Month: March 2018

HE IS NOT HERE; HE HAS RISEN!

 

AN EASTER SUNDAY Meditation

Mark 15:39. “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus heard His cry and saw how He died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son Of God!”
Revelation 3:20.” Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If Anyone hears my voice and opens the door. I will come in and eat with him and he with Me.”

My desire in this hour is to show you the transforming power of the risen Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is not a recalling from antiquity, an event long since passed; instead, it is participation in the event happening in this present and will continue in the future.

The following meditation will require you to use your imagination to comprehend this mystery fully.

Permit yourself to be transported back in time and space to a Roman barracks situated in the heart of Jerusalem, the Holy City. Inside the barracks, there is a luxury suite overlooking the more modest homes of the city’s population. In this place, General Antonio Proclurus, in charge of the Royal Guard, lives when away from ‘home.’

In as far as possible, I wish to assume the role and character of the Centurion supervising the Roman occupation of Judea and’ consequently, the Crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha. According to some records of The Passion Story, this Centurion is considered uncaring and ruthless.
Unbeknown to the Centurion, we observe him from the dark shadows of his elegant quarters. The time is early Sunday morning, following the execution of Jesus on the preceding Friday.

General Proclurus is a strong muscular man who looks older than his thirty-three years. Proclurus is entirely unaware of anything out of the ordinary happening in the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea, where the body of Jesus lies. However, General Proclurus does notice the movement of some figures in the pale gray of the early morning. There is a definite uneasiness in his gait as he returns, again and again, to look through the large casement window overlooking “The Hill,” where three crosses still stand silhouetted against the sky, a grim reminder of Friday’s ignominious event. Finally, with halting steps, the Centurion moves behind a large oak desk, still with an eye toward the Garden; he slowly sits and begins to write:

” To my dearest Maria,
my love, and my darling wife, and to Felix, my
son, and
my hope for the future:

I cannot wait any longer to tell you about all the bizarre happenings here in Jerusalem these last couple of days. There has been ongoing unrest in this outpost of our great Empire for a long time. This tension has its roots in a complicated relationship between local radical, religious groups and our authorities.

But recently, the turmoil took a different twist.
The focus now is a fight between the locals themselves and not so much with our Imperial presence. There is one of the Jews
who identified Himself as their long-awaited Messiah. Others rejected this claim, called Him an imposter, and demanded His death. Pontious Pilate, our trusted governor, could find no reason to impose the death penalty on Him, but the opposing team demanded that Pilate should crucify Him for treason. And finally, Pilate gave in to the demands of the angry mob and sentenced him to death. His name was Jesus! Two thieves, whose names I don’t remember, were put to death alongside Him. Of course, as part of my command, I was carrying out orders like a loyal servant of our gracious emperor. “Three more rebels for you to nail down, Antonio,” someone in the central office jokingly instructs in the execution order.

But, Maria, the look which that man Jesus gave me made me feel that I was being born for the second time. I mean not of the flesh but the spirit. No longer could I be a calloused, uncaring man; instead, I felt like a pure, innocent and trusting child again.

Maria, do you recall the day you said, “Antonio, you are ideally suited for this job? There is no need for you to wear that steel armour because you wear it naturally all the time”. I know you were only joking with me,  Maria, but that man Jesus pierced my steel armour on Friday, and for the first time in years, I felt alive, like a real man. I felt the miracle of fresh air filling my lungs. And to realize that I had to crucify Him,

Later in the morning, when it was all over, I stood guard over the three. I heard Him say:” I am thirsty”! And then Maria, I broke with all protocol! And I gave Him water to drink. And the greatest moment of my entire life broke in upon me! It came with the sound of a thousand silver trumpets. He said, “Thank you, Antonio”! Quietly I tried to hide my tears from the others. How did He know my name? I watched Him dying just as I was coming to life. Sadly, I was taking
His Life, while He was giving me His! I told everyone standing around that day, I now tell everybody in the whole world: “Surely, this Man was The Son Of God.”
My love for you, Maria, remains but grows deeper than ever, and for our precious son. Felix

With tender love
Antonio.”

Antonio rises from his chair, approaches the casement window and throws it wide open. He looks through the golden rays of the rising sun towards the Garden. Antonio blinks in disbelief. A figure, unnoticed until this moment, is approaching his barracks; At this early hour? Undoubtedly, it is a bad omen. Surely, somebody from the
guard was coming to inform me of a new disturbance! Or could it possibly be some royal emissary from headquarters? Antonio mused in bewilderment. In the golden haze of the morning sun, Antonio saw the white robe the approaching figure wears. It looks hauntingly familiar. And, what is the strange-looking thing adorning his head? As Antonio floats down the stairs in breathless wonder, he questions with
a  half-exposed hope: Jesus? Jesus? Jesus?”
And then, Just as he was about to throw the door wide open, there was a knock upon it. The silence that follows is static! No words are necessary; their exchanged looks say everything. And God saw His New Creation in the dawning glory of that Easter Morning, and God saw that it was good! This very day He is yearning still for new creations. ” Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If Anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Hymn: Christ The Lord Is Risen Today

A PRAYER TO FOLLOW THIS MEDITATION

O Risen Christ, Take us by the hand and lift us out of our tombs of half beliefs and mouldering doubts. Set us aflame with a kindred glow of the rising sun on this Easter Day so that into this world, all people everywhere may know that a renewed force to be reckoned with is come.
Place the empty tomb nearby to receive
Our smug complacency that turns a deaf ear to pleas for compassion and understanding;
Our broken promises, destroying  hope and making  dreams impossible;
Our domesticated faith to assure that daring to be different is on a tight leash, leaving the impression that nothing very significant really happened in The Garden on Easter morn.

Raise up brave women and men, who, give the Risen Christ the space to live in this world, in the offering of their spirits. May they confess with boldness ” Surely this man is the Son of God !” Then shall we each, in His strength, make this earth “His Kingdom” of justice and love and peace. In the Name of Our Risen Lord, we pray, Amen.

Hymn: Hallelujah Chorus

Editorial Notes

1. Here and throughout the text of this meditation, the quotations from the Holy Bible are from the New International Translation, Unless otherwise noted in the text.

2 . Photo:  The Arches National Park, Utah, USA.

 

 

 

 

–

The words that follow are from a medieval Latin hymn. You are invited now to make them your own and use them as your prayer on this occasion.

https://youtu.be/p5hjdz4xZF4

 

Hymn: O Sacred Head Now Wounded

 

EDITORIAL NOTES

The reading of the Passion Story is from  The King James Version of Scripture. Luke 23. Read by Franklin D. Curtis.

The background music is from the CD Spiritual Classics. St.Clair Entertainment Group INC.

The photo: Taken in Arches National Park, Eastern Utah, USA.

 

 

To gain a further understanding of the meditation that follows, a reading of the suggested scriptures will be most helpful. The Editorial Notes at the end of the post may prove to be beneficial)
Suggested Reading: John 21: 1 – 25; 1 Peter 1: 3 – 13

“1 Peter 1:13
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” (1)

Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho‘ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar. (2)

Alfred Lord Tennyson uses the inevitable occurrence of day’s surrender to evening, as the parallel for our passing from life to death. His masterful use of the simple, captivating images of’sunset, and evening star” are enough to make clear an invitation to consider the exquisite beauty inherent in a day’s ending. Beyond the need for human intervention, the magnificent pageant unfolds. The darkness gathers, and the stars begin to appear in the heavens. For Tennyson, the attractive beauty of the days ending is a veiled invitation to consider the inevitability of the passing of this life into death. He hints that it is possible to experience a more exquisite satisfaction, personal fulfillment, and contentment in that final twilight than is possible in viewing thousands of sunsets.
We are living in a society where it is not fashionable, nor is it desirable to talk about the end of our days.There is too much of the day still beckoning to us to bother with reading any further in Tennyson’s poem about, “Sunsets and evening stars.”

In truth, however, Tennyson awakens a curiosity in each of us that is hard to ignore. Circumvent it as we may, when all is said and done, we each nurture a hope to leave behind us at the last, a legacy of accomplished dreams and an example of a positive influence.Tennyson induces an appetite to investigate how one can come to life’s end so filled with the meaning and the purpose of life, now complete, as to know no regrets or uncertainties.
More specifically he prompts the consideration, of where to gather the materials for building such a daily life?

Drawing upon the poetic imagery of Tennyson’s
” Crossing The Bar,” I dream of a small town which is girdled about with hills, except for the one quarter that opens out to the sea. It is the place of my birth.
In the very center of that town, there is a quiet, placid pond into which three rivers flow. In the winter the pond was the location of choice for many a “highly professional ” hockey game or even more importantly, as the romantic point of rendezvous for moonstruck skaters. In the summer it was the perfect place for our home-made tall ships to set their card-board sails, and head for the opposite shore. The most striking feature about the pond, however, is where it narrows to enter the sea. Many of the local town’s people refer to the wooden bridge spanning that opening and the narrow opening itself as” the bar.” At low tide, the little pond empties itself with gurgling sounds, into the waiting sea. But then at high tide, the pond ‘draws from out the boundless deep’ of the mighty ocean, to supply every cranny and cove. Many times I have stood at the bar watching the tide come in. It came rushing in with an  eerie silence, “too full for sound or foam.”

Tennyson captures the fullness of the eternal hope in the semblance of the rising tide! Peter endorses that same hope for the human race: ” set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
1 Peter 1:13.
Peter makes it abundantly clear that it is Jesus who comes to us in the ebb and flow of our God consciousness in life. Jesus shows each one of us that God’s love is always at high tide level, and is forever seeking the backwaters of individual lives that need an infusing of new life.

And who better than Peter to give living testimony of that? There was a time when Peter’s life was fraught with low tide experiences. Rocks and shoals were threatening on every side. Gross mediocrity and shameful memories were chasing every promising star to its setting. At last, they demand a retreat:” I am going back to the fishing ground,” Peter announces.Thus, he proposes to close the book of high adventure, he was writing before Jesus’ crucifixion. Then the very next morning the tide sweeps in, and Peter meets “the Pilot” face to face.” At that moment Peter’s all-consuming ministry begins anew. Drawing upon his experience of the Risen Christ, Peter, with absolute confidence, advises all to set there hope on Christ. Then when the flood tide ushers them back to the waiting boundless deep even there, they will meet the Pilot face to face. Let Tennyson, who lives nearly 2000 years later than Peter relay to us how he lives by that same hope.

“Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.”(2)

A PRAYER TO FOLLOW THIS MEDITATION

Dear God, thank You for creating us with the spirit that liberates us from the confining prison walls of our bodies.
Our spirits can travel far when conditions or circumstances make it impossible for our bodies to accompany us; and the barriers of time’s measurement, such as yesterdays, and past years and decades may be melted into the present. Thank You for the liberating freedom of our spirits.
Thank You for an even more excellent gift of the spirit; the ability to be able to transcend the barrier between life and death. The ability, through our spirits, to experience traffic between heaven and earth here and now, like Jacob, on the ladder that reached from earth to heaven.Thank You for the greatest gift of all, the One who is our only spiritual liberator.Thank You for Jesus, who is the Saviour and Keeper of our spirits. May we see Him ‘face to face’ now and evermore. Amen

Hymn:   Jesus Saviour, Pilot Me

https://youtu.be/m8-9Bg9ZXtU

 

 

EDITORIAL NOTES
1. Here and throughout the text of this meditation, the quotations from the Holy Bible are from the New International Translation, Unless otherwise noted in the text.

2.Alfred Lord Tennyson. “Crossing The Bar”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crossing-the-bar-2/

3. Hymn: Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me                                                                                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo5qEkZHXUg&feature=youtu.be

4. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deanspic/2571459575           Brigus,  Newfoundland,  on the website, “Brigus FolksThen And    Now.” This is the area known to me as “The Bar”