John 10: 11-18, ‘I am the Good Shepherd …’

Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός

Patrick Comerford

Introduction:

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for tomorrow week, Sunday 26 April 2015, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, are: Acts 4: 5-12 or Ezekiel 34: 1-10; Psalm 23; I John 3: 16-24; John 10: 11-18.

This morning, in our Bible study, we are looking at the Gospel reading for that Sunday. It is one that is so familiar to so many of us, and to the vast majority of people who are going to be in church that Sunday, that it may be difficult for us to find an original and challenging approach to this Gospel reading.

Kατά Ιωάννην 10: 11-18

11 Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός: ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλὸς τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ τίθησιν ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων: 12 ὁ μισθωτὸς καὶ οὐκ ὢν ποιμήν, οὗ οὐκ ἔστιν τὰ πρόβατα ἴδια, θεωρεῖ τὸν λύκον ἐρχόμενον καὶ ἀφίησιν τὰ πρόβατα καὶ φεύγει καὶ ὁ λύκος ἁρπάζει αὐτὰ καὶ σκορπίζει 13 ὅτι μισθωτός ἐστιν καὶ οὐ μέλει αὐτῷ περὶ τῶν προβάτων. 14 Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός, καὶ γινώσκω τὰ ἐμὰ καὶ γινώσκουσί με τὰ ἐμά, 15 καθὼς γινώσκει με ὁ πατὴρ κἀγὼ γινώσκω τὸν πατέρα: καὶ τὴν ψυχήν μου τίθημι ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων. 16 καὶ ἄλλα πρόβατα ἔχω ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τῆς αὐλῆς ταύτης: κἀκεῖνα δεῖ με ἀγαγεῖν, καὶ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούσουσιν, καὶ γενήσονται μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν. 17 διὰ τοῦτό με ὁ πατὴρ ἀγαπᾷ ὅτι ἐγὼ τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν μου, ἵνα πάλιν λάβω αὐτήν. 18 οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ' ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ' ἐγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν ἀπ' ἐμαυτοῦ. ἐξουσίαν ἔχω θεῖναι αὐτήν, καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχω πάλιν λαβεῖν αὐτήν: ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου.

John 10: 11-18

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away – and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

Introducing the text:

The children are back at school, the Easter vestries and voting are over, parish activities are back to the normal cycle and routine. But we are still in the Easter season. The Easter Season is not just Easter Day and a day or two after while the bank holiday weekend lasts.

Easter is a season that lasts for a full 50 days. So, while this is not, on a first reading, an Easter or post-Resurrection reading, we have this Gospel reading on Sunday week to challenge us to think and to ask who the Risen Christ is for us.

In Saint John’s Gospel, there are seven I AM sayings in which Christ says who he is. The Dominican author and theologian, Timothy Radcliffe, points out that that in the Bible, seven is the number of perfection. We know of the six days of creation and how God rested on the seventh. In Saint John’s Gospel, we have seven signs and seven “I AM” sayings disclosing for us who Christ truly is.

The seven signs in Saint John’s Gospel are:

● Turning water into wine in Cana (John 2: 1-11);
● Healing with a word (John 4: 46-51);
● Healing a crippled man at Bethesda (John 5: 1-9);
● The feeding of 5,000 (John 6: 1-14);
● Walking on water (John 6: 16-21);
● The healing of the man born blind (John 9: 1-7); and
● The Raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11: 1-46), which was our Gospel reading the Sunday before last.

The seven “I AM” sayings In Saint John’s Gospel, disclosing for us who Christ truly is, are:

● I am the Bread of Life [John 6: 35, 41, 48-51];
● I am the Light of the World [John 8: 12, 9: 5];
● I am the Door of the Sheepfold [John 10: 7, 9];
● I am the Good Shepherd [John 10: 11, 14];
● I am the Resurrection and the Life [John 11: 25];
● I am the Way, the Truth and the Life [John 14: 6];
● I am the True Vine [John 15:1, 5].

In the Book of Revelation, we have the seven churches and the seven seals. And I could go on.

The Good Shepherd ... a stained glass window in Saint Mark’s Church, Armagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On Sunday week, the Gospel passage presents us with the best-known and best-loved I AM sayings, which is repeated twice in this passage: “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10: 11, 14).

This is such a popular image – one that has been with many of us since our Sunday School and childhood days. I think, perhaps, that the image of the Good Shepherd is one of the most popular images to fill stained-glass windows in our church buildings, surpassed in popularity only by windows showing the Crucifixion or the Last Supper.

But sometimes I have problems with our cosy, comfortable image of the Good Shepherd. Christ is so often portrayed in clean, spick-and-span, neatly tailored, nicely dry-cleaned, red and white robes, complete with a golden clasp to hold all those robes together.

And the lost sheep is a huggable, lovable, white fluffy Little Lamb, a little pet, no different from the Little Lamb that Mary had in the nursery rhyme and that followed her to school.

But shepherds and sheep, in real life, are not like that.

I remember once, on Achill Island, hearing about a shepherd who went down a rock-face looking for a lost sheep, and who lost his life. Local people were shocked – lambs do not fetch a price in the mart that makes them worth losing your life for.

The sheep survived. But as you can imagine, in the process of being lost, it had been torn by brambles, had lost a lot of its wool, was bleeding and messy. Any shepherd going down after a lost sheep will get torn by brambles too, covered in sheep droppings, slip on the rocks, risk his life. And all for what?

And yet Christ says he is the Good Shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep, in the face of great risks from wolves and from the terrain, and against all common wisdom, as the hired hands would know.

Christ, against all the prevailing wisdom, identifies with those who are lost, those who are socially on the margins, who are smelly and dirty, injured and broken, regarded by everyone else as worthless, as simply not worth the bother.

God sees us – all of us – in our human condition, with all our collective and individual faults and failings, and in Christ totally identifies with us.

Looking at the text:

Christ has already told those who are listening: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved ... and find pasture ... the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have [spiritual] life, and have it abundantly” (verse 9-10). Now when he speaks of himself as the good shepherd, the image is one that is familiar to those who hear him. True followers, he tells them, recognise the good shepherd.

Perhaps they are prompted to recall that David too had been a good shepherd (I Samuel 17: 34-35), but this was when he lived on the margins, and before he became king. Would they recall the many Old Testament promises that God would come to shepherd his people (Isaiah 40: 11; Jeremiah 23: 1-6; Ezekiel 34: 11)?

When Moses, Aaron and Miriam led the ex-slaves out of Egypt and into freedom, the people learned as they went to appreciate the value of a nomadic life.

They learned, first, that everything is a gift from God, symbolised by the manna, the first Bread of Life. And they learned, too, that worship need not be centred in one place. They came to value Tent over Temple and sheep over settled land. To be a shepherd was a noble occupation – a continuing theme in Jewish history.

Entering the Promised Land, these nomads found themselves surrounded by nations whose powerful elites ruled by subjugating the poor and weak. Yet this new community understood themselves to be completely differently. They were equal partners with each other. And they were equal partners because – as they learned in their wilderness – they were partners with God, the true owner of the land, with God who, as with the manna in the wilderness, called them to share in common all they had.

They had come to value equality and mutual respect. From the beginning, these ex-slaves understood themselves as one people, who lived in an equal partnership with each other and with God by holding fast to the values of the Exdous, when they shared the manna in the wilderness.

But by the time of Christ, however, all this had changed. With the development of a royal aristocracy and the adoption of Temple worship under King Solomon, nomadic values faded and social divisions appeared.

Social strife and class warfare appeared, and any understanding of the land as an equally shared resource belonging to God disappeared.

The kingdom then split into two nations, Israel and Judah, and Judaism split into rival branches. Some were centred on the Temple in Jerusalem, while Samaritan Judaism had its own rival temple on Mount Gerizim. Two kingdoms, two Temples, fear and hatred, injustice and inequality, were in sharp contrast to Christ’s message of radical inclusion, symbolised in Saint Luke’s image of the Good Samaritan and Saint John’s image of the Good Shepherd.

In Christ’s time, shepherds are the dispossessed, the lowest rung of society. They no longer own their own land. And when they longer owned their own sheep they often ended up as the hired hands of the wealthy urban dwellers, the absentee landlords who feature in so many of the Gospel parables.

These hired shepherd-servants depend for their livelihood on work that requires them to be out in the fields and away from their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, the family members any honourable man would have stayed home to protect. As a result, shepherds were considered to be men without honour. At best, they were unreliable; at worst they were borderline bandits. Shepherds are despised as much as Samaritans. In this context, a good shepherd, like a good Samaritan, is a contradiction in terms.

As with Saint Luke’s story of the Good Samaritan, Christ uses the image of the Good Shepherd, a despised external “other,” to challenge our preconceptions about others. The invitation is to think about what is really important in human relationships. And Christ’s answer is always the same: compassion, individual moral character, and generous, inclusive action. We are not to condemn by assigning human beings to hated categories.

Christ constantly challenges his followers to live out the Gospel on the margins as he consistently placed himself among those who society had rejected: tax collectors, sinners, Samaritans, shepherds …

“I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10: 11)

Verse 11:

Now he says that he is the “good,” the real or proper “shepherd,” the one who dies for his “sheep,” his flock (verse 11).

Verse 12:

But the “hired hand” (verse 12) does not care enough to save the sheep from the “wolf.” Old Testament prophets spoke of leaders of Israel in these terms, so Jesus probably speaks of them here – shepherds who are not worthy of the name.

Verse 15:

Christ’s relationship to people is like the Father’s relationship with him (verse 15).

Verse 16:

Who are the “other sheep” in verse 16? Are they the Samaritans? Are they non-Jews, the gentiles, the nations? They will have equal status with those who already follow Christ, as part of one Church.

Verse 18:

Christ has been given the authority to choose to die and the power to rise again from the dead. He is in control of his own death and resurrection.

A truly Easter theme for the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

The context of the other Sunday readings:

And how should we respond to that?

The answer to that is provided by the context in which people are going to hear this Gospel reading tomorrow week: the context of the other readings.

Psalm 23:

The most obvious and most likely connections to be made between the readings tomorrow week is that between the Gospel reading and the Psalm (Psalm 23).

In the ancient Near East, the king was seen as shepherd (verse 1-4) and as host (verses 5-6). God faithfully provides for, and constantly cares for, his sheep. He revives our very lives, the “soul” (verse 3), and guides us in godly ways or “right paths.”

Even when we are beset by evil or find ourselves in the “darkest valley” (verse 4), we have nothing to fear. God’s “rod,” the shepherd’s defence against wolves and lions, protects us. His “staff” (verse 4), used for rescuing sheep from thickets, guides us.

The feast (verse 5) is even more impressive, for it is laid out for us, the table is set for us, in the presence of his foes. Kings were plenteously anointed with oil, a symbol of power and dedication to a holy purpose.

The psalmist trusts that God’s “goodness and mercy” and God’s steadfast love (verse 6) will follow or pursue him, as do his enemies, throughout his life. He will continue to worship in the Temple or “dwell in the house of the Lord,” as long as he lives.

Acts 4: 5-12

The RCL provides for either an Old Testament reading or a reading from the Acts of the Apostles as the first reading: either Acts 4: 5-12 or Ezekiel 34; Psalm 23; I John 3: 16-24. And the intention is that you should prefer to opt for the reading from Acts rather than Ezekiel for the first readings.

In the previous Sunday’s reading, the one we hear tomorrow morning (Acts 3: 12-19; the Third Sunday of Easter), we hear how Peter and John go to the Temple to pray, how Peter heals a crippled man, who then walks and leaps and praises God (Acts 3: 8), and enters the Temple with them. Peter then calls on the people to repent of their waywardness and to “turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord ...” (Acts 3: 19-20). While Peter and John are speaking (Acts 4: 1), they are arrested for “proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead” (verse 2).

Now, on the Sunday we are preparing for, we hear how the Sanhedrin meets the next day (4: 5). The elders were religious and local judges; the “scribes,” mostly Sadducees who did not believe in an afterlife, were experts in the Mosaic law and its interpretation.

Among them (in verse 6) we find Annas, a former high priest who is the power behind the throne – five of his sons became high priests. Caiaphas, the high priest 18-36 AD, is his son-in-law. John may be Jonathan, Caiaphas’ successor. We do not know who Alexander is.

John and Peter are asked to explain who gave them power or authority to cure the lame beggar (verse 7).

It is interesting that the power and authority that challenges and perplexes the ruling hierarchy in Jerusalem is not a challenge to their right to monopolise the office of High Priest, but their work with someone who, because he is both disabled and poor must sit outside the Temple gates, has been excluded from full religious rights, is not accepted as a member of the religious community, is one of the lost sheep.

I John 3:16-24

In our Epistle reading, Saint John the Divine, Saint John the Evangelist, tells us that our response to this outpouring of love from God, an outpouring that is risky and beyond all human understanding of generosity, is to love. To love not just those who are easy to love, but to love those who are difficult to love too. And to love beyond words.

He says: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

Jerome, in his commentary on Chapter 6 of the Epistle to the Galatians 6 (Jerome, Comm. in ep. ad. Gal., 6, 10), tells the well-loved story that John the Evangelist continued preaching even when he was in his 90s.

Saint John was so enfeebled with old age that the people had to carry him into the Church in Ephesus on a stretcher.

And when he was no longer able to preach or deliver a long discourse, his custom was to lean up on one elbow on every occasion and say simply: “Little children, love one another.”

This continued on, even when the ageing John was on his deathbed.

Then he would lie back down and his friends would carry him back out.

Every week, the same thing happened, again and again. And every week it was the same short sermon, exactly the same message: “Little children, love one another.”

One day, the story goes, someone asked him about it: “John, why is it that every week you say exactly the same thing, ‘little children, love one another’?”

And John replied: “Because it is enough.”

If you want to know the basics of living as a Christian, there it is in a nutshell. All you need to know is. “Little children, love one another.”

If you want to know the rules, there they are. And there is only one. “Little children, love one another.”

As far as John is concerned, if you have put your trust in Christ, then there is only one other thing you need to know. So week after week, he would remind them, over and over again: “Little children, love one another.”

That is all he preached in Ephesus, week after week, and that is precisely the message he keeps on repeating in his first letter (I John), over and over again: “Little children, love one another.”

Love one another. God loves us. We ought to – no, we must – love one another.

That is what it is all about. That is what you will find when you leave here and are working in ordained ministry.

All of your concerns – which may include global warming, the causes and effects of poverty, the AIDS crisis, healing and wholeness, how we cope with new life and with death in our parishes – come back to that core question: how do we love another?

That is why it is important that love is our priority in ministry, rather than ego, career, or worrying over the divisions that constantly into the Church.

“Little children, love one another … because it truly is enough.”

Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
Raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again.
Keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay is based on notes prepared for a Bible study in a tutorial group with part-time MTh students on Saturday 18 April 2015.

Visiting the rock-carved churches and monasteries of the Cappadocian fathers

Looking out across the rock-hewn churches and the monastery at Göreme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I imagine many of my theological friends and co-workers associate monasticism with Saint Benedict and his rule, and trace it back through the influences of Saint John Cassian to the Desert Fathers. And many of us think of the Cappadocian Fathers in terms of formulating key Christological and doctrinal phrases. But I wonder how many of us make the link between the early beginnings of monasticism and the Cappadocian formulations that led to our creedal expressions of Christianity.

Both came together this week when I walked from Göreme, where I am staying, to the nearby rock-hewn monastery and cave churches that date back to the early centuries of Christianity.

By the end of the second century, there was a large Christian community in Cappadocia, and two bishoprics were formed in area, one in Caesarea (present-day Kayseri) and one in Malatya. In the fourth century, Cappadocia was associated with three key patristic writers and saints: Saint Basil the Great (329-379), Bishop of Caesarea, his brother Saint Gregory (335-395), Bishop of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus (329-390), who became Patriarch of Constantinople.

As theologians, the three Cappadocian Fathers challenged heresies such as Arianism and their thinking was instrumental in formulating the phrases that shaped the Nicene Creed. Saint Basil is also remembered for his challenging social values: “The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.”

After visiting monasteries in Syria and the Egyptian Deserts, Saint Basil retuned to Cappadocia, he encouraged the hermits in the region to form themselves into communities and monasteries, and to worship together liturgically rather than alone.

The monastic buildings and the rock-hewn churches in Göreme are an early example of the influences of Saint Basil and his reforms, and they hold some unique examples of pre-iconoclast frescoes in the Byzantine world.

The monks used ladders or scaffolding to climb to the upper reaches of the seven-storey ‘Nunnery’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I began my visit at the six- or seven-storey rock-hewn mass known as the “Nunnery” or Monastery. Although it was closed off to visitors, this complex includes churches, chapels, a dining room, kitchen, rooms or cells for the monks who lived here and connecting tunnels. The monks probably used ladders or scaffolding to reach the higher levels.

Saint George slaying the Dragon … a Cappadocian martyr depicted in the chapel of Saint Basil (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Appropriately, my next stop was at the barrel-vaulted chapel of Saint Basil dating back to the 11th century.

The image on the south wall represents Saint George slaying the Dragon. Saint George’s parents are said to have been from Cappadocia, and he said to have died a martyr’s death when he was beheaded in Lyda in 303 AD.

The double apse leading into the Apple Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Apple Church is a small cave church carved into the rock ca 1050. Here the frescoes are beginning to chip off, revealing a layer of earlier paintings underneath. They depict saints, bishops and martyrs, and the Last Supper with the symbolic fish – the letters of the Greek word for fish, ΙΧΘΥΣ, represent the initials of Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour. The name of the church refers to a reddish orb in the left hand of the Archangel Michael in the dome of the main apse.

A cross carved over the door into the Church of Saint Barbara (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Church of Saint Barbara is named in honour of an Egyptian martyr who was imprisoned by her father who tortured and killed her because of her Christian faith. The church was built in the late 11th Century, and has a cross-dome with one central apse, two side apses and two columns. The dome depicts Christ on the Throne, with geometrical patterns painted in red ochre directly on the rock. The north wall has a fresco of Saint George and Saint Dimitrios, both on horseback fighting against the dragon and a snake.

Saint Onuphorius, covered with a fig leaf, with Saint Thomas and Saint Basil (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Church of Saint Onuphorius is also known as the Snake Church because of its fresco of Saint Dimitrios and Saint George slaying a dragon that looks like a snake. This is a simple barrel-vaulted church with a low ceiling and long nave. It also has a fresco of the Emperor Constantine and his mother Saint Helena holding the True Cross.

Saint Onuphorius, lived as a hermit near Thebes in the Egyptian Desert, is shown on the upper wall to the right of the entrance. He is depicted with a long grey beard and wearing only a fig leaf, standing beside Saint Thomas and Saint Basil.

Tunnels link the larder, the kitchen and the refectory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The larder, the kitchen and the refectory are side by side in one massive area of rock, linked together by tunnels. At one end of the long table in the refectory that may have seated up to 40 monks, is an image of the Last Supper.

The courtyard of the Dark Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

A narrow stairs leads up to the courtyard in front of the Dark Church (Karanlik Kilise), where the frescoes have been preserved in their rich colours mainly because very little daylight enters it from a small opening in the narthex.

Saint George and Saint Dimitrios in a corner in the Church of Saint Catherine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Church of Saint Catherine is between the Dark Church and the Sandals Church. It has nine floor graves and two burial niches, and the frescoes include images of the patron saint, the doctors of the Church and Saint George and Saint Dimitrios.

The Sandals Church is built on a level above the Refectory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Sandals Church (Çarıklı Kilise) is built on two levels. It may have been named originally as the Church of the Holy Cross. Its present name comes from two footprints at the entrance to the church at the upper level, beneath a fresco depicting the Ascension. This fresco is said to be an exact copy of one in the Church of the Ascension in Jerusalem. The other frescoes in the church include an early, 11th century representation of the Hospitality of Abraham.

The refectory is on the ground-floor level beneath the church, and here again is a fresco depicting the Last Supper at one end of the long dining table.

Inside the Church of the Buckle, the largest church in Göreme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The final visit was to the Church of the Buckle (Tokalı Kilise), the largest church in Göreme, which stands outside the open-air museum. The church, which was restored in the 1980s, divided into four section: the Old Church, the larger New Church, the Parakklesion, and the Lower Church.

Like the Nicephoras Phocas Church in Çavuşin, some of the frescoes in the Old Church, including the Murder of Zacchariah and the Flight of Elizabeth, are based on the apocryphal Gospel of Saint James, explained perhaps by the semi-isolation of this part of Cappadocia.

Another regional trait is found in naming otherwise anonymous characters through their association with objects or actions in the Bible. One example is the figure filling an urn with water in the Miracle at Cana scene who is named Antlioi, derived from the Greek word “to draw out.”

The main nave of the church is decorated with ninth century frescoes in the “provincial” style, while the three apses are filled with 11th-century frescoes in the “metropolitan” style.

The Old Church dates from the 10th century. It was originally a single-nave barrel-vaulted church. But its apse was destroyed when the New Church was added at the end of the 10th or early 11th century. Now the Old Church provides the entrance to the New Church.

The Old Church is decorated with pale hues of red and green painted in strips to represent scenes from the New Testament and depictions of some saints.

The elaborate decorative of the Old Church depicts the Christological cycle. On each side of the vault there are three parts of the narrative containing 32 scenes depicting the traditional tripartite division of the life of Christ: his infancy, his miracles and his Passion, ending with the Resurrection. The spine of the vault is decorated with a row of prophets and saints.

The New Church was carved out of the eastern wall of the Old Church and decorated with Eastern-style arches and a series of arcades. Panels of rich indigo painted with pigments from the lapis lazuli stone dominate the New Church. These include scenes from the New Testament, the miracles of Christ, the first deacons, events in the life of Saint Basil, depictions of Saint Leades, one of the Forty Martyrs, and Saint Menas.

The Parakklesion, to the left side of the New Church, is a barrel-vaulted chapel with a single apse. The Lower Church has three aisles and a burial space or crypt.

Beyond, as we walked back to Göreme, there were signs pointing to more churches to discover and explore. This was not only a field trip for Patristic studies but an appropriate pilgrimage to the home of the Fathers at Easter time.

Why no-one is coming home to Çavuşin for Easter this year

The modern village of Çavuşin spread out beneath the Church of Saint John the Baptist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Easter in the Greek Orthodox calendar falls a week later this year than Western celebrations.

Today [10 April 2015] is Good Friday in the Greek calendar, and I thought of the lost and forgotten Greeks of Cappadocia today when I visited the small village of Çavuşin, about halfway between Göreme and Avanos.

Almost a century ago, most of the people living in Çavuşin were Greek-speaking, Christian Orthodox families, living in houses which were cut into a massive rock wall.

Many guidebooks say the old village was abandoned several decades ago because of rock falls. The truth is most of the people in Çavuşin were forced to leave their hillside homes in the mass expulsions that are referred to today politely as the population exchange between Turkey and Greece.

The family homes in Çavuşin are crumbling and no Greek-speakers live here today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Çavuşin looks like many an old Greek village. But outside and inside, many of the houses were exposed to hundreds and hundreds of years of weathering and erosion. Today, they are covered in rubble, rocks and boulders, with many of their walls and doors crumbling.

I climbed the narrow winding path that brought me to the top of the village. Below me I could see the modern village, now populated exclusively by Turks, and I could see too the spectacular fairy chimneys that are part of the landscape of Cappadocia.

The modern village of Çavuşin is still a quiet place, disturbed intermittently during the day with the arrival of tour buses.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist is probably one of the oldest and largest cave churches in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

At the top of my climb, I crossed a shaky footbridge and reached the upper church or the Church of Saint John the Baptist, probably one of the oldest and largest cave churches in the region, and dating back to the 5th century.

This old church once had three entrances leading to three now almost separate naves. Its cathedral-like proportions are astounding, and this may be the biggest cave church in Cappadocia.

In the past, these three naves were separated only by huge columns, but the spaces between are now filled with stone and rubble, perhaps because of the danger of the building collapsing.

The framed doors and windows of two naves are still in place while the rock enclosing the third nave has collapsed. Inside, most of the frescoes are faded by smoke but some are still visible. There are elaborate mouldings, columns and arches as well as reliefs with crosses and stars, in a style more similar to Syrian church architecture than Byzantine styles.

The church was once famed for holding a relic of Saint Hieron, a local saint. When he was martyred, his severed hand was sent back to his mother in Çavuşin, and was later kept in a votive shrine.

Frescoes on the crumbling narthex of the Nicephoras Phocas Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Çavuşin has a second, lower church outside the village and near the main road: Nicephoras Phocas Church, often known simply as Çavuşin Church. This church dates from ca 964/965 and commemorates a visit to Çavuşin by Nicephoras Phocas II, a famous Cappadocian general who wanted to become a monk in Mount Athos but instead became the Byzantine Emperor.

The church was once bigger than it is today. The visible frescoes show that the narthex was once enclosed, but it is now open to the elements because of rock falls. The main church has a barrel-vaulted, high nave and three apses. The complex also includes eight to10 rooms on at least three levels.

Inside, the frescoes depict the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Proof of the Virgin, the Flight into Egypt, Joseph’s Dream, the Blessing and Mission of the Apostles, the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Pursuit of Elizabeth, and the Killing of Zacharias; on the west wall, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Raising of Lazarus, the Healing of the Blind Man, the Descent from the Cross, the Women at the Tomb; on the wall of the apse the Transfiguration; and on the north apse the Emperor Nicephoras Phocas and his family.

The only prayers most visitors to Çavuşin might have heard today were the Friday prayers in the two mosques, one at the base of the pathway leading up to the Upper Church, the other a modern building in the new village.

But back up in Saint John’s I had left a priest celebrating Mass for a small group of Spanish pilgrims. I wondered whether they knew today would have been Good Friday for most of the former residents of Çavuşin?

None of the old Greek-speaking villagers, or their children or grandchildren, are coming back to Çavuşin on Sunday for Easter Day.

Crosses and the keys to old houses on sale below the old village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

‘Rise, Heart, Thy Lord is Risen’

Patrick Comerford

I have been meditating each morning throughout Lent this year on a hymn or a piece of music associated with the great English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). I concluded this series with my closing meditation yesterday [4 April 2015]. In the Easter Eucharist in Saint Matthew’s Anglican Church, Portland Oregon, this morning [5 April 2015], they have selected George Herbert’s hymn, ‘Rise, Heart, Thy Lord is Risen,’ with a setting by Vaughan Williams, as the Offertory hymn.

This hymn, in which George Herbert’s words are set to an arrangement by Vaughan Williams, was one of the poems I had selected for my first Easter meditation three years ago [8 April 2012]. http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2012/04/poems-for-easter-1-easter-by-george.html My reflection that Easter morning has been adapted by the Music Director, Melinda Loomis, in the Parish Newsletter in Saint Matthew’s this morning:

George Herbert (1593-1633) was a skilled priest, poet, teacher, and an accomplished musician. Herbert turns to his lute to assist him in song, drawing on Scripture to illustrate the poem (Psalm 57: 8-10 and the theme of the Letter to the Romans exploring how we are made right with God through Christ’s death on the cross).

“Calcined: a chemical term referring to the process where impurities are removed from precious metals, or the means of reducing things like lime or some other similar substance. Herbert is thinking of how at death our bones are reduced to chalk or our lowest commonest denominator, the dust of which we all are made.

“He stretched sinews”: Herbert pictures Christ’s arms stretched tight on the cross, like lute strings which, in Herbert’s days were made from the muscle fibres of animals. Sacred music was traditionally set to higher keys than secular music – and the tighter the string, the higher the pitch. Christ, stretched out in death on the wood of the cross, becomes God’s instrument, playing a melody of love to the world. The heart responds to the melody by joining with it, as instrumentalists join together to make music. But since none can sing this tune perfectly, a further strand needs to be woven: that of the Spirit who makes up “our defects with his sweet art.”

“Three parts”: most chords have only three different notes that are repeated and multiplied at different octaves in different voices or instruments. Herbert’s identification of all music as but “three parts vied and all multiplied” recalls the Trinity, and how this relationship is played out in each of us. As a result, our cacophony becomes euphony as we are harmonized according to the interplay of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as chords are fundamentally composed of triads, Herbert sees the worship of his heart and lute as incomplete without the aid of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit makes “up our defects with his sweet art”.

Notes from an article by the Rev. Canon Patrick Comerford, Dublin, Ireland. Used with permission.

White roses and rampant lions … a link with Pugin in encaustic tiles

Lines of lions ... a row of encaustic tiles in the south aisle, Christ Cathedral, Dublin, each with an image of rampant lion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Holy Week has been a busy culmination to Lent this year. I have been in Christ Church Cathedral regularly though the week, taking part in the Palm Sunday Eucharist [29 March 2015], the Chrism Eucharist on Maundy Thursday [2 April 2015], and last night’s Easter Eve Eucharist, when I assisted at the administration of the Holy Communion.

I also presided at the Maundy Eucharist in All Saints’ Church, Grangegorman, and led the ‘Seven Last Words’ service there on Good Friday [3 April 2015]. On one day this past week, I was at four services in three different places. I am back in Christ Church Cathedral this morning [5 April 2015] for the Easter Eucharist.

White cinquefoils in the sanctuary (above) and the south ambulatory (below), in Christ Church Cathedral … are they a play on the White Rose of the House of York? (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Twice during the past week, I noticed two rows of tiles, almost hidden in the north and south sides of the sanctuary, each with five white cinquefoils or roses. The only other place this design or theme appears is one part of the south ambulatory.

Prompted by the recent funeral of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral 10 days ago [26 March 2015], I wondered whether these Victorian tiles are a humorous play on a Yorkist theme associated with the cathedral: the 10-year-old Yorkist pretender Lambert Simnel was crowned in Christ Church Cathedral as King Edward VI on 24 May 1487.

The story of that coronation is told by Dr John Ashdown-Hill in The Dublin King, which was launched in Christ Church Cathedral about two months ago [12 February 2015]. He was one of the team that discovered Richard III’s body in a car park in Leicester three years ago [August 2012], and in this new book he explores the story Lambert Simnel.

However, he refuses to use the name Lambert Simnel for the Dublin King and believes there is convincing evidence that he was the legitimate Yorkist heir to the throne of Richard III. He suggests that he was neither Lambert Simnel nor one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ but perhaps Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick and son of George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Richard III.

It would be interesting to explore the story behind those ‘York Rose’ tiles in the sanctuary and the south ambulatory, but there are no references to them in Joanna Wren’s delightful little book, Floor Tiles, a guide to the medieval and 19th century floor tiles of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Because of their almost-hidden location, these 19th century ‘York Rose’ tiles receive little attention. Instead, the tiles that catch the imaginations of most visitors are those with the circular panels decorated with the paired pilgrim foxes, representing the mediaeval friars of the cathedral, and the geometric and floral designs.

Lions in the sanctuary ... encaustic tiles by Craven Dunnill on the south side of the High Altar in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The majority of the floor tiles are 19th century copies of mediaeval floor tiles found during restoration of Christ Church by George Edmund Street in the 1870s. They were made by Craven Dunnill and Co of Shropshire, who also worked on commissions for Chester Cathedral and Bangor Cathedral in Wales.

The manufacture and use of encaustic tiles like these was an integral part of a revival of Gothic architecture and art, particularly where the design of a cathedral or church was inspired or influenced by AWN Pugin (1812-1852).

Joanna Wren discusses many of the patterns and designs in the tiles made by Craven Dunnill, and how most of the Victorian tiles are copies of mediaeval ones, some of them are original designs.

She points out that both the lion and fleur-de-lis designs were “probably taken from heraldry. They were used on the tiles simply as decoration, however, without any special meaning.”

However, it seems to me that the lions rampant, which can be seen on tiles throughout the cathedral, particularly on the south side of the high altar, are not based on designs found in the cathedral’s mediaeval tiles during Street’s restoration, but on a design that was introduced or reintroduced by Pugin in the early 19th century.

Lions in formation ... lions rampant can be found on tiles throughout Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Pugin made drawings for tiles during his many journeys on the night train from London to Staffordshire while he was engaged in restoring and rebuilding Alton Towers. The lion rampant, rather than the talbot, was the primary heraldic symbol of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury and proprietors of Alton Towers.

The tiles Pugin designed were manufactured by Minton & Co of Stoke-on-Trent in north Staffordshire ca 1842-1844. In the 1840s, Pugin developed a creative partnership with Herbert Minton (1793-1858), a pottery manufacturer in Stoke-on-Trent.

The early products by Thomas Minton (1765-1836) were standard domestic tableware in blue transfer printed or painted earthenware, including the Willow pattern. His son Herbert developed the process of making encaustic tiles, and together Minton and Pugin went beyond a mere revival of mediaeval patterns to develop finely-finished multi-coloured tiles with intricate designs and with a higher degree of accuracy than anything produced in the Middle Ages.

The Alton Towers tiles were made for Pugin by Minton in Staffordshire 30 years – a whole generation – before Craven and Dunnill made the Christ Church tiles for Street (Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum)

An interesting example of these Pugin-designed, Minton-manufactured tiles with a symbol of a lion rampant is seen in a red earthenware tile with inlaid decoration that is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The Alton Towers tiles were made for Pugin by Minton in Staffordshire 30 years – a whole generation – before Craven Dunnill made the Christ Church tiles for Street.

Pugin’s working relationship with Herbert Minton resulted in the designing and making of some the best church tiles of the Victorian era. He was using Minton tiles as early as 1840 for the Hardman’s Hospital Chapel in Birmingham. By 1844, Minton was making more colourful encaustics probably at Pugin’s instigation.

The Talbot family’s rampant lions on the doors of Pugin’s Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One of Pugin’s greatest achievements in the design and use of colourful church tiles can be found at Saint Giles in Cheadle, built for Lord Shrewsbury and opened in 1846. Michael Fisher, in his book on Saint Giles’, describes it as “Perfect Cheadle.”

The polychromatic effects of the encaustic floor tiles in Cheadle blend perfectly with the colourful wall and ceiling decorations and the stained glass windows.

Minton went on to supply tiles to other architects working in the Gothic Revival style, and so encaustic tiles are often known as Pugin tiles, irrespective of who their designer is.

Pugin’s use of encaustic tiles was followed by the other leading architects of the Gothic revival, including: Sir George Gilbert Scott, William Butterfield (Westminster Abbey, All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street and Keble College, Oxford), George Edmund Street (Christ Church Cathedral), William Burges (Saint Finn Barre’s Cathedral, Cork) and John Pollard Seddon (Llandaff Cathedral).

The fine Minton tiles in the choir in Lichfield Cathedral were inspired by the medieval ones found in the choir foundations and still seen in the Cathedral Library.

Today, more than half the churches in Britain are paved at least in part with 19th century decorative encaustic tiles and they are often the most notable features in a church.

Dancing lions ... tiles in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Many visitors to Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, ask whether the rampant lion is a symbol of the English royal family; few realise that was a heraldic symbol of the Talbot family, and that through Pugin’s influence it became a popular and unquestioned heraldic theme in the encaustic tiles made for many Gothic revival churches throughout these islands from the mid-19th century on.

The Talbot arms displayed on Ye Olde Talbot in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 20: 1-18, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him’

Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday week [5 April 2015] is Easter Day, and the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary are: Acts 10: 34-43 or Isaiah 25: 6-9; Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24, or the Easter Anthems; I Corinthians 15: 1-11 or Acts 10: 34-43; and John 20: 1-18 or Mark 16: 1-8.

This leaves us with a complicated choice, and the Church of Ireland Directory is specific: “When the Old Testament selection is chosen, the Acts reading is used as the second reading at Holy Communion.”

This morning, in our tutorial group, we are looking at Saint John’s account of the Resurrection, and the questions we may ask include how does the Gospel reading fit in with the other Lectionary readings for that morning, and what makes the account in the Fourth Gospel different from the Resurrection accounts in the other three Gospels.

John 20: 1-18

1 Τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἔρχεται πρωῒ σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου. 2 τρέχει οὖν καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς Σίμωνα Πέτρον καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς, Ηραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου, καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. 3 Ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πέτρος καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητής, καὶ ἤρχοντο εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον. 4 ἔτρεχον δὲ οἱ δύο ὁμοῦ: καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, 5 καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν. 6 ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον: καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα, 7 καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον. 8 τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν: 9 οὐδέπω γὰρ ᾔδεισαν τὴν γραφὴν ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι. 10 ἀπῆλθον οὖν πάλιν πρὸς αὐτοὺς οἱ μαθηταί.

11 Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα. ὡς οὖν ἔκλαιεν παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, 12 καὶ θεωρεῖ δύο ἀγγέλους ἐν λευκοῖς καθεζομένους, ἕνα πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἕνα πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, ὅπου ἔκειτο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. 13 καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῇ ἐκεῖνοι, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὅτι Ηραν τὸν κύριόν μου, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. 14 ταῦτα εἰποῦσα ἐστράφη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, καὶ θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν. 15 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν λέγει αὐτῷ, Κύριε, εἰ σὺ ἐβάστασας αὐτόν, εἰπέ μοι ποῦ ἔθηκας αὐτόν, κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἀρῶ. 16 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μαριάμ. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί, Ραββουνι (ὃ λέγεται Διδάσκαλε). 17 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα: πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς, Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν. 18 ἔρχεται Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἀγγέλλουσα τοῖς μαθηταῖς ὅτι Ἑώρακα τὸν κύριον, καὶ ταῦτα εἶπεν αὐτῇ.

Translation (NRSV)

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

The setting and context of the readings:

Isaiah 25: 6-9

In the Old Testament reading (Isaiah 25: 6-9), we read of the divine banquet on Mount Zion (“this mountain,” verse 6), hosted by God, “for all peoples”, to celebrate the victory over death. God “will destroy ... the shroud” (verse 7) of mourning and ignorance; death will no longer be termination; knowledge of God and his ways will be freely available. This celestial banquet is a symbol of eternal happiness, of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Here we might recall Christ’s words at the Last Supper in Mark 14: 25: “I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” God will destroy the power of death, “the disgrace of his people” (verse 8) for ever. Salvation for all, awaited for ages, will be available “on that day” (verse 9). “The Lord,” whom now, in the light of the Resurrection and our Easter faith, identify with Christ, is the awaited saviour. This is an occasion for great rejoicing.

Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24

In the psalm (Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24), we are called to give thanks to God for his mercy and love, which are everlasting. The one who was rejected is now God’s chosen ruler, and all shall share in the power and blessing of God, who “has given us light” (verses 22-27).

I Corinthians 15: 1-11

In the Epistle reading (I Corinthians 15: 1-11), we have the earliest New Testament account of the Resurrection. Saint Paul has heard that some people in the Church in Corinth deny the physical resurrection of the body, claiming that only the spirit matters. Here he argues against this view. He says: I draw your attention to the “good news” I proclaimed to you, which you received, and “in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved” (verses 1-2), assuming that you all hold to it.

Those he addresses are challenged to note the form of the words he uses, unless, in not accepting the message fully, they “have come to believe” to no purpose. The most important tenets he hands on are: “Christ died for our sins” (verse 3); “he was buried” (verse 4), in other words, he really died physically; he “was raised ...” and appeared to various persons and groups. His death, burial and rising again are “in accordance with the scriptures,” and are part of God’s plan.

Only the appearances to Peter or Cephas (verse 5), and to the “twelve” are in the Gospels. Saint Paul says he was the last to see the Risen Christ, the “least of the apostles” (verse 9). Yet, through “the grace of God” (verse 10), he has achieved more than any other apostle.

Saint Paul tells us that the Risen Christ first appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve, then to 500 at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, and finally to Paul himself (see I Corinthians 15: 3-8).

Why does Saint Paul not name the women?

What does Saint Paul count all 12 disciples?

Why does Saint Paul name Saint Peter but not Saint John, and why does he name Saint James separately?

Who are the 500?

Who are apostles here?

Baptism is described as sharing in Christ’s suffering and death and being raised with Christ to new life in Christ. Remember here how in the Early Church, the Baptism of new believers took place at Easter. So Baptism has ethical implications for our discipleship: we are to cast aside both sins of the body and of the mind. In the baptised community, ethnic and social barriers are shattered, for “Christ is all and in all.”

Acts 10: 34-43

Despite the complicated presentation of the reading option in the Revised Common Lectionary, the expectation in the RCL and the guidelines in the Church of Ireland Directory is that the reading from the Acts of the Apostles will be read on Easter Day.

The setting is the house of Cornelius, a centurion and part of the Roman military occupation force in Palestine. Cornelius, already a believer in God, has a vision (verses 1-8). As a result, he invites Peter to visit his household. It is against Jewish law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but Peter comes nonetheless, with “some ... believers from Joppa” (verse 23).

The Greek here is rough, full of grammatical errors, unlike the rest of the Acts of Apostles. This may indicate that here we may well have Saint Peter’s unedited, original words and phraseology. He tells the assembled company that God does not favour Jews over others: anyone, whatever his or her nationality, who reveres God and lives in unison with him “is acceptable to him” (verse 35). In verses 36-38, Saint Peter summarises Christ’s earthly ministry; he applies prophecies found in Isaiah 52: 7 and 61: 1 to Christ. (Psalm 107: 20 says “... he sent out his word ...”) Christ is Kyrios, the “Lord of all” (verse 36). In Baptism, the Father “anointed” Christ (verse 38) “with the Holy Spirit” and with the “power” of God. The good news (“message”, verse 37) spread throughout Palestine (“Judea”); he “went about” (verse 38) “doing good” and combatting evil, doing deeds so powerful that it is clear that he was God’s agent: he is a model for all to follow.

He suffered death as one guilty of a capital offence (see Deuteronomy 21: 23): he hung on a “tree” (verse 39) and was cursed. By Christ’s time, the “tree” or pole had an additional cross-arm. But, although cursed, the Father “raised him” (verse 40) and “allowed him to appear” to those chosen by God to be “witnesses” (verse 41). In Luke 24: 41-43, Christ eats broiled fish with them, so he was clearly humanly alive again, brought back from death physically, resurrected. Christ the Kyrios is the one appointed by God to set up the Kingdom and to judge both those who are alive and those who have died at Judgment Day (verse 42). Then in verse 43, we are told he fulfils many Old Testament prophecies. He is the one through whom sins are forgiven. Forgiveness is now available to “everyone who believes”, not just to Jews.

Introducing the Gospel reading:

‘Noli me Tangere’ (1524), by Hans Holbein the Younger

Early on the Sunday morning (“the first day of the week”) after the Crucifixion, before dawn, Mary Magdalene, who has been a witness to Christ’s death and burial, comes to the tomb and finds that the stone has been rolled away.

Initially it seems she is on her own, for she alone is named. But later she describes her experiences using the word “we,” which indicates she was with other women.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, these women are known as the Holy Myrrhbearers (Μυροφόροι). The Myrrhbearers are traditionally listed as: Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, Martha of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, Joanna, the wife of Chuza the steward of Herod Antipas, Salome, the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and Susanna, although it is generally said that there are other Myrrhbearers whose names are not known.

Mary and these women run to tell Saint Peter and the other disciple (presumably Saint John the Evangelist) that they suspect someone has removed the body. The “other disciple” may have been younger and fitter for he outruns Saint Peter. The tidy way the linen wrappings and the shroud have been folded or rolled up shows that the body has not been stolen. They believe, yet they do not understand; they return home without any explanations.

But Mary still thinks Christ’s body has been removed or stolen, and she returns to the cemetery. In her grief, she sees “two angels in white” sitting where the body had been lying, one at the head, and one at the feet. They speak to her and then she turns around sees Christ, but only recognises him when he calls her by name.

Peter and John have returned without seeing the Risen Lord. It is left to Mary to tell the Disciples that she has seen the Lord. Mary Magdalene is the first witness of the Resurrection.

All four gospels are unanimous in telling us that the women are the earliest witnesses to the Risen Christ. In Saint John’s Gospel, the Risen Christ sends Mary Magdalene to tell the other disciples what she had seen. Mary becomes the apostle to the apostles.

The word apostle comes from the Greek ἀπόστολος (apóstólos), formed from the prefix ἀπό- (apó-, “from”) and the root στέλλω (stéllō, “I send,” “I depart”). So the Greek word ἀπόστολος or apostle means one sent.

In addition, at the end of the reading (see verse 18), Mary comes announcing what she has seen. The word used here (ἀγγέλλουσα, angéllousa) is from the word that gives us the Annunciation, the proclamation of the good news, the proclamation of the Gospel (Εὐαγγέλιον). Mary, in her proclamation of the Gospel of the Resurrection, is not only the apostle to the apostles, but also the first of the evangelists.

In the alternative reading from Saint Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16: 1-8), we are told that on Saturday after sundown, “when the sabbath was over”, Mary Magdalene, a witness to Christ’s death and burial, and others buy spices to anoint Christ’s body. Because he died only hours before the Sabbath, there was no time to anoint it before he was buried. Buying spices on the Sabbath was permitted, but not aromatic oils and salves used for burial preparation.

Early on Sunday morning (“the first day of the week,” verse 2), they go to the tomb, wondering who will roll away the heavy disk-shaped “stone” (verse 3) that has been used as a door. A tomb was cut out of the rock, and the stone ran in a track. But they find the tomb open (verse 4) and realise what the empty tomb means: “he has been raised” (verse 6).

Inside the tomb, the “young man, dressed in a white robe” (verse 5) is a heavenly messenger. He probably sits on a shelf intended for a body. It is the faithful women who first hear the Easter message. In verse 7, the angel tells them to inform Saint Peter and the Disciples that Christ “is going ahead of” them, and that he will appear to them in Galilee, just as he told them during his earthly ministry. The women flee, seized with “terror and amazement” (verse 8) and overcome with awe.

The longer ending of Saint Mark’s Gospel then tells us that Christ first appeared to Mary Magdalene, but the disciples would not believe them. He then appears to two walking in the countryside, and only then appears later in the day to the 11 remaining disciples.

‘Noli me tangere’

‘Noli Me Tangere’ (ca 1500), an icon in the Museum of Byzantine Icons (Museo dei Dipinti Sacri Bizantini), next to San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice

In the Fourth Gospel, when Mary first sees Christ, she does not recognise him. In this reading, the Greek is regularly phrased in the present tense: Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb (verse 1), she sees (verse 1), she runs, she comes, and she says (verse 2); John sees (verse 5), Simon Peter then comes, and he sees (verse 6); Mary sees the two angels (verse 12), they say to her and she says to them that she does not know (verse 13); she then sees Jesus (verse 14); Jesus says to her (verse 15, and again verses 16 and 17) – notice this is three times in all; and she then comes announcing what she has seen and heard.

The language is constantly punctuated with ‘and’ giving it a rapid, fast-moving pace, rather like the pace in Saint Mark’s Gospel. This is a present, real, living experience for all involved, and not one single episode that be relegated to the past.

The Risen Christ does things he did not do before: he appears in locked rooms, there is something different about his appearance, his friends do not realise immediately who he is. This is the same Jesus, but something has changed.

Why does Jesus tell Mary: “Do not hold onto me” (Μή μου ἅπτου, Noli me tangere)?

How do we recognise new life in the Risen Christ?

How do understand the invitation from the Risen Christ to feast with him?

When we accept the new life Christ offers, how does our vision change?

Where do we see the presence of the Risen Christ?

Do we see his presence in the people and places we like and that please us?

Can we see him in the people we do like to and in the situations we find challenging? – the hungry child, the fleeing refugee, the begging person on the street, the homeless addict sleeping in the doorway or sitting on the Liffey boardwalk?

Is my heart changed by the Risen Christ?

Where do I see the broken and bruised Body of Christ needing restoration and Resurrection?

Do I know him in the word he speaks to me and in the breaking of the bread?

Is the presence of the Risen Christ a living experience for me, this morning?

Is Easter an every-morning, every-day, living experience for me, or one we all-too-easily relegate to the past and to history?

Collect :

Almighty God,
through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
you have overcome death
and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Living God,
for our redemption you gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
you have delivered us from the power of our enemy.
Grant us so to die daily unto sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. These notes were prepared for a Bible study in a tutorial group with MTh students on 25 March 2015.