that self-same aching

Tuesday of the

Sixth Week of Easter

May 19th

READING: John 16: 5-11

“Now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

I have written much in the past few weeks about the shadowy forms of trinitarian theology in John’s gospel-account. Written too and about the “need” for the Incarnate Second Person to depart our sphere so that the omni-present Third Person may universalize his presence through time and space.

But John here entwines trinitarian theology with yet another of those moments revealing the deep tenderness of Jesus. (You may have noticed, incidentally, last week, the beautiful and profound wording of the new-form collect: “God of truth … confront us with your tenderness”).

Those of us who have watched loved ones die, those of us who have prayed with those in our care knowing we won’t see them again … only too poignantly we know the truth of Jesus’ phrase “sorrow has filled your hearts.” Being at the bedside of a loved parishioner, knowing I won’t see them again: that is a real, deep, visceral ache. So again we see this deep ache-capacity dwelling in the heart of our Triune God: “and when human hearts are breaking under sorrow’s iron rod, then we find that self-same aching, deep within the heart of God.” The Comforter-Paraclete comes alongside to make known to us God’s understanding of that terrible ache, to whisper in our pain rumours of resurrection hope.

But what of the strange Jesus-riddle about sin, conviction, righteousness, judgement? Do we smell here the fumes of sulphur I have been denying in previous passages?

In his most emotionally measured letter, Paul tells the Christians in Rome that Christless humanity is “handed over” to what Paul calls degrading passions (Rom 1:26). Many readers of that passage become fixated on sex: sexual examples Paul plucks from the air (as he often does). The implications are more universal than that. Paul, and John using Jesus’ words here, suggest not so much that the punishment fits the crime but that crime (or sin, more accurately) is punishment in itself.

Faith can at times seem burdensome, and I often hanker of unfaith. Yet the other extreme, the hollow ring of life lived for self-satisfaction, and for self-satisfaction alone in an otherwise empty universe, can be unbearable beyond words.[1] This theme has been well-explored in literature: Rodion Raskolnikov, Daisy Buchanan, Dolores Umbridge, and the inspector Javert (significantly he is never given a first or Christian name by Hugo) are amongst countless fictional characters given over to aspects of their personality that eventually devour them.[2]

Jesus then is suggesting that the punishment for not knowing him (this applies only to those deliberately not knowing him) is, quite simply, not knowing him: not believing, not seeing, whatever verbs we might use.

On days when Jesus-following becomes somewhat too much (and I have my “struck the board and cried ‘no more’” moments[3] almost every day) the idea of not knowing, not following, not “seeing”[4] Jesus can quite appeal. Then, as a convert Christian, I am privileged to hear that other voice: “Mate, would you really be better off?” (Herbert was more poetic) and I stumble back to the warm footprints of Jesus, confronted again by the tenderness of God.

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[1] Let me add again that there are many masquerading as “Christian” who exemplify this, too. I refer you to my earlier comments about snake-handling, and, worse, Covid-courting pseudo-Christian leaders.

[2] Genuinely wonderful fictional characters are harder to generate, The cameo role of Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel in Les Miserables is one of literature’s most Christlike humans.

[3] See George Herbert, “The Collar.” The poem incidentally preceded the emergence of a so-called “clerical collar” by a century, and is more likely to refer to a slave’s collar.

[4] Again, see John 12:21.