|
|
|
The Bishop's Journal
April 1999
ON LITURGICAL RETROSPECTION
One of the things that I am most aware of in Holy Week is the important role that "retrospection" plays in the Christian life. Although life must be lived forward, it can often only be understood by looking backward! How many times have you used those magic words, "well, in retrospect" or "looking back on things." Sometimes reality is only seen for what it really is by putting our mental transmissions in reverse.
This same truth also helps us to understand the Holy Week liturgies through which we enter into the story of our Lord's passion, death and resurrection. Each service invites us to experience the events of our Lord's journey, while at the same time washing each moment in the colour of what we know is yet to come through the remainder of Holy Week.
On Passion Sunday, for instance, we begin our liturgy by re-enacting our Lord's triumphant entry into the streets of Jerusalem. "All glory, laud and honour to you redeemer king!" "Hosanna to the Son of David." It is an experience of jubilation, of great happiness.
But we do this, knowing that in just a few brief minutes, the sounds of death will again echo their cruel chords. The self-same lips that cry "Hosanna" will soon spew forth the venomous shout of "Crucify him!" There are no gentle transitions. In the space of just a few minutes we are driven from light into darkness. In an instant we are lifted from the midst of a street parade and dropped into the middle of a funeral procession.
And as difficult as that transition is for us, we also know that this is the way that life is. We know what it is to get that unexpected phone call. We know what it is to hear the hushed prognosis from the doctor. We know what it is to be disappointed and hurt by a loved one.
We too have cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." We too have echoed that plea, "Friends, why do you abandon me, why do you deny me." The story we gather round this week is Jesus' story, to be sure, but it is also our story. The writer C. S. Lewis once wrote that "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain." Certainly, when viewed from that perspective, Holy Week might well be described as being God's megaphone. During these special days the distance between the lament of Jesus and the lament of humanity is shortened to the point where we can begin to believe that our anguished cries really can reach the one who can save us! By looking backwards through Jesus' life, we who must still "live our lives forward", are given sustenance, power and encouragement for the journey.
I remember when I started high school, how surprised and delighted I was to find that we had math textbooks that had the answers to the problems all written in the back of the book! I felt like I had hit the academic jackpot! Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I realized that you didn't get marks just for knowing the right answer, you had to show how it was that you got to that point. Still, those answers in the back of the book were extremely helpful because sometimes you could make sense of the whole process by carefully working backwards.
The same thing happens in spiritual terms. We still have to live our lives forward. There's no escaping that. But, in faith we have been privileged to look to the end of the book. We know that when we turn to the back of the book that Jesus is there waiting for us. Not only the Jesus of the cross, the Jesus of Good Friday, but also the Jesus of Resurrection, the Jesus of Easter. We know the end of the story. We know that as surely as Easter follows Good Friday, there will be a day when we shall shout alleluia upon alleluia!
Our liturgical celebrations do not end human struggle and suffering. Only in Jesus do we have the promise of a happy ending. What our annual holy week liturgies can do, however, is to help us see that our lives too are washed and made holy by the light of Easter. Life can only be lived "projectively" - going forward; but it can only be understood "retrospectively" - looking backward.
May God bless you!
The Rev. Michael Pryse, Bishop
