Kontakion of
the Resurrection, Tone 7. No longer shall the dominion of death be able to hold humanity,
for Christ went down shattering and destroying its power. Hades is bound. The
prophets exult with one voice. The
Saviour has come forth for those with faith, saying, Come forth, O faithful, to
the Resurrection.
I
Corinthians 1. 10-18 Matthew
14. 14-22
One
thing that occurs to you, when you hear the story of the Feeding of the Five
Thousand, is that it emerges our of an animated discussion between the
apostles, who see themselves as practical men, and Jesus, Who, as the hours
have passed by, seems to them to have lost all track of time and the physical
endurance of His hearers.
But
this is precisely it: He has not. For another thing strikes you. There are
other people in the conversation and that have uttered not a word: the Five
Thousand themselves. Their engagement with Jesus’ discourse has been completely
absorbing and it is they who have
lost all track of time. They hang on His every word; it has been sustaining
them through the day and of this Jesus is perfectly aware.
What
St Matthew in his Gospel is describing is the season of fasting, originally in
the spring, that is common in different forms within the tradition of the
Abrahamic religions that we know as Lent and Islam, for instance, knows as
Ramadan. In the Rule of St Benedict for his monks, the complete fast from food
is the same as subsequently adopted in Islam and lasts from rising until
evening, when a light, nutritious meal of vegetable produce may be taken,
together on holy days of feasting with some fish. So, here we have it. During
the day, those who have gathered round Jesus close in order not to miss a
single word come before God to contemplate His teaching, to seek his spiritual
healing and, at the close of day, to eat with His blessing, giving thanks and
dwelling in the heart on all that has happened in the day before. Thus drawn up
into God’s presence it is not merely a meal during the time of fasting on
earth, but a share in the Banquet of heaven as well – with the loaves of bread
come also the fish for a celebration.
Now,
talking of monks, I remember Cardinal Hume saying that obedience is not a blind
submission to a superior’s commands, but means mutual listening – the word
“obedience” comes from the same root as “audience”. Thus the young monk obeys
the abbot, because he is bound to listen to the teaching of a father. In the
same way an abbot remembers his time of listening to his own novice-master, to
the abbot when he was a young monk, and to the many spiritual fathers that preceded
them all. But St Benedict makes clear to the abbot that he is not there just to
be listened to, because he must listen to the other monks – not least the
younger monks, for the Lord’s will can sometimes make itself known in the fresh
zeal and new pairs of eyes of the young, when older ones have grown weary, and
jaded, or even hard of heart.
This
is what Jesus is doing with His crowds of followers. Here is a pattern of
mutual obedience. There is conversation, as with the disciples, but the
communication is plain: He listens to them listening to Him. They wish for more
and He pours out more and more.
Then
there comes an intriguing detail in the story. The disciples propose sending
the crowds into the villages to get food, so that the listening and being
absorbed in the Lord’s word may go on into the night. We have seen this detail
before; or rather we shall see it later, as St Matthew’s Gospel story unfolds.
It is that the Lord Jesus found Himself outside. Next time, it would not be
outside a village near the shore of Galilee: it would be outside the gate of
the city of Jerusalem, on the rock of Calvary, dying on the Cross for our sins.
Next time, the night before, He will again have taken bread, raised His eyes to
heaven and given thanks. Once again He will break it and fill the lives and
souls of those crowded round Him. Once again, few words will be recorded and at
the centre is a stillness from which you cannot turn your ears or take away
your eyes.
It
is no wonder, then, that St Paul has just told us that preaching the Gospel
does not need eloquent wisdom: it is the power of the Cross that says it all.
The
crowds by the shore of Galilee listening, watching; the few disciples left at
the foot of the Cross listening, watching: it is all the same. To anyone else,
this “nothing happening”, is their hearts and minds and to the very edges of
feeling in their bodies, to us it is the very presence of the action and the
power of God.
This
weekend we are remembering the way the powers of Europe fell into war a hundred
years ago, a war whose consequences are still being played out. It changed
European society for ever, and the attitude of ordinary people to religion and
faith went through enormous changes, as state atheism, Marxist ideology and
Nazi occultism set out to dismantle Christian civilisation after the
self-inflicted failure of the old Christian empires. It is often said that in
the unimaginable horrors and degradation of the trenches, decent, loyal,
dutiful and patriotic soldiers abandoned their hope in God and lost any sense
that Christ’s Church had anything to do with them. But this is far from the
true picture. We know the stories of thousands of men who had lived their lives
back home on the fringes of the Church, now turning to the chaplains to make their
peace with God, seeking confirmation and Holy Communion. One of the most famous
chaplains was Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, a magnificent Anglican pastor,
preacher and poet, nick-named Woodbine Willie by the soldiers because of his
unconditional service to anyone in their moment of greatest need, even if they
had nothing but scorn for the Church, ready with words of God’s blessing and
the assurances of faith at the same time as offering a draw on a Woodbine cigarette,
a last human comfort in this world before turning to the next. The story of
many Catholic chaplains is just as moving. At first the War Office sent the
many Catholic recruits to the front with little thought to provide them with priests,
because it did not understand the central place of the Eucharist, Confession
and, should the time come, Unction in the practice of Catholic faith. But it
did not take long for the authorities to realise that this was not just a
question of morale but of the Catholic servicemen’s raison d’être. The Great War changed many people’s prejudices about
Catholicism when they saw the unpretended devotion of their fellows and the
brave, unstinting solidarity of the priests not just with their own men, but with
all who were thrown together in the raw experience of inhuman death and
degradation.
Unlike
anything anyone had seen, here were Christians - and they were also needing to
be Christians on behalf of those who could not evoke or declare a faith at all,
yet face the same questions and horror as those who did – watching at the foot
of the crucifixion of humanity again, and looking to see upon the Cross the
figure of Christ. Here were Christians, amid the terror and the din of all reasonable
explanation to the contrary, straining to hear Christ’s words - of peace and encouragement,
and beatitude. As St Peter himself said, when many other disciples lost heart
and turned away, “To whom else shall we go? You have the message of eternal
life.” No wisdom can account for it; no eloquence is worthy of it. It is only
the power of the Cross that interprets it, and the faith of the Christian is
thus able to descry in the supreme sacrifice on the Cross not only the atoning death
but the offering of life that must ultimately prevail and be our only hope (Ave Crux, spes unica).
So
today we sing, in union with all who have placed their trust in Christ, with
all who have hung upon his every word, watching, listening, hoping from every
corner of their being:
No longer shall the dominion of death be able
to hold humanity, for Christ went down shattering and destroying its power ... The
Saviour has come forth for those with faith, saying, Come forth, O faithful, to
the Resurrection.
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