The Wounds of Christ
Easter 2, 7 April, 2002
Fr Neville Connell
Assistant Priest, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
The situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territory gets worse. We have almost a fight to the death – some may say it is. It is at once simple and complex: two groups fighting over an ancient land. Each able to bring history and religious texts to their suppport. Two very strong personalities with long-lasting antipathy towards each other; perhaps also seeing themselves as embodying their people. Some groups on both sides driven by extreme attitudes based on religion; which include justification of violence, enhanced by heavenly rewards.
And as so often happens, outsiders are tempted to use the situation for wider purposes, or are being pressured by their own constituencies to interfere. Perhaps this sad conflict is a warning to us, yet again, that 'localised' disagreements, struggles, can rarely be contained. Vietnam and East Timor come to mind. We are all part of something bigger. At the least every country has neighbours. The Middle East troubles are very difficult for we who are Christian. We have to be very careful about taking sides. It is difficult because some Arabs are Christian, and places dear to our faith are in danger – the Church of the Nativity at present. And the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and other European nations are often Christian; actively so, like Mr Bush and Mr Blair. However, it is accepted that the role of General Zinni and others is not to take sides, not to apportion blame, but to mediate, to be honest brokers, to seek on the basis of this mediation, to reconcile.
Which is proper, because Christians are called to be people of reconciliation – people who are reconciled within themselves, and who reconcile. If we are to seek and promote the peace which reconciliation brings, we must first be people of peace ourselves, individually, and as a community. During this just past Holy Week and Easter, we have celebrated once again our healing, our rebirth, our renewal and our reconciliation in our Lord, Jesus Christ. As St Peter says, "Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,who in his great mercy has given us a new birth as children, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is kept for you in the heavens." (1 Peter 1:3-5).
This reconciliation was not our doing; it was God the Father's loving gift in his Son. The gift was that reconcilation, healing, renewal, new life were won for us by Jesus on the Cross; and sealed on the third day, when Jesus was raised from death to new life. Archbishop William Temple reminds us that "only a God in whose perfect being pain has its place can win and hold our worship; for otherwise the creature would surpass in fortitude the Creator". Let us recall that Jesus lived, taught, healed, suffered, died and rose to new life in the very land which is suffering so much pain today. And even in our Lord's time there were two group the Jews and the Roman occupiers; as well there groups such as the Zealots the extremists of their day, not averse to violence.
Yet, in the middle of all that, as St John tells us, the Risen Lord appears to his disciples, "In the evening of that same day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were ... Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you', and showed them his hands and his side." (John 20:19-20). It is the same Jesus, now in the body of the Resurrection, who shows them his wounded hands and side, as he who died on the Cross. These are the wounds which have bought our peace; personal, communal, universal; we preach a Catholic faith. Again, Abp Temple: "The wounds of Christ are His credentials to the suffering race of men".
St John leads us to see that it is in the strength of the peace won by the wounds of Christ that we are sent, "As the Father sent me, so I am sending you." (John 20:21) Sent to be people of reconciliation, "After saying this he breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23). And in the latter words, "those whose sins you retain", we are reminded that healing, reconciliation and justice are only won through humility, repentance and forgiveness.
Our First Reading today tells us of the first Christian community: "The whole community remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. The many miracles and signs worked through the apostles made a deep impression on everyone. The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed..." (Acts 2: 42-45). It was a model for the Church. But we know that it did not last. Our history as Christians is littered with our own failures in love, forgiveness and reconciliation – the great division between East and West, our own divisions in the West.
Do we dare then to think that we have a role to play in healing human conflict Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Israel and the Palestinian Authority? Only if we have the wounds of Jesus Christ, only if we have suffered and died with him, only if we have suffered and died with those who are suffering and dying today, the wounded and dead lying in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territory.
St Peter knew perhaps more than he realised – or did he know it all along – when he wrote, perhaps to those adult converts being baptised "Through your faith, God's power will guard you until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the end of time. This is a cause for great joy for you, even though you may for a short time have to bear being plagued by all sorts of trials; so that when Jesus Christ is revealed, your faith will have been tested and proved like God." (1 Peter 1:6-7). After all, St Peter bore the wounds of Christ in humiliation, and so tradition teaches us, in death. It is well for us to remember that we may bear the wounds of Christ in failure. This is the pattern of reconciliation to which we are all called in the power of the Holy Spirit, a power greater than any violence, because it the path to life, eternal life. "You did not see him, yet you love him; and still without seeing him, you are already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described, because you believe; and you are sure of the end to which your faith looks forward the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9).
Pray for our brother and sister Christians in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territory as they bear the wounds of Christ for their brother and sister Jews and Moslems.
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