them of God’s
call and challenge to them, and of their part in the covenant Christ has made
with us on the cross: here are some of those words –
I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and
disposal.
The young
people picked up in Turkey a week ago and returned to the UK had no doubt had
thoughts of martyrdom in mind as they tried to cross the border into Syria and
join the extremist caliphate known as Isis. Every religion has its martyrs and
just now martyrdom is a theme actively promoted by certain Muslim preachers,
perhaps still in mosques at Friday prayers, but more probably through social
media. It’s poisonous stuff, and those who peddle it deserve I think greater
condemnation and punishment than those impressionable and idealistic young
people who are persuaded by it to do such dreadful things.
We follow
the man who gave his life as a sacrifice for others, and who seeks to write his
word of love on every heart. To me it’s very sad to see the word “martyr” used
of those who have taken human life in the course of losing theirs. There is
nothing noble about that sort of death; but the saddest thing of all is that
such people believe they are serving God, have been duped into believing they
are serving God, when they in fact are serving a distorted travesty of a god
made in the image of the hate-filled minds of false teachers.
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