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THE HANDS OF SIMON OF CYRENE

Within our ‘Healing Humanity’ Theme, I want to reflect on ‘Healing Hands’ in these Morning Thoughts.

‘They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus’ [Mk 15:21; c.f. Matt 27:32 & Lk 23:26].

The soldiers grabbed him with their hands, this man from Cyrene, now the Eastern part of Libya, coming into the City, and made him carry the prisoner’s cross.

Why him?  Was he the first person to come to hand?  Was he different in some way?  Coming from North Africa, he might have been black.  Luke says of these same Roman soldiers, ‘They laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus’ [Lk 23:26].

What a terrifying experience it must have been for Simon – knowing nothing, presumably, of the background to these events, suddenly finding himself in the middle of the swirling crowd, surrounded by very angry people, and asked to carry the Cross for a man who had clearly been flogged, who had had a Crown of Thorns placed on his head, who was covered in blood.  It’s difficult to imagine what was going through Simon’s mind.

And then he had to carry this rough bar of the Cross, the top part of the ‘T’, as it were.  This is not a smoothly-planed, sand-papered, silky to the touch, piece of wood.  This is a rough-hewn bar, heavy, difficult to carry, splintery, painful to the hands to hold – and he, seemingly, had no choice in this.

By the time the procession had made its way through the crowds and the chaos to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, his hands were probably as bloody as Jesus’ Body.

In every respect, this must have been a frightening and horrifying and painful experience, one which he would have find hard to forget, no matter how much he might have wanted to.

And yet, it seems very probable that something else happened to Simon.  Only St Mark names him, ‘Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus’.  Saints Matthew and Luke, whom we generally think of as having had Mark’s Gospel in front of them when they wrote, along with other material from their own traditions in their Churches, both omit, ‘The father of Alexander and Rufus’.  The most reasonable explanation is that they didn’t know who Alexander and Rufus were.  In Mark’s community, they were known, and he names them.

That suggests that the scars on Simon’s hand from the rough-hewn Cross are not the only thing that he took away from his experience that day.  Somehow, the experience of carrying Jesus’ Cross, seeing who he was, wondering at how he forbore such treatment with enormous grace and dignity, possibly witnessing him die on the Cross – all of this made a deep impression on Simon of Cyrene.

So much so, that he seems to have come back to the Disciples – on the first Easter Day?  Later on, as the news about Jesus’ Resurrection began to spread?  We don’t know.  But he, and his two sons, somehow became part of the Church for which Mark was gathering all the material he could about Jesus’ life, death and Resurrection so that he could record it in his Gospel.

Pain and suffering are always terrible, and, I am convinced, not part of God’s will for the world.  But pain and suffering can lead to healing, tragedy can end in triumph, and seeing the worst of humanity can lead some people to want to be the best they can.

Simon’s hands were hurt, but his soul was healed.

A poem to end: ‘Simon the Cyrenian Speaks’, by Countee Cullen, 1903–1946, an Afro-American poet and novelist.

He never spoke a word to me,
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came.

At first I said, ‘I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black’.

But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam
Men journey far to seek.

It was Himself my pity bought;
I did for Christ alone
What all of Rome could not have wrought
With bruise of lash or stone.

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Monday

JESUS’ HEALING HANDS

If you’re old enough to remember it, I wonder what you make of the song I certainly sang in school and Sunday school:

Jesus’ hands were kind hands,
doing good to all,
Healing pain and sickness,
blessing children small,
Washing tired feet and saving
those who fall;
Jesus’ hands were kind hands,
doing good to all.

A bit twee, perhaps, but there is an extraordinary number of times in the Gospels that Jesus uses his hands for healing and kindness.

There’s a pretty good chance that Jesus’ hands were rough and calloused from his work in his father’s carpentry shop.  But his touch was gentle, with the power of God flowing through his fingers.

Touch is so important in healing – the skill and the care of nurses and doctors, so often expressed through touch.

There was a lovely phase when I was holding my grand-daughter, and patting her back, and she was patting my back, too.

The instinct, when someone is in distress, or dying, to stroke their hand.

In the 1990s, I was converted to sharing the Peace, when a older lady at one of the Churches in the Parish of Fawley, who had sons, but they weren’t a touchy-feely family, said that the only time in the week that she touched another person was during the Peace.

Touch is so important, and Jesus knew that well.

In Matthew 8 [:3], speaking to the leper, ‘Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’’

At ‘Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him’ [Mk 8:22ff.], and he put saliva on his eyes and touched him and he could see.

He put his fingers in the ears of the deaf [Mk 7:34], and touched the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law, ‘And the fever left her’ [Matt. 8:15].

He took the hand of a dead twelve-year-old girl, ‘And the girl arose’ [Matt. 9:25], and touched the coffin of a young man and said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise!’ [Luke 7:14].

But his touch was not just for the physically ill.  He had hands of mercy for frightened Peter, who was drowning in the Sea of Galilee: ‘And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him’ [Matt. 14:31]; and of blessing for the little children who came to him [Matt. 19:15].

His hands broke the unleavened bread and passed the cup at the Last Supper.  And his hands gripped the cross as he carried it on the way to Golgotha.

But, perhaps, more than anything else, when we think of his hands, we think of the nails that pierced them: ‘They pierced my hands and my feet’ [Psalm 22:16].

And with his hands, Jesus blessed his followers before he ascended into heaven: ‘Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them’ [Luke 24:50].

And, finally, it is in his hands that we remain eternally secure in Christ, for all time and eternity.  His hands stretched out on the Cross are the hands of love, and in John 10 [:28], Jesus says, ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand’.

Susie Hawkins has written:

During this season, remember his hands.

They reached out to his world then.

They reach out to our world now.

So, perhaps, we could return to the old song, still a bit twee, but true, and say:

Take my hands, Lord Jesus,
let them work for you;
Make them strong and gentle,
kind in all I do;
Let me watch you, Jesus,
till I’m gentle too,
Till my hands are kind hands,
quick to work for you.

We have a time of stillness now, and I’ll give you a sheet with those words and an image on.  We might want to reflect on Jesus’ hands and our hands, and the ways in which we use them in service of and care for others in Christ’s Name.

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Tuesday

Judas takes the Thirty Pieces of Silver in his Hands

‘Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver’ [Matt. 26:14-15]… ‘Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him’.  At once he came up to Jesus and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ and kissed him’ [Matt. 26:48-49]… ‘Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him’ [Matt. 26:50b].

In our post-Freudian world, some people tend to be more sympathetic to Judas than was the case in former generations.  Or, indeed, by those who wrote the Gospels.

We’re not the first, of course.  The ‘Gospel of Judas’, a Gnostic text from the Second Century, written in Coptic, possibly translated from a slightly earlier Greek version, discovered in Egypt in the 1970s, opens with the words, ‘The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover’ [Gospel of Judas, Incipit], and continues later, ‘Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom.  It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal” ’ [Gospel of Judas, Scene 1].

The origin and purpose of this text is not clear, but there were obviously those who were more sympathetic to Judas, and even thought that he betrayed Jesus at his command.

I suspect not many would go that far these days, but we might want to reflect why he did what he did, and how we might have reacted in the same situation.

The only two pretty certain pieces of information we have about Judas are that he was called as one of the Twelve Apostles, and that he betrayed Jesus.  People have clutched at fragments from the Gospels to understand more about Judas, his background, his motives and intentions, but none with any certainty.  So, we have to resort to speculation to see whether we can gain any understanding of why he did what he did.

He’d been with Jesus for about three years.  I think we can rule out the idea that he just needed the money.  Had he wanted to earn more, he would probably gone off and done something else rather sooner.

The most common assumption, that he was trying to provoke a Crisis [κρίσις], in its more literal meaning of ‘a moment of decision’, seems more plausible.

Jesus spoke all the time about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Disciples and others had trouble grasping what he meant by it.  It didn’t look like the earthly overturning of the Roman Authorities, and the restoration of God’s Rule over the Land of Israel.  Whatever Jesus was talking about, it seemed to be something different from that. But, what?

Was Judas simply trying to provoke Jesus into taking decisive action to usher in the sort of Kingdom that he, Judas, thought he, Jesus, ought to be fighting for?  Who knows?

What is certain, is that betrayal is often a multi-layered and complex thing.  We betray people and ideas and principles for all sorts of reasons, some of which are more noble than others.

I wonder whether we all have memories of betrayals, given and received, which have stayed with us?

When I was about thirteen, on holiday with my mother and sister on the Island of Iona, I met a boy, a year or two older than I, just outside the Abbey, and we must have fallen into conversation.  I can remember almost nothing about him or the conversation, except that he must somehow have told me that he was wrestling with the thought that he was homosexual.  I can’t remember how the conversation ended, how things were left with him, but I do remember running back to the place we were staying, with the feeling, which has stayed with me ever since, that somehow I had betrayed his revelation, that he’d shared something personal and deep, and that, somehow, I’d betrayed his trust by not staying a talking with him more.

It’s ridiculous really; I probably didn’t even know what it meant to be gay – not a word much used in those days, in the early 1970s – and how could I have possibly have been expected to know how to handle a conversation like that?  But the feeling that I’d betrayed him stayed with me, and I’d have given a good deal to have met him again to complete the conversation in a more satisfactory manner.

That’s a tiny incident, but it does lead to reflection on the complexities of betrayal, the reasons why we do it, the motives, conscious and subconscious that lead us into betrayal, and, perhaps, reflection on these things might give us a better understanding of the motives of those who have betrayed us – whether through selfishness, weakness, fear, or anything else.

How did Judas feel as he received the thirty pieces of silver in his hand, the price of his betrayal?  How did he feel in the Garden of Gethsemene, when he kissed Jesus, and ‘They came and laid hands on [him] and arrested him’?

At about the turn of the 19^th Century, Hester Cholmondeley wrote her poem, Betrayal:

Still as of old
Men by themselves are priced –
For thirty pieces Judas sold
Himself, not Christ.

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Wednesday

HIS HAND IS ON THE TABLE

In Luke’s account of the Last Supper, having shared the Bread, saying ‘Do this in remembrance of me’, and the cup of wine, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’, Jesus then adds, ‘But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table’ [See Lk. 22:14-23].

And it’s that precise moment of the narrative which is depicted in da Vinci’s famous – perhaps over famous? – painting of the Last Supper, created in the very last years of the 15^th Century, for the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, where it still hangs.  It was originally painted for the wall of the Sforza Family Mausoleum, but the plans changed, and the room ended up, rather appropriately, being the Refectory.

Although much faded, much restored, much copied – especially in tapestries, for some reason – it is still a wonderful work of art, da Vinci’s second largest, at 8m wide.

The detail is amazing, the depth of the portrayals astonishing, and, in the context of the theme for these Morning Thoughts, ‘Healing Humanity – Healing Hands’, the way in which the hands are depicted is fascinating.  The Wikipedia entry for ‘The Last Supper’ has a high-resolution, downloadable image, which is worth looking at.

Jesus has just said, ‘But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table’, and the Disciples have begun ‘to ask one another which one of them it could be who would do this’ [Lk. 22:23].

Chaos ensues around the table – but at the centre, almost entirely separated from the others, Jesus is ‘the still point of the turning world’ [TS Eliot, The Four Quartets’, ‘Burnt Norton’].  ‘From eternity and to eternity, thou art God’ [Ps. 90:2].  His left hand is open, palm upwards, and his right hand is reaching for the dish, a reference to the verse in John 13 [:26], ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish’.

We know which of the Disciples is which from an unsigned, mid-16^th Century copy of the painting.

From left to right, Bartholomew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Andrew form a group of three; all are surprised, with Andrew’s hands seeming to push away the idea that it could be he.

Next but one to them, Peter, holds a knife in one hand – a reminder that he will later sever a soldier’s ear as he attempts to stop Jesus’s arrest – and has his other hand on John’s shoulder.  John has his hands calmly clasped in front of him, and appears to have swooned.

To the right of Jesus, Thomas, holds out a single finger – a gesture which hints at the Resurrection narrative, and the invitation to ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands’ [Jn 20:27].

James the Greater has flung his arms wide in horror and astonishment.  While Philip looks like he’s saying something like, ‘You can’t mean me!’.

Then there is Matthew, Jude, and Simon the Zealot.  Matthew and Jude are facing Simon, and all three have their hands facing upwards, questioning what this means.

And lastly, three to the left from Jesus, is Judas, the Disciple who will betray Jesus.  He’s the only Apostle with his face in shadow, and he appears to be looking behind Jesus, rather than at him.  There are three things that Leonardo wants us to pick up from Judas’ hands and arm: the first, you may not be able to see very easily, but Judas has knocked the salt over with his right arm – a sign of bad luck, and impending ill-fortune; secondly, in his right hand he is holding a money bag – the thirty pieces of silver, perhaps; or a reference to his being the Treasurer [See Jn 13:29]; and thirdly, with his left hand, he is reaching towards the same dish as Jesus, in a sort of mirror-image of Jesus’ hand – and, until very recently, being left-handed, sinister, was considered an evil omen.  Is Leonardo, himself left-handed, making a pointed or ironic reference to Judas, the Betrayer, a left-handed person, who can’t be trusted?

Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me’ [Mk 14:18b].  Where do we place ourselves in this painting?  There is space at the table for plenty more.  As we come to celebrate the Last Supper this evening, we bring all that we are, all the questions we have, all our sins and weaknesses, and, when invited to come forward to the Lord’s Table, to share in the bread and wine, will we be able to say, ‘Lord, it is I; I have heard your voice, and come at your invitation, in spite of all that I am, but in thankfulness for all that you have done.’?  A Prayer:

Gracious God,
you fill our plates with good food
and our cups to overflowing:

We thank you that your Son eats with sinners, even those like Peter
who deny him;
and like Thomas
who doubt him;
and like Judas
who betray him.

We thank you that Jesus still prepares a feast for people like us.
Help us to take our place at his table,
that we may feast at the great banquet to come. Amen.

Based on: Adam Hamilton’s 24 Hours That Changed the World

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Maundy Thursday

INTO WHOSE HANDS?

‘Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent who have planned my downfall’ [Ps. 140:4, NRSVA] – words from Psalm 140.

The events of Maundy Thursday night, and into Good Friday, must have appeared to the first Disciples to have been the triumph of the wicked and the violent.  From the moment in the Garden of Gethsemene, when ‘They laid hands on him and arrested him’ [Mk 14:46], to the way he was manhandled, struck, beaten, and made to carry his own Cross, to those who nailed him to that Cross, the hands were those of the wicked and violent.

The sheer violence and physicality of it all are horrifying, and may draw us to reflection about, and prayer for, those who are subject to such violence in so many ways in our world today.

But, before we spend time during the day at the foot of the Cross, I’d like us to fast-forward to the end of that violent and traumatic day.

You’ve got a copy of the wall painting on the East Wall of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel, where we celebrate Communion every Saturday – apart from tomorrow – and I’d like to thank the Dean for drawing my attention to the hands in the painting.  It is extraordinary and moving, and a remarkable mediaeval survival, portraying the Deposition, Christ’s Body being taken down from the Cross, and, below that, the preparation of his Body for Burial – commemorated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at the Stone of Unction.

Starting at the very top, we have the hands of Jesus, opened wide in love, in spite of all that human hands have done to him.  The right hand, now partly obscured, blessing the world, and the left hand holding an open book, with the words based on the last verses of Psalm 37, ‘Salus populi ego sum’, ‘I am the health (or salvation or healing) of the people’.

Below and to the right of that, the person whom I take to be John, the Beloved Disciple, his right hand pointing to Jesus, in the way that his namesake, John the Baptist, is usually portrayed, and, indeed, is in his icon in the Retroquire here.

Even now, he seems to be saying, even at the point of his death, just after he has said, ‘Into your hands I commend my spirit’ [Lk 23:46], even now ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’ [Jn 1:4-5].  And behind him, largely obscured, stands Mary, to whom he has recently been entrusted, and she to him.  I wonder whether, behind Jesus, with a hand resting on his left shoulder, is someone else, someone assisting with the removal of his Body – could that be the place where we put ourselves into this story?

In the lower panel, again, and in contrast to earlier in the day, the hands are all hands of love and tenderness.  Mary, extraordinarily beautifully, is holding Jesus’ hand to her cheek, clasped between hers.  Joseph of Arimathea is rubbing the oil, poured out from a beautifully-painted flask, onto Jesus’ legs; and someone is tenderly holding Jesus’ feet, where the marks of the nails can be seen, while someobody else, standing at his head, is wrapping him in the linen cloth.

The right-hand angel is facing away from Jesus, and appears to be either pointing towards someone or possibly holding their hand.  And the left-hand angel is pointing at Jesus, as well as looking over her shoulder towards the other women, the other Marys, who were standing there.

‘Salus populi ego sum’, ‘I am the health (or salvation or healing) of the people’.  At this moment after his death, he is still drawing people to himself, he is creating the new community of love, which will become the Church.  As he said, ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’ [Jn 12:32].

Howard Carter [http://howard-carter.blogspot.com/2013/03/hands-good-friday-reflection.html – ed GP] writes:

You and I read the Scripture and we reflect on the cross.
We look at our hands!
They are empty; what have we got to give in light of such great love?
In fact if there is anything in our hands it is all our brokenness,
The hurt that we have done,
The healing we have left undone,
The hurt that has been inflicted on us.
Even our best intents seem tarnished and so little…
See the nail-scarred hands take those things;
See them reach out to you with love,
With forgiveness,
Acceptance,
To bring healing and wholeness,
To invite us to follow and remain with him.

‘Salus populi ego sum’, ‘I am the salvation of the people’.  AMEN.

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Good Friday

MY TIMES ARE IN YOUR HAND

‘My times are in your hand’, writes the Psalmist in Ps. 31 [:15].

But what do we do with our hands when there is nothing to do?

For those around Jesus, this Sabbath Day was just the end.  He had died on the Cross, his Body was laid in the tomb, their hope was ended.

Were they in any state to look to the future?  Did they discuss the things he had said and done with any sense of hope, or was it all with a sense of despair?

We’re often told, in John 2:22 for example, ‘After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said’ such and such a thing – but what about now?  Did they remember them now, on this terrible Sabbath Day, or was all hope crushed by the horror of the previous 36 hours or so.

For them, it surely seemed like the end.  For us, it’s a lacuna, a pause, a gap in the story, the next chapter of which we look forward to with great expectation.

So, what do we do with our hands when there is nothing to do?

Well, what did they do?  The Gospel accounts vary.

John’s Gospel is the easiest – there is no mention of the Saturday.  In John 19:42, Jesus is laid in the tomb, and in the next verse, John 20:1, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, and the stone has been rolled away.  In the gap there is… nothing!

In Mark [16:1], ‘When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him’.  They went out, after dark on the Saturday evening, so that they were ready to go to the tomb early on the Sunday morning.

Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t mention the women at all at this point. [Matt. 27:62-66].  But he does talk about another group of people who, in some ways, have more faith than Jesus’ Disciples – the chief Priests and the Pharisees, who go to Pilate, remind him that Jesus had said, ‘After three days I will rise again’, and who receive Pilate’s permission to set a guard on the tomb.  They certainly weren’t inactive on this Sabbath Day.

And in Luke [23:56], the women prepare the spices and ointments on the Friday afternoon, and then we’re told that ‘On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment’.

‘On the Sabbath, they rested’.

They were, whether they knew it or not, ‘On the Boundary between Yesterday and Tomorrow’, to quote a chapter heading in Alan Lewis’s wonderful book on Holy Saturday, ‘Between Cross & Resurrection’ [Alan E. Lewis, p.43].

They were in that state of doing nothing, for there was nothing to do.

I did type, ‘What to do when there’s nothing to do?’, into Google, and it came up, to my surprise, I suppose, with a huge list of platitudes – ‘Go for a walk’. ‘Take up a hobby’, ‘Phone someone up’.  The one thing that didn’t seem to be on any of the lists was, ‘Just hold yourself in the space.  There is nothing you can do, and that’s OK.  There will come a time for action, but now, at this moment, there’s no need to fill the gap.  Embrace the inaction, stay with the grief – there’s nothing to do, so do nothing’.

Generally, we’re not good at this, and probably, as soon as we leave Morning Prayer, most of us will be leaping into action, one way or another, to get things ready for tomorrow.  We instinctively want to look ahead, because we know what is coming.

But, would it be possible, at some point today, to do nothing, to join the women around Jesus, who, ‘On the Sabbath, [they] just rested.’?

Can we find a space, at some point in the day, simply to be, to wait in silence, perhaps to re-read the poem for Holy Saturday by Elizabeth Rooney, on the sheet, to do nothing, and just for a few moments to reflect on the journey through Holy Week we have been taking, and on the meaning of this Holy Saturday, the Great Lacuna.

A Poem for Holy Saturday, Elizabeth Rooney

A curiously empty day,

As if the world’s life

Had gone underground.

The *March sun

Warming dry grass

Makes pale spring promises,

But nothing comes to pass.

Anger

Relaxes into despair

As we remember our helplessness,

Remember him hanging there.

We have purchased the spices

But they must wait for tomorrow.

We shall keep today

For emptiness

And sorrow.

A Prayer

Christ our God,
your love is poured out in death for our sakes.
Hold us in your embrace
as we wait for Easter’s dawn.
Comfort us with the promise that no power on earth, not even death itself,
can separate us from your love;
and strengthen us to wait
until you are revealed to us
in all your risen glory.  Amen.

Click here to view Canon Gary’s video message for Holy Saturday, Easter Eve 

[https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/prayers.php?id=36]

(*Originally, ‘April’)