Tuesday of Holy Week

Julia Slayton, in a meditation on this gospel several years ago, considers the opening line of the gospel reading:

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

I want to go with this thought because I had never looked at today’s gospel reading in quite these terms.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus. We want to get closer to see and know him for ourselves.’

She reflects on how there are people whom we want to see, those people who draw you to them for reasons you sometimes don’t know. Perhaps you’ve had that happen?

We want to know those people in life who bring Jesus closer to us, don’t we? They exist. Some of us have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity in our lives to meet such a person. Archbishop Desmond Tutu always comes to mind but there are others. Archbishop Martín Barahona is another one of those people.

Last Monday at the Catedral Metropolitana in San Salvador, I finally met, after several years of email correspondence, someone who is almost a blood brother to me. He is a 79 year-old retired Episcopal priest in Buffalo, dealing with asthma, congestive heart failure, and the issues of mortality that come along with aging. Our connection is through El Salvador. He knew Oscar Romero and worked with him for five years. He was there at the time of Romero’s death and burial. He is also the last person to whom Romero gave communion… ever.

I said it must have been incredible to have been in Romero’s presence. He answered that Romero was one of those people who could take your pain away. Just spending time in his presence was enough to release the suffering. The church’s human rights officer, who would come into Romero’s office with 100 new cases of disappeared or tortured people in his hands, would walk out a restored person because of Romero’s healing touch on his forehead.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus… now.’

There is the desire of meeting the person of Jesus and then the desire to meet him now.

‘Now’ is the operative reality for the gospel. Now, the present moment. Now is the time to live fully into our baptism that has been given us through Christ’s life, death and baptism. Not tomorrow, not yesterday but fully in the present.

The Ash Wednesday epistle, which we heard six weeks ago says: ‘See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!’ Now is the time to enter into the life of dying and rising anew.

Our Christian life can be lived on the spot where we stand. This spot can encompass dying and rising anew. It can encompass the cross and resurrection. We just need to make our hearts open to that journey that happens in the present.

Do we know the hour, the now, the here?

The now is in Darfur. The now is in Sudan. The now is in the hospital. The now is in Russia. The now is in Haiti. The now is El Salvador. The now is in the Anglican Communion. It is here now and always.

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

Of course, when we say ‘We wish to see Jesus,’ Jesus sometimes will take us where we don’t want to go. There are ‘now’s which seem too much for us. Taking care of an aging parent. Walking alongside a dying person. Dealing with a child suffering from learning disorders. Giving up everything to follow Jesus. Don’t we go through those moments saying: ‘There’s no way I can be doing this. It has to be God who is doing this through me’?

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This Tuesday in Holy Week, the gospel asks us: Where are you bidden to abide, to stay, to watch, to pray?

Is it in the home of Mary and Martha with Lazarus?
Is it at table with Jesus and the twelve?
Is it at the trial?
Or in the garden?
Or on the cross?
Or at the tomb?
Where and when will Christ’s hour come for you?
Where is God’s glory redeeming the world now?
What is the now before you?

Remember, we cannot limit God’s power to our own terms or imagination — God’s power is far greater than that. So where do we see God’s glory redeeming the world now?

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Hymn 333 uses the words of Jaroslav Vajda that express this sense of here and present:

Now the silence

Now the peace

Now the empty hands uplifted

Now the kneeling

Now the plea

Now the Father’s arms in welcome

Now the hearing

Now the power

Now the vessel brimmed for pouring

Now the Body

Now the Blood

Now the joyful celebration

Now the wedding

Now the songs

Now the heart forgiven leaping

Now the Spirit’s visitation 

Now the Son’s epiphany

Now the Father’s blessing

Now

Now

Now

Christ’s now is here with us. Here, now. Let us glorify God now, here.

[based in part on Nancy Roth’s meditation on Hymn 333, New Every Morning, Year C, 2000, 46-50]