Psalms of the Passion: 1.Remembrance

PSALMS OF THE PASSION: 1.REMEMBRANCE

On a bookcase in front of my desk, there is a photograph of a frail elderly Franciscan friar in his brown habit.

His name is Brother Edward.

Up until a year ago I had assumed that he was dead. So imagine my surprise when I met this eighty seven year old friar, whilst visiting the Franciscan Friary at Alnmouth, in Northumberland, in January last year.

I first met Brother Edward some 53 years ago. He, together with Brother Syllian and two nuns, whose names I have since forgotten, were conducting a mission in my home parish of St Matthew's, lpswich.

Ever since the tender age of six I had been a cherub-like choir boy singing at three services every Sunday. Later, I also became a server, serving at the altar at least twice a week at the daily Eucharist.

Over the years, I had become aware that God was calling me to be a priest, no matter how ridiculous it appeared at the time.

I say 'ridiculous' because I had failed my eleven plus exam and was at an appalling church secondary school where all I learned in four years was how to cheat and bully, so I was not exactly promising university material. Furthermore, my parents, who had limited financial means, did not go to church. Not exactly the background one associated with a prospective priest in the 1950s.

As the mission week drew slowly to a close, the more convinced I became of my future vocation to the priesthood. However, every time I tried to articulate that inner conviction, the more shy and tongue-tied I became.

Finally, the last service of the mission arrived. I found myself talking with Brother Edward after the service, about everything except the one thing I really wanted to talk about. As we shook hands for the last time and prepared to part, Brother Edward turned round and said, 'Terry, have you ever thought of becoming a priest?'

Imagine my joy and relief. I just flung my arms around him and said, 'Yes'. I was thirteen years of age!

And that was the last time I saw Brother Edward until I met him again last year. However, I have regularly thanked God for him and the way he used him to change my life.

Now, the Jews of the Old Testament had a similar God changing experience in their life, in the second half of the thirteenth century BC, which they too have never forgotten. It is called the Exodus and is remembered every year at the Feast of the Passover.

It recalls how God rescued the Jewish nation from slavery in Egypt, and led them to freedom through the Reed Sea and eventually into the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses.

Time and time again, Pharaoh, King of Egypt had promised to let them go, after encountering various plagues, but each time he had changed his mind, once the plague had receded.

Finally, after the angel of death had killed off all of the first-born of the Egyptians, whilst passing over the homes of the Jews leaving them unaffected, Pharoah relented. Hence the name of the festival which recalls this event is called 'The Passover'.

It was this annual festival of remembrance that Jesus, together with his disciples, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate, prior to his death.

St Mark, the earliest of the four Gospel writers, and in whose home Jesus could well have celebrated the Passover, describes it with these words:

'On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparation for you to eat the Passover?" So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, "The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?" He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparation there." So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them and they prepared the Passover meal.

When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me. They began to be distressed and say to him one after another, "Surely, not l?" He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread in to the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to the one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "This is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant. which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.' (Mark 14.12-26).

We are not told which hymn they sung, but it would have been a hymn from what has been called 'The Hymn Book of the Second Temple', which we know as the Psalter, or the Book of Psalms.

The Book of Psalms consists of some 150 religious songs or poems. The present selection probably goes back to between 400 - 200 BC. Although their authorship is attributed to David, who we are told was a 'sweet psalmist', most scholars are agreed that few, if any, were written by him. For instance, many of the psalms refer to the Temple which was not built in his lifetime, whilst others refer to happenings that took place long after his time. It is probably more accurate to say that there was a variety of writers over many years.

The Norwegian Old Testament scholar, Sigmund Mowinckel, has suggested that most of the psalms had their origin in the worship of the Temple.

Jesus and his disciples probably sang a hymn from a group of those songs used in worship known as the "Hallel", which comes from the word ‘halleluia' which means 'praise'. This is the name given to Psalms 113-118 which are sometimes referred to as the 'Egyptian Hallel' since they were originally sung during the killing of the passover lambs, which recalls the Exodus.

For example, the first two verses of Psalm 114 describe how God intervened in the life of the Jewish nation when they were slaves in Egypt, living amongst people who spoke a strange language.

'When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from among a strange people, Judah was his sanctuary: and lsrael his dominion.'

The psalmist goes on to refer to the miracles of nature that accompanied God's intervention, and uses poetic licence to exaggerate, suggesting that the waters of the Red Sea, or, more accurately, the Reed Sea, did not just stand up to permit the Jews to cross, but that they fled away.

'The sea saw that, and fled: Jordan was driven back.

The mountains skipped like rams: and the little hills like young sheep."

So the poet asks the question why should the sea and the River Jordan, the mountains and hills have acted so strangely.

'What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest; and thou Jordan was driven back?

Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams: and ye little hills like young sheep'

In other words, what was the cause of their strange behaviour at the time of the Exodus?

The answer is that lt was the manifestation of the presence of God at the Exodus, that caused such strange behaviour, including water issuing from a rock in the dry and thirsty wilderness to quench the thirst of his people.

'Tremble, thou the earth, at the presence of the Lord; at the presence of the God of Jacob.

Who turned the hard rock into a standing water: and the flint stone into a springing well.’

As I said earlier, it was with the singing of this hymn, or a similar one from the Hallel, that Jesus concluded his Passover meal with his disciples in the Upper Room, before proceeding to the Mount of Olives and into the Garden of Gethsemane where he was to be betrayed.

ln passing, it is appropriate to note how the evangelists have used the imagery of the Exodus to describe how Jesus, through his death, freed his people from their captivity to sin and led them to freedom, and how this too is also accompanied by miracles of nature, in the form of unexpected darkness and an earthquake.

Remembrance is an important part of our spiritual life, whether it is me recalling how God, through Brother Edward, called me to be a priest, or Jesus and his disciples, recalling how God, rescued their nation from Egyptian slavery through the leadership of Moses.

It is through the calling to remembrance of the past, that we often begin to see the grain of God's action in lives. Often we only perceive such action opaquely because, if your experience is anything like mine, when we need him most he often appears most absent. It is only when we look back that we can begin to see how close he has been to us all the time, gently nudging us along.

Now the cynic may well say that such moments of divine disclosure are mere coincidences and we do not have to posit the idea of God in order to explain them. It was a coincidence that Brother Edward put into words what I had been struggling to articulate for so long. It was a coincidence that the wind happened to blow upon the waters of the Reed Sea when the escaping Jews found themselves hemmed in, and thereby enabled them to cross on dry land.

Indeed, it may well have been a coincidence. And was it a coincidence that a person with no evidence of academic ability was able to gain the necessary qualification to enter London University and to graduate with an Honours degree? And was it coincidence that drinking water sprang from a rock in the wilderness and manna was found on the ground when the Jews were so hungry and thirsty?

Just how many coincidences does one need to have before one acknowledges that they are God incidents? Occasions, in your life and in mine, when God appears to have influenced us.

Remembrance, whereby we recall the past and thereby make it present again, is a vital means of feeding our spiritual lives. Through remembrance we renew our faith in the power of God; our hope for the future and our relationship with God in the here and now.

And nowhere is this more focused than in our worship at the Eucharist, which is done, 'in remembrance' of Christ. Here, through the act of remembrance, Christ is made present In the. form of bread and wine, which we believe become his body and blood for the nourishing of our souls, as we travel towards our Promised Land.

'Bread of Heaven, on thee we feed;

for thy flesh is meat indeed;

ever may our souls be fed

with this true and living bread;

day by day with strength supplied

through the life of him who died.

Vine of heaven, thy blood supplies

this blest cup of sacrifice;

Lord, thy wounds our healing give,

to thy cross we look and live:

Jesus, may we ever be

grafted, rooted, built in thee’.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving kindness to us and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen

I