In Search of the Mystery of God

A sorry tale of politics, power, and crowd rule, or is that otherwise known as democracy, with 'social influencers' doing their piece? Three times Pilate says he will release Jesus, three times he is beaten back by the increasing vehemence of the crowds. Of course, he could have called in the army to crush the rising riot, but it would not have helped his thankless task of trying to govern this brittle people. Capitulation. We may speak of miscarriages of justice, but the deep irony of it is, as Jesus already knew, our redemption could not have happened any other way. How could the Creator heal his own lover, other than by absorbing into himself the bitterness, violence, anger, insecurity, pride, arrogance, greed, and every other human darkness, all of which can ultimately be traced back to the terror of facing death and annihilation. Jesus' passion and death is the ultimate Passover.

Cuthbert is barely mentioned in today's short reading. Instead, we hear of Eadberht, bishop of Lindisfarne, who sang his paean of Cuthbert in yesterday's chapter, becoming progressively more ill and dying. The Anglo-Saxon saints, along with the rest of the early Church, had a completely different view of Christian suffering to us. For them, pain and illness, although not to be sought, was participation in the suffering of Christ on the Cross, carrying their cross as Jesus commanded, in order to bring healing back into the world. A quick or sudden death, therefore, cheated them out of this privilege, meaning that they were somehow found to be unworthy of sharing in Christ’s work. The granting of Eadberht’s wish, to die through a ‘long and wearing illness’, gave him the right to be buried close to Cuthbert’s uncorrupted body, as he, too, had been found worthy of sharing in Christ’s redeeming work. Bede's final comment says it all: 'the very clothes worn by [Cuthbert], both in life and in death, have still the power to heal.' Eadberht has found his healing.

There is one poem for this Friday we call 'good'.

Christ; the wounded surgeon, dying nurse. Adam; the ruined millionaire. Sin; the disease. Death; the Cross, our baptism.

The year is 698AD, eleven years after Cuthbert's death, and time for his 'Elevation'. His body has been in the ground sufficiently long for the worms to have done their work, such that his clean bones may now be translated to the church in a new casket. But, terrifyingly, the monks find his body untouched, looking as if asleep, and his clothes bright and fresh.

The 'wooden casket' they had prepared is the one still on display in the Museum at Durham Cathedral. It may be that the Lindisfarne Gospels, dedicated to St Cuthbert and created in this period, were to be blessed and read publicly for the first time at his Elevation.

Eadberht is carrying out his Lenten fast on the tiny St Cuthbert’s Isle just next to Lindisfarne. His paean is beautiful and poignant in its heartfelt wonder. In it, he links the preservation of Cuthbert’s body with the resurrection (Jonah in the fish), being called by God to be his own (Israel in the desert), protection through the fire of judgement (Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego), and Christ’s second coming. This is no disembodied existence – the inseparable but personal link between the saint’s material and spiritual existence acts as a conduit for the healing power of heaven to be made present. The saint, being in Christ’s presence, means Christ’s presence is also here.

The Garden of Tears. The Garden of Eden. Things happen in gardens. Life begins in gardens. The soil gives rise to plants, and plants to all life. We are from the soil. Soil and spirit. The drops of agonising sweat fall back to the ground, the life blood of the Creator returns to the soil redeeming the earth, redeeming Eden, redeeming us. This is the agony of redemption. The betrayal by Judas. A man hangs from a rope on a tree (Matthew's Gospel). Three betrayals by Peter. A cock crows. A man weeps bitterly. How much agony can one night stand?

Cuthbert may be dead, but his body, like that of Jesus, was integral to his life of holiness and, more than this, being made of the soil of the earth, again like that of Jesus, creation was being sanctified through it. Even after his death, his body retains a connection with his spirit, as it awaits resurrection. And through this connection God’s Holy Spirit works its healing power through soil and water on a poor lad suffering from some terrible mental illness. There is a profound integration of matter and spirit here.

Blood. Plasma, platelets, red and white blood cells, haemoglobin, antibodies, clotting factors, hormones, cholesterol. Blood of the vine. The juice of life. Only life begets life. All humans and other animals must eat other life to live, be that plant or animal. We only live because we consume the life of another. So all food is holy and every meal a sacrament. Therefore blood is consumed to give new life, a new covenant. And the broken body shared. Death to give life. The Passover Lamb, whose blood is painted on the lintels and posts, whose body is eaten while standing. The narrow escape from death in the night, from the screams of the slayer. The new beginning. This is our Christ.

Cuthbert has died. News of his death is relayed from Farne to Lindisfarne by torches, as the monks on both islands are singing Psalm 59 at Lauds. (This is psalm 59 in the Vulgate version of the Bible, the version translated into Latin by Jerome in the fourth century, and used throughout the Western Church at that time. In our modern version of the Bible it is psalm 60.) But Cuthbert’s death results in the fragmentation of the community, dissension and division. It seems the peace and concord between the Iona and Roman groups embodied in Cuthbert, and for which he longed and prayed, was too fragile to last without his wise hand at the tiller, until another godly leader was found in Eadberht, a year later.

Although Bede doesn't say it, perhaps out of deference, it was Wilfred who took over the episcopal mantle for the year after Cuthbert's death, and as he demonstrated at the Synod of Whitby, he was vehemently opposed to any hint of the Irish practices that still lingered in the old Irish monasteries, of which Lindisfarne was the principle. Neither was he noted for his grace towards others.

Cuthbert was buried in the church on Lindisfarne.

Preparing for the Pass-Over. The Passover lamb is to be sacrificed. This, the feast that defines the People of God. Lamb's blood on the door lintels and pillars so the angel of death passes over. Tunics tucked into belts. Eat standing up. No time for the yeast to rise - bread unleavened. Bags packed. Flight. Be prepared. Go into the city. Look for a man carrying water. What? A man? An angel? Follow him. Find the master. Prepare. The past in the present. The present in the past. Time transcended. Each event a participation in the first. And Judas' frustration boils over. But this time its different. A new lamb. A different lamb. A human lamb. But no-one sees it.

Not least Judas. Only God knows Judas' heart. What went through his mind? When did the thrill of following Jesus turn sour? When did the soaring delight of seeing the lame leap, the blind ecstatic, the bereaved overjoyed, become ordinary for him? How had his ideas and dreams become so fixed and hardened that the Spirit couldn't penetrate? Or was he just trying to force Jesus' hand? He never intended the betrayal to end in execution. But after years of following Jesus, how had he not seen that reality lies in the realm of the spirit, that the political is a usurping echo of the real? But then again, neither had any of the other disciples Perhaps their vision just wasn't as radical. A tortured soul. Only God, the lover, knows.

We have reached Cuthbert's last night. This is the end. Or the beginning? Weak and frail, wracked with pain, struggling to breathe, to speak. Disintegrating and screaming muscles still under the command of an iron spirit, tempered by years of discipline. He spends his final, disease-ridden moments lying in the corner of his tiny oratory, opposite the altar. Herefrith is with him, and through the course of the day, coaxes some halting words as a final legacy. "Strive to ensure all your decisions are achieved with unanimity." He receives the sacraments in the evening, and then, arms outstretched, releases his spirit. This is a holy death, in peace, pain, and virtual solitude, but with the unseen company of heaven present – Cuthbert is going home.

Medical examination of his remains in 1899 suggest his body was riddled with tuberculosis.

Strange to think that, though an infinite qualitative difference and separation lies between Creator and Creation, as between artist and art, yet God's presence runs through creation, as radio waves do a hand or a head. Which means that the turmoil and terror, the devastation and cataclysm of peoples and nations, of cities and homes, and the wrenching and twisting of the tortured creation in Jesus' apocalyptic speech shudders through the being of God. This shuddering is the eternal presence of the Cross that unites heaven and earth, the eternally burning bridge by which salvation is wrought. It is the nature of Love to bear the pain that leads to healing and balm.

Which is what is going on in the Anglo-Saxon understanding of illness and disease. We may try and smugly say they had no other choice but to find an explanation to help them accept suffering and make sense of a God of love, but we have medicine and opiates now, so we can, generally, either heal the disease or ease the pain; we don't need those sorts of explanations any more. Yet look beyond, and we will see the penetrating logic of their understanding - the whole of creation is one. Cuthbert, in his pathetic weakness, is still imbued with the Spirit of wholeness, health, and healing. Jesus's words were just as true for Cuthbert as for us, 'Not a hair of your head shall be harmed.'

Hmm. Temptation. Choice and decision. It's a struggle for us, isn't it.

Many pious people, and indeed the orthodox teaching of many churches, claim it is blasphemous to say Christ was really tempted in the desert, since he was fully God and God can't be tempted by evil. No, he just appeared to be tempted in order to vanquish the devil.

But Jesus was also fully human, and the writer to the Hebrews says that he 'suffered when tempted' and was 'tempted as we are but without sin.' In fact there was no point in going into the desert to be tempted if he wasn't!

So what was the point? Why was the Son of God, straight after his baptism in the River Jordan by his cousin, John, 'driven' by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted? And what's it got to do with us in the here-and-now anyway?

St Paul, in his brilliant letter to the Romans, paints it as a cosmic recapitulation of the Creation story, in which we, who struggle with the age-old temptations of self-sufficiency and independence, being 'clothed' with Adam and Eve, instead become clothed with Christ.

Heavy? Not really. It's actually just about our daily Bread.

The Bewcastle Benefice sermon for the First Sunday of Lent (Year A).

OT: Gen 2:15-17. 3:1-7

NT: Rom 5:12-19

Gospel: Matt 4:1-11

An extended prayer time this morning due to the long reading about Cuthbert's last weeks.

The Pharisees and the scribes have all had their go at trying to catch Jesus out and find a pretext for having him arrested. Now its the turn of the other major sect, the Sadducees. They ask their knock-down question that proves the stupidity of the notion of 'resurrection'. It is interesting that, after Jesus annihilates the Sadducees, when the scribes seek to congratulate him, he turns on them. He has absolutely no interest in playing to the power structures. He is the great leveller, raising the poor widow up to a greater place of worthiness than all the wealthy. Remember that prosperity was seen as a sign of God's blessing, as poverty and suffering were taken as an indication of God's judgement on sinfulness. Jesus completely overturns their presumptions.

Cuthbert only has a few months left to live after he lays down his episcopal mantle. The scene is pitiful and desperate, the suffering cruel and intense. Yet they all see it as part of the path towards wholeness and holiness. The detail in its austerity is excruciating, from the suppurating feet to the half-eaten onion. Cuthbert's last days are as glamorous as Christ's passion. (Note that the Bede in the story is not the same Bede telling the story).

Jesus has just cleansed the Temple. Now comes the challenge of authority. But in good rabbinic tradition, he answers the question with a question. The marvel of the interaction is the utter inability of the chief priests and scribes to see the hypocrisy of their position. But as in all these stories, we can never see ourselves as uninvolved bystanders. We, too, are so often in their position, blind, or at least inattentive, to the presence and work of God around us. So then comes yet another parable of vineyards, tenants, and a landlord. They, and everyone listening, know exactly what the parable is about.

The battle of wits - one of the Pharisees great games. But they picked the wrong fight. Their question, of course, was designed to be impossible to answer. If Jesus said 'yes' to paying taxes to Caesar, he clearly wasn't the Messiah, as everyone knew the Messiah would come to restore Israel to its place of independence and glory by expelling the Romans, and his support would evaporate as the morning mist. If he said 'no', he would be guilty of inciting insurrection and imprisonment. His answer is literally stunning - they are silenced. But Jesus' challenge remains to us.

Cuthbert at last lays down his shepherd's crook and retreats to the solitary life on Farne that, again, isn't quite so solitary as he would like. Monastic obedience, to those of us outside the 'religious' life, can appear restrictive and claustrophobic. But it is designed to overcome the stubborn wilfulness in each of us that is called 'pride' and 'independence'. We tend to value our independence as our freedom. But the paradox is that freedom is not found in independence: it is found in service to the Creator, for only here, as we learn to love, can our beings truly flourish and become all that the Creator intended us to be. The hanging goose is merely the foil for the lesson.

"Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!"

"Teacher, rebuke your disciples"

"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

Indeed they would. The very fabric of creation shudders at the presence of her creator. This is the most explicit claim Jesus allows to be made of his real identity, hidden for so long . Perhaps he allows it knowing that it will so upset the religious elite that it will precipitate his arrest and execution. In any case, the king of his parables returns home and weeps over his people. His pain is tangible. The spiritual desensitisation of God's chosen people happens while still thinking they are God's chosen people, as they split hairs over the meaning of 'the law'. So they think its okay to sell Temple money (at a profit) in the Temple to use for buying the animals acceptable for sacrificing in the Temple, exploiting the poor in the process - in the very place where the poor should be safest. No wonder he is angry. But where do the poor and destitute come today?

Cuthbert continues his final rounds of the diocese. He has come down river to the mouth of the Tyne, likely to the monastery at South Shields, just downstream of the Jarrow monastery (where Bede lived when he wrote this Vita). It was probably the previous monks of this monastery for whom Cuthbert prayed as a young lad when they got into trouble floating their logs back down the river, before he entered the religious life (Day 3). Abess Verca, who governed the monastery, also gave Cuthbert the shroud, which he kept, and in which he was wrapped after he died. This story of water into the most exquisite wine is clearly intended to remind us of Jesus' similar miracle, although not quite on the same scale. Nevertheless, here, as in John's Gospel, it is also a story of preparation for the forthcoming wedding feast (his death).