Real Lives

Don’t pity me too much, there are many profound privileges to being a vicar. One that never, ever loses its shine is reading the opening of John’s gospel at our Nine Lessons and Carols Service. The service itself is one layer of joy and artistry upon another, but then to stand right in the middle of a candlelit Abbey to proclaim words of such mystery, beauty and light to a darkened world is virtually worth being ordained for in itself. (Not quite.)

John 1 begins with the heavenly identity of Christ, the Word, and there follows over the next 21 chapters many phenomenal signs and wonders which John allows to punctuate the narrative of the gospel to remind of us who precisely we are dealing with— water into wine (ch.2) , feeding the five thousand (ch.6), walking on water (ch.6), a number of significant healings culminating in Lazarus (ch.11), the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (ch.12) and, of course, the Resurrection itself (ch.20). But, just as John portrays Christ’s heavenly intimacy with the Father and the Spirit and the light and life that flows from the Trinity, John also earths Jesus—the Word becoming flesh (John 1:14). John recalls Jesus as he talks with people, and drinks and eats and cooks and weeps and washes feet and dies. The reality of heaven meets the reality of earth. And it is these real lives, normality meeting divinity, that will take us through to Easter in our next teaching series.

Nicodemus, fearful, concealing his curiosity about Jesus at night, and bringing question after question to Jesus to try and work out who this Rabbi really is (John 3). A woman at a well (John 4), who doesn’t understand how her relationships all end up so wrecked, meeting, at last, a man who seems to value her, and know her. Mary, in John 19, not a spiritual super hero, but a mother, watching her son die on a cross. Agonising human loss. Lazarus (John 11) trying to make sense of his heart beating again after it stopped four days earlier. The disciples reeling at the social awkwardness of the Messiah washing their feet. Mary on Easter Day, the first human being to have to try and live in light of the Resurrection. Thomas, wanting hard data, fingers in wounds; show me. And this Sunday, John the Baptist surrounded by a crowd hassling him about who he was, and simply pointing in the opposite direction, away from himself, ‘why don’t you ask Him who He is?’

So this Sunday we’re changing gear from John’s letters. From concepts, ideas, theologies and ethics, to real lives. Our part? To bring our real life to the table.