Good Friday Reflection 3 of 4

Woman behold your son

Read John 19:25-27

I wonder what the relationship between John and Mary would have been. Jesus must have exasperated Mary and Joseph at times. Can we imagine the worry of going up to the big city with a 12-year-old, and then losing him? Mary & Joseph eventually find Jesus, debating with the leaders in the temple, but Jesus seems totally dismissive of his parents worry. Where else would I be, except here “in my Father’s house”? Mary must have wondered what the future held in store for her son, when he became an itinerant teacher, who apparently had more time for his motley crew of disciples than he did for his earthly family.

Indeed on one occasion, when Mary came to the house where Jesus was and sent in a message to say that his family were outside and waiting for him, he sent back the message that those gathered around him were his family now.

Jesus once said that no one could be a disciple of his unless they hated their mother and father. Not, I think, a command to hate, but to put our discipleship before all else. And John, ‘The disciple Jesus loved’ must have been Jesus’ closest friend.

I cannot see any evidence that the relationship between Mary and John can have been easy. Yet here they find themselves, standing side by side at the foot of the cross, drawn together by the dying Jesus.

Jesus, even in the agony of this torturous dying, has time to be concerned for his mother and his best friend. He gives them to each other in a new and intimately close relationship. He says to Mary, “Woman, here is your son”, and he says to John “Here is your mother”.

There can be several answers to the question as to when the Church began. It could be in the shout of joy of Mary Magdalene, when she recognised her risen Lord. It could be in the pouring out of the Spirit, who came as a mighty rushing wind and as fire, at Pentecost. But I think that, like a newly fertilized egg that divides for the first time into two cells (the beginnings of life, yet so much more will be needed for that new life to take on structure and form), so these words of Jesus begin what will become the church. Two people, Mary and John, not necessarily the best of friends, find themselves united at the foot of the cross, because of Jesus. And Jesus gives them to one another in a new family.

As we stand at the foot of the cross, our eyes on Jesus, he challenges us to look around us and discover who else is there with us.

It is a great sadness to me when churches fall out with one another. Fellow Christians declare themselves to be no longer in communion with other Christians, no longer able to meet together or worship together.  Whatever the divisive issue is, it begins to dominate and even to define what it means to be a Christian. So ‘The Issue’ (whatever it is) becomes a symptom of our human frailty, our falleness, in that we place the defence of our own opinions and ideas as the defining factor in our lives, rather than Christ.

Isn’t this a far cry from the prayer of Christ, that we might all be one, so that the world might believe? In other words, Jesus links church unity with effectiveness in mission. But it is not a unity that is the product of theological debate and finding a settled mind on contentious issues. It is a unity which comes by being ‘in Christ’. It begins, I suggest, as we discover that what defines us is simply that we are people who find ourselves in the company of others, who have been drawn together at the foot of the cross by the crucified, dying Christ.  

As we stand at the foot of the cross, we must surely put aside differences of opinion about sex, marriage, theories of atonement, the real presence of Christ in the Mass, and every other issue that can so easily divide Christians into us and them. What matters here is that we open our hearts to the experience of receiving the love of God, poured out for us in the self-giving dying of Christ on the cross. The shared experience of being enfolded in that love, finding healing, forgiveness and New Life, should be one that bonds us into a new family. This is the Church Christ dies to bring into being. This is where the shared life of the Kingdom begins to dawn in our lives. This is the fellowship that must define us. Nothing else!

So I ask you to consider the question: Who stands with you in this place? You don’t have to agree with them. You do not have to like them. You do not have to understand how they believe the daft things they say they believe.  All that matters is that we share in standing together in this place. The dying Christ draws us to himself and, as we stand there, we find also that he gives us to each other. And as Christ draws us into unity with himself, it must challenge us to be reconciled with one another. If we can find, within each other, the deep, shared joy of knowing what it means to receive the love that flows from this cross, then we will be one and, in this moment, the church is born afresh.