Fr. Tim’s Sermon for 11 November, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: New Testament, Sermon

The Hill : Hobbiton-across-the Water, by J.R.R. Tolkien

1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

Click here to access these readings.

            This morning, I want to spend a little time talking to you all about Hobbits.  I’ve not hidden from you that I’m a nerd, but it’s more than my love of fantasy and sci-fi that makes me think of Hobbits when we come to gospel passages like this.  For Lord of the Rings is not, of course, out of place in church.  The author, Tolkien, was himself a Roman Catholic, and his circle of friends included C.S. Lewis, who was both a great Christian writer and an Anglican just like us.  Tolkien called The Lord of the Rings an essentially Catholic work, and while I could go into all sorts of ways that Christianity founds his works, I want to talk this morning about the main characters: the Hobbits.

            Now, if you’ve not read The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are just like us humans, except that they’re shorter in height and rounder around the middle.  They’re a small people tucked into the rolling farmlands of the world.  Although there are kings and great battles in the world all around them, they seek a peaceful life of the earth.  They’re more gardeners and farmers than warriors and leaders.  They are a simple people living simple lives.

            And the reason I mention them isn’t just because I like talking about Hobbits.  You see, when Tolkien was creating Hobbits, he drew on his experiences of common soldiers during the first World War.  This was the “Great War” for his generation.  It was the war that was supposed to end all wars, and one of the tragedies of World War I is that, after all that fighting and all that death, it only lead to a second, and more horrific war.  Tolkien himself was a soldier in France.  And while he serving, he saw that the trenches weren’t filled with hardened and grim warriors, but common, everyday people – people he might have seen selling produce at the market or sitting at the pub drinking a pint with their friends.  And what touched Tolkien was not just this common-ness, but the bravery he saw in these people fighting against all odds.  Even while fighting at the Battle of the Somme, which, if you’ve ever seen pictures of it, looked like a landscape of Hell – even here in these blown-out trenches, even when there was so little hope for coming through alive, these common soldiers held a courage and even a cheerfulness before it all.  Simple, common soldiers could do great deeds, Tolkien saw, and in this he also saw the Gospel: people living out the life of Christ.

            You see, there is a richness to simplicity.  Often, it seems, we think the opposite: simple things are basic, plain, and uninteresting.  Simple things are nice as building blocks, but at the end of the day you’ve got to move on and complicate things.  Our world certainly works this way: the more complicated things are, the better.  Cars have more options, cell phones have more functions.  Our systems of government and economics get more and more complicated.  And certainly, complicated things like cell phones and computers can do more, but is doing more always a good thing?

            I once experienced the richness in simplicity a few years back on Good Friday.  Up in Sewanee, they sit in Vigil from Maundy Thursday into Good Friday morning.  The idea is that, in the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples fell asleep, and Christ chided them, saying, “Can’t you stay awake, even for one hour?”  And so we stay away all night with the Body and Blood consecrated the evening before.  In Sewanee, we did this in shifts, so that there’s always someone present, but you don’t wear yourself out and come to Good Friday services exhausted.

            So my friend and I had signed up to sit in Vigil from 6 a.m. until 7.  It was still dark when we met, and we didn’t say a word to each other, not even in greeting, but went into the chapel together, knelt at the altar rails, and prayed for one, long hour.  And it was silent there, so completely silent.  At 6 in the morning, there weren’t ambient noises of people going about their day.  There was just the simple silence of an empty tomb, and it was powerful.  I have rarely known silences that deep.

            Then, after our hour was finished, we both stood up and went outside.  The sun had risen while we were in the chapel, and the morning was cool and beautiful.  And even though our time of Vigil was over, we remained in silence until we met up with Helene for breakfast, and even then words did not come easily.  That silence and that presence had stayed with us, so that even a simple phrase “good morning” retained the weight of that hour with Christ’s Body and Blood.

            And so when Jesus sees the poor widow in our gospel reading today, when Jesus sees her give just two, small, copper coins and commends her, this should give us pause.  The Kingdom of Heaven is found not with kings and princes, great leaders and grim soldiers, but with Hobbits – with common soldiers, in small garden plots, and in two young men kneeling in the silence of the morning.  It’s not in great books of commentary but in two people sitting down with only a single Bible between them, wrestling like Jacob with their Scriptures.  It’s in simple bread and wine that becomes for us a pathway to the heart of Creation.

            And in all this, I’m not saying that complicated things aren’t good, or that we should make do with simple things.  Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind.  There is a glory to digging deep into St. Thomas Aquinas, and there is some poetry that is so wonderfully complex that you can spend all your life with just a few short lines (Wordworth’s Prelude is like that for me).  But when Jesus commends the poor widow, he doesn’t say that great acts of kindness are bad but that there is a holiness to the simple and the small.  There is a holiness to those soldiers that Tolkien knew, those soldiers who were far from home, who had little hope to survive, who were scared and tired and alone but who went on, with courage and cheer, anyway. 

            We live in complicated times.  Last week there was yet another mass shooting; last week we had elections that seemed to just fuel more arguments.  The divisions between us are growing wider and deeper with each passing day.  And many are wondering what to do.  How can we help?  How can we heal rifts, bring people who hate and loath one another together in peace?  And Christ’s answer seems, here at least, to be: it is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.  Pray, do good, and love.  And if you have no more hope, then pray from the poverty of that hopelessness.  And if all seems dark to you, then do good in that darkness.  And if you feel that there is only hatred and sorrow and fear outside your door, then love within that emptiness, for what hatred and sorrow and fear need most is love.  For that is what Jesus did: he sowed love where there was hate, he gave of himself when there was nothing left to give.  And we, who are his disciples, can do nothing more, nor anything less, than give, and love, and hope with our God.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for 28 October, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: New Testament, Sermon

Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus, Johann Heinrich Stöver, 1861

Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

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        We can learn many things from our readings this morning, but one thing we can learn from the gospel today is this: that Jesus’s world was pretty noisy.  I think it’s often a little hard to think of Jesus being surrounded by a lot of noise.  Often, I think, we picture Jesus surrounded by a small group of disciples who are all quiet and with open ears, ready to drink in what Jesus is saying.  I remember seeing a movie about Jesus’s life a while back, and most of the scenes were in this rocky landscape, no trees or villages or roadways around, and everyone was poised so very dramatically around Jesus.  The Lord himself was sitting on a rock and, with a very kind and low voice, he taught them.  It was like someone giving a lecture in the middle of a library: everything was quiet, calm, and ordered. 

        But we learn from our gospel reading this morning that Jesus’s world was pretty different: it was noisy.  Here we find Jesus in Jericho, walking through the streets with a big crowd, and everyone’s talking at once.  But it’s not just Jesus’s followers, but other folks as well: there are probably people around wondering what the crowd is doing or who they’re following. And there are probably farmers or merchants or other travelers who are just going about their normal, day-to-day business.  They don’t know to be quiet so they can hear Jesus teaching; they’re worried about their cattle that they’re bringing to market, or the recent up-turn in the price of eggs, or whose daughter is marrying whose son.  And here comes this crowd, and they can’t see who’s at the center of it, and it’s probably in the way it’s so big, so there are surely people grumbling about traffic, too.  They don’t hear anything Jesus is saying, if he’s saying anything at that moment, and they certainly don’t have time for the blind guy on the side of the road, who’s calling out to someone named Jesus and is only adding to the noise and the confusion. 

        And somehow in all this mess, in all this noise, this blind beggar Bartimaeus, knows that someone important is there in the center of the crowd.  How did he know Jesus was there?  Perhaps through all the noise and the tumult, all the confusion of voices, Bartimaeus caught the name Jesus flitting by.  And something rises up in him, some Spirit, that tells Bartimaeus that this man, this Jesus, can help him.  And so he calls out to Jesus, but his voice is caught up in the storm of voices.  Then he calls louder, then louder, then louder still, until, finally, he’s shouting the name JESUS SON OF DAVID!  HAVE MERCY ON ME!  And even when he’s rebuked, he calls out again, “Jesus, son of David!”  Until, at last, Jesus hears him, and turns to him, calls him to himself, and heals him.

        Now this is a pretty dramatic scene, and it’s especially potent after our reading last week.  Remember, last week we looked at how Jesus dealt with his disciples’ anger.  James and John try to weasel their way into Jesus’s good graces, and the other disciples surround them and start an argument.  Jesus’s response, if you remember, is to call them to himself, to place himself, and not James and John, nor the disciples’ anger, at the center.  And it is only then, with Jesus as the center, does healing begin.

        And now, here, in our reading this morning, in the very next scene in Mark’s gospel, we see this lesson played out in the flesh.  Jesus is at the center of a large group, just like the Sun at the center of the solar system.  Here are the disciples, like Mercy and Venus and the Earth, close about him and getting a bit singed from the heat.  Then there’s the larger crowd, around them, like Jupiter and Saturn and the gas giants.  And all around them are still more: here is Pluto and the other dwarf planets, who no one really cares about much, but are still circling about this bright figure at their center.  Maybe, just maybe, the disciples have figured this one out, and they’ve done what Jesus so powerfully called them to do.

        But have they?  The thing is, perhaps they’ve put Jesus at their center but not Jesus at the center.  They’ve put Jesus at the center of their group, but they haven’t internalized his teaching.  Jesus is still just a symbol, just an image that founds and supports their group.  He’s something like a foundation stone, something in the side of a building with a year on it that, every once and a while, you look at and smile at, then forget.  They haven’t really understood what it means when the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Even though they’re in this inner circle with Jesus in their midst, they still don’t get this teaching that is so central.

        But Bartimaeus does.  Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, who’s at the edge of this whole solar system of people, he’s the one who calls out in a loud voice the name of Jesus.  He’s the one who calls out, “Jesus, son of David”, not son of Joseph, nor even son of Mary, which might have been enough, but son of David.  And it’s Bartimaeus who understands, Bartimaeus, who is at the very fringe of the crowd, of this circle around Jesus, it’s Bartimaeus who gets that Jesus’s ministry isn’t about some hierarchy of positions but about mercy and love and healing.  Here’s this guy who no one wants at all, but who understands so much.  And he’s the one who’s healed, and given his sight, and follows Jesus on the way.

        Why is it that Jesus heals us?  Why is it that, when Jesus is at the center of our lives – at it’s true center – we are healed?  Well, it really depends on what we mean by center.  It’s not like our center of gravity, so that when we’re walking on a balance beam or doing aerobics, we have to make sure that we’re poised along some point inside ourselves that keeps changing depending where our arms and legs are.  And it’s not some physical center either, so that we should put up a cross in the direct center of our home, or our altar in the center of the church, because things in the middle are best.  No, for this “center” that Jesus calls us to is not at the center of our bodies, or our church, or our lives.  Jesus calls us not to our center, but to the center.  And this is what heals us.

        For we are called not just to put Jesus at the center of our lives, but to realize and see that Jesus Christ is the center of all Creation.  Jesus is at the center of my life, but only because he’s the center of your life, and your life, and your life.  Jesus is the center of my life, but only because he’s the center of Bishop Michael’s life, and St. Francis of Assisi’s life, and at the center of the life of some medieval farmer who no one knew but who lived a good, long, and happy life with God.  And Jesus is the center of my life, but only because he’s the center of the life of the big, red tree outside our house, and the life of those elk up near Reedsport, and the life of a seal Helene saw the other day out in the ocean.  Christ is the center of all creation, from tiny little one-celled organisms here on Earth to some new galaxy 40 billion light years away that scientists are only seeing little glimmers of.  And I don’t say this to be sentimental.  All things – all things – are founded on Jesus Christ, to God the Father, through the Holy Spirit.

        And knowing this, seeing that Christ is the center of all Creation, causes us to live a bit differently.  It causes us to seek out God not only in our own prayer or life of faith, but in the lives of others.  It causes us to look for God beyond our circle because it is we, not God, who draws lines.  It causes the entire gravity of our lives and our hope to shift, so that we hear folks like Bartimaeus and remember that Christ is in him, too.  And it causes us to live a life of freedom and love, loosed from anger and fear and hatred.  For our center is Jesus Christ, and from him flows all goodness and life.

The Feast of St. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Feast Day, Meditation

Stained glass of King Alfred the Great in Winchester Cathedral

St. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex
Wisdom 6:1-3, 9-12, 24-25
Psalm 21:1-7
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
Luke 6:43-49

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Today is the feast day of St. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex.  And when you hear this, you might ask, “Who?” or “King of where?”  Alfred was born in what is now Great Britain in 849 A.D.  He was the son of the ruling king of Wessex, one of the small kingdoms that eventually became England. Alfred had three older brothers, and so it was unlikely that he would ever be king, except that he lived when the Vikings were invading the island.  Alfred’s father died while defending the kingdom, and Alfred’s three brothers both ruled and were killed as well. While Alfred was king, the country was overrun and he survived, for a time, living in the forests with a small group of retainers.  Alfred earned the title “the Great” by raising his ragged country-men and fighting back, but also in what he did afterwards.  Alfred drew scholars from all across the land to reestablish learning and religion in his kingdom.  He translated or helped to translate great works of knowledge, such as Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and St. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

In all, Alfred seems like a pretty great medieval king but perhaps a little odd for a saint.  Although he helped revive Christian learning in England and translated some pretty important works into English, he was still, on the whole, a secular man.  Alfred was known as being an extremely devout Christian and very knowledgable about Christian history and tradition, but, again, he was a king, and his main function in life was the defense and right rule of his people.  And even though he sought to protect his people and to establish peaceful relations with his enemies (even so much as standing as godfather to a Viking king), he was, even still, a secular king.  Why was Alfred made a saint?

This question leads us back to one I wrote about a week or so ago: what is a saint?  Normally, we might think of saints as extremely holy people who did nothing but sit around and pray all the time, but in reality, saints were often very active people.  They were holy and deeply good, but they did not shy away from life, especially a life of pain, suffering, and sacrifice for those around them. This goodness and saintliness can occur in any walk of life, both because God is present in any walk of life and because we humans, no matter where we are, always need God.  And from his deep love of humanity, God sends men and women into some of the darkest places on earth so that we can remember God’s love and the salvation offered to us in Jesus Christ.  These women and men are saints in God’s eyes first, and we discern their sainthood (as opposed to the other way around; we actually never “made” Alfred a saint, nor do they “become” saints on their own strength of will).  

Alfred was a man who was born at a time of crisis, and he was called to a task that was perhaps too much for any person.  And, as a king, Alfred fulfilled his duty: he fought for his people, he worked for peace where he could, and he sought to nurture people when swords were at last put away.  But he did not just do his duty.  Alfred did not simply fight a good fight.  Alfred went above and beyond what the world called him to do and listened to a higher calling.  This higher calling was through his vocation as a king, not against it, but even still it was higher than any might have expected.  It was a call from God not only to protect but also to heal, not only to fight a war but to be concerned with what happens afterwards, not only to give out laws and decrees for the betterment of the people but also to practice what he preached.  His work in a time of warfare reminds us in our own day to listen to what God is calling us to do through our work, our family, and our lives in our community.  God is ever with us and calling us to a life more spiritually rich and more greatly founded upon Christ.  

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for October 21st, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: New Testament, Old Testament, Sermon

Proper 24
22nd Sunday after Pentecost
October 21st, 2018

Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

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The first Bible I ever owned was a red-letter Bible that I got in middle school. I probably had a Bible before this, and there were definitely Bibles around the house growing up, but this Bible was the first one I remember having as my own. It was given to me for my confirmation. It was nice, with a kind of fake leather cover in black, and it came with my name printed on it in little gold colors. “Timmy Hannon.”

       I really liked this Bible, and for a while it was the only one I owned. I kept it by my bedside for years. I liked the maps in the back of it which were all in watercolor. I liked the pages, too, because they were thin and light like sand or air. And, as I said, it was a red-letter Bible, so that every time Jesus spoke, his words were written in red. So, all of the beginning was just like a normal Bible, all the way up to the New Testament, and suddenly there was this flood of red. Sometimes there was more and sometimes there was less, and I liked thinking of Jesus’s words like the ocean, his voice like a tide flowing in and out. And then, towards the end of each of the gospels, it suddenly turned black again, save for a few words here or there. “My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?” or “Into your arms I commend my spirit.” These stark, red lines in the Bible had a deep effect on me as a young Christian and, in a way, they still do.

       Now, I liked these red-letter Bibles. Some people don’t, but I do. And one of the things that’s helpful about them is that they show how often we look only at what Jesus said and not what Jesus did. And this is, of course, pretty natural. Jesus’s words are so full and robust. They’re bursting at the seams with love and joy and hope. We want to drink them in, as if they were water on a hot day, or savor them, as if they were warm tea and a blanket in the winter. Jesus is the Word of God, and we want to know what his words are so that we can feel that love and live that joy and be filled with all that he was and is and will be. Jesus’s words are precious.

       But Jesus is the Word of God not only in what he said but also in what he did. We’re reminded of what he did in some of our readings today. We’re reminded of what he did for us on Calvary, of the sacrifice that he made for us – and not just for those who knew him in life or who were present at the crucifixion, but for all people, everywhere, throughout time and across the world. With Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, he became “the source of eternal salvation,” as we hear in the letter to the Hebrews. We are alive in God because of what Jesus Christ did for us. You are alive in God because of what Jesus Christ did for you.

       But it’s not just the big stuff. The big stuff is important, and in a little bit, from Advent all the way to Pentecost, we’ll be talking about the big stuff. But the small stuff is important too, those small, little acts between the red letters that we might often skip over; those small acts of a man who was also God and who was also a man; these small acts that helped to save us.

       Look at our gospel reading this morning. Here, we find the disciples preparing for something great that they just know is going to happen. Jesus has been talking about the end, about the fulfillment of their ministry on earth. And where Jesus is talking about his death and his resurrection, the disciples are planning on what is going to happen afterwards. A lot of people in Jesus’s time were waiting for a Messiah that was going to come in with a great army and kick Rome out of Palestine. Many of them were waiting for a great leader or a king, someone who would bring back the days of David or Solomon.

       And there’s a bit of anxiety among the disciples, it seems. They’re wondering who will be on top when everything happens. And so James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they go up to Jesus and they ask if they can sit on his right hand and on his left. This question sets the rest of the disciples into an uproar. They surround the brothers, literally “surrounding” them; the Greek is “and they were angry around – surrounding – James and John.” And we, hearing this story, are waiting for what Jesus will say to break up this argument. But the first thing Jesus does isn’t teach them why arguing is bad, or why the last will be first and the last first; he does that, eventually, but not first. No, first he calls them, he summons them, he gathers them around himself. Then, and only then, does Jesus begin to teach.

       This calling the disciples, this “gathering” them around himself, this is so very small but it is so very important. It’s not just a stage direction we can skim over. For it says something very important about anger. For when we’re angry about something, we fixate on it. Think about when you get angry – really angry. That thing we’re angry about becomes all-encompassing, it becomes the center of our world. Once, while driving from Tennessee to New Jersey, I was cut off. We were in New Jersey by this time, and we had driven something like twelve hours straight. It was dark and the kids were crying and we were looking for that last exit before getting to my parents’ house. And this guy cuts me off. Oh, I was angry! And in this anger, I started making up stories. I thought, this guy did it on purpose, everyone in New Jersey is so rude, this whole place is filled with angry people, and on and on and on. Anger does this sort of thing (especially when we’re tired). It blossoms into this ugly flower of lies with a stinking fragrance. It becomes the center of frustration and hatred.

       And how does Jesus respond to the anger of his disciples? He doesn’t jump to admonish them and tell them why they’re wrong. That first act, that first response to anger is to call them around himself, to gather them and change what they’re centered on, what they’re surrounding. He takes James and John who are at the center of his disciples’ anger, and he replaces them with himself. Now he is the center, now he is the focal point, now he is the foundation. And while we don’t hear how the disciples responded to this, I assume they quieted down, and were calmed, and they listened. And I assume this because we have recorded what Jesus said. People listened to him when he was at their center and they remembered what he said. People opened their ears and heard what this man who was also God said to them and taught them, because of this simple act of placing himself – of placing God – at the center of their community. And this made all the difference.

       Can we do this ourselves? Can we, who are the disciples of Jesus Christ, make that same Jesus Christ our center? Now, our world is a very angry world. Some of that anger is justified, and people should be angry; and some of it is not justified, and it’s scary. But whatever the case, whether anger is justified or it is not, whatever we do needs to be centered on Jesus Christ. And this is the same for all things: our relationships, our hope, our love, our striving and our dreams and the goodness we hope to see in the world – all of it needs, as their center, Jesus Christ. For in Jesus is the Light and the Life; in Him is our Salvation and our Resurrection. All good flows from God through Jesus His Son, the center and very heart of our world. And, like the twelve disciples, we are called, we are summoned to gather around that heart. Let us listen to that voice and heed its call in our lives, for there we shall find the true drink to quench our most desperate thirst.

 

The Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Feast Day, Meditation

St. Luke, Evangelist
Sirach 38:1-4, 6-10, 12-14
Psalm 147
2 Timothy 4:5-13
Luke 4:14-21

Click here to access these readings.

Today is the feast day of St. Luke, the third evangelist.  St. Luke is known as being a physician and for setting his gospel account firmly in history.  He is often represented (as he is in the picture above) by a winged ox.  This may seem a little odd (what do oxen have to do with doctors or writing?), but, in fact, all of the gospels are traditionally represented by some similar figure.  Matthew’s gospel is the “winged man”, Mark’s is the “winged lion”, and John’s is the eagle.  Each of these represents some important aspect of their gospel account.  Matthew’s gospel, for instance, begins with Jesus’s genealogy (and so his specifically human descent), and so the “winged man” is appropriate.  The eagle, according to tradition, had such good eye-sight that it could look directly into the sun, and this bird was seen as a fit symbol for St. John’s gospel.  The wings of each symbol represent their ability to ascend beyond the normal, work-a-day world; the gospels are not just simply accounts of Jesus’s life (called vita in the ancient world), but holy Scripture.  They are the Word of God, and, at the same time, they are grounded in the life of Jesus in this world.

These symbols were not thought up in the first century A.D. but were, instead, drawn from Scripture.  In the beginning of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet sees a magnificent vision.  And in this vision, he sees:

“As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber.  In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form.  Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings.  Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze.  Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus:  their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved.  As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle;  such were their faces.” (Ezekiel 1:4-10b)

Early Christian writers, and tradition thereafter, saw in this image a foretelling of the Christian Scriptures and, especially, the four gospel accounts.  These four symbols are seen again in Revelation (4:6-8).  Tradition pulled from both these sources and, ever afterwards, depicted each gospel by these four, winged beings. 

So, what’s with the “winged ox”?  The ox was an animal of sacrifice, and so it represents both the priestly order that completed sacrifices but also the sacrificial victim.  And in St. Luke’s gospel we find many stories about sacrifice and the priestly vocation of Jesus.  In the ancient world, sacrifice was done to re-establish a person or community’s relationship with God.  Jesus Christ, however, took these sacrifices upon himself and made a lasting and eternal relationship with His Father, ending the need for other sacrifices.  St. Luke’s gospel explains this idea through its parables and stories about and around Jesus, and so tradition associated him with the symbol of the ox.

If all this talk of sacrifice is getting you down, think of it this way: one of the collects for mission during Morning Prayer (and often reserved for Friday) is the following:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on 
the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within 
the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit 
that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those 
who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for 
the honor of your Name. Amen.

Jesus, we believe, went to Calvary without complaint, because He knew what His sacrifice would do for the people of the world.  Jesus went to the cross in pain, surely, but out of love.  And we who follow him, how much do we hope to sacrifice out of love?  Parents give up a great deal for their children; teachers work long hours for their students; soldiers leave their homes to defend their country.  In St. John’s gospel, we hear “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend” (15:13).  Jesus upon the cross was of pain, surely, but it was also of a dedicated love that we can only hope to emulate.  

May we all live a life dedicated to the love of others, as Jesus did before us.