Mal
4:1-2a, 2 Thess.3:6-13 and Luke 21:5-19
‘These stones that have echoed
thy praises are holy and dear is the ground where
their feet have once trod; yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims, and still they were seeking the city of God.’X
INTRODUCTION
Those are lines from a hymn often
sung at the Feast of the Dedication of a
church – ‘In our Day of Thanksgiving’ – and I thought of them last week at this
time as I, and a group of 22 pilgrims from East Greenwich, stood in the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. We
had arrived at our final destination after time in the Galilee and were
beginning our devotions in that city which is the focus of longings for Jews,
Christians and Muslims.
Yet the stones which generations
have erected to protect the holy places, and the places themselves, are but
outward symbols of that heavenly Jerusalem where God dwells with angels and
saints, the great company of heaven of which each baptised person is a
part.
JERUSALEM AND ITS STONES
Jerusalem is a city which stirs
deep feelings – both of passionate longing and love – and passionate disgust
and hatred. Its stones have been
venerated and destroyed by many civilisations and, as Jesus prophesied, it’s
Temple and the whole city was destroyed by the Romans just forty years later,
in AD 70. We had stood on Shabbat eve –
Friday evening – looking at the remains of a small part of the Temple mount
known as the ’Wailing Wall’, watching hundreds of Jews expressing their passion
for Jerusalem as they sang and danced, wept and lamented and offered their
prayers. And, all the time, they were
overlooked by the great Dome of the Rock built by Muslims over the site of the
Jewish Holy of Holies in the late 7th century.
HOLY SEPULCHRE
But for us – Christians – it was
not the Dome or Temple which, in the end, drew us; rather, it was that Church
built over the Holy Sepulchre, the place where Christ was buried and rose from
the dead, a few meters from the place where He was crucified and where
Christians had ever since gathered to worship.
Yet their first church had also been destroyed and a Temple to Venus
built by the Romans over the ruins which, later, enabled the Emperor
Constantine, when he converted to Christianity in the early 4th c.,
to identify the spot and build a great basilica. But, 300 years later, that was also destroyed
by the Persians and its replacement destroyed again by Muslim forces in the
year 1009.
So the building we prayed in has
echoed to the praises of pilgrims for a thousand years, but the site on which
it stands for twice as long. And I
thought of those lines: ‘these stones that have echoed their praises are
holy’. And, in particular, I
recalled them as I saw the way so many pilgrims venerated the slab of
pink-veined marble marking the place where the body of Jesus lay after being
taken from the Cross and placed in the Tomb.
DEVOTION AND VENERATION
One of the sad things about the
Reformation is that it ended public displays of veneration – shrines and
statues kissed by Christians for generations were destroyed and, gradually,
public displays of affection came to an end.
It may be permissible for women to give each other an affectionate kiss
but men – never! That’s something those
strange continentals do!
Yet, gradually, the Church has
begun to reclaim veneration – the priest will kiss the altar and book of the
gospels, and all will give each other a holy kiss at the peace – or at least, a
handshake! And we offer incense to those
three things – the altar stone; the Book of the Gospels and the People of God. But we don’t do all this simply because we
want to show affection – or even because we believe there’s something special
about the stone, or the paper or even the flesh we kiss. Its what’s hidden in those things – what they
convey; how our Creator God is present in matter. Because God created them they are
intrinsically good, if imperfect; and because God entered into our world in the
Incarnation – entered into flesh, into created matter – each thing that exists
is touched by the Divine.
But we find that hard to
comprehend. There’s long been the
temptation to think of matter as corrupt – certainly not to be worshipped! After all, God commanded the Israelites not
to make idols and worship them (Ex.20.3)! So having a picture, painting or sculpture of
the human form in a place of worship is anathema to Jews and Muslims. And, because of that, Christians began
destroying their stone and wooden statues and icons after the rise of Islam.
As the years went by and
they began to realise the consequences of God entering our human flesh and
being born of a Virgin Mother they realised that, if God had entered matter, matter
– created things – must matter! More
than that – if God venerated Creation to the extent of joining Himself to it,
we must also venerate it. Sadly that was
an understanding lost on the Reformers seven hundred years later who proceeded
to disfigure and destroy representations of God in humankind.
What they’d forgotten is that
it’s not the thing itself we venerate, but the wonder of the Creator
which is encountered in the statue, icon, altar, book – or person. As St John of Damascus had said during the
great controversy about icons:
"I
do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my
sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter.
I will not cease from honouring that matter which works for my salvation. I
venerate it, though not as God."
VENERATING GOD IN CREATION
So we’re to worship God through
creation, as saints like Francis of Assisi have always known. Francis, who realised that all things were
inter-related and called all things his brother or sister – Brother Sun and
Sister Moon, Mother Earth – even Sister Fire which was used to burn disease
from his eye. It’s a realisation, of
course, which we’re re-discovering now as we accept we can no longer dominate,
abuse and rape creation.
We have to treat it with deep
respect, which some religions have recognised as they venerate the
divine in the natural world. Aspects of
Celtic religion – that religion which pre-dated Christianity in many Western
lands – affirmed the sacredness of nature, an understanding which informed many
of the early monks of our islands. As
one anonymous prayer says:
Bless to me, O God,
Each thing my eyes see,
Bless to me, O God,
Each sound my ear hears,
Bless to me, O God,
Each odour that goes to my nostrils,
Bless to me, O God,
Each taste that goes to my lips.
Thankfully, many are waking up to the need
to take greater care of our planet and treat it with more respect lest the
elements – earth, water, air and fire – turn against us. We can see the way they do that
when they are abused, and we need to recall that our faith tells us we need to
venerate creation. The way we kiss the
altar, the gospels and each other reminds that a holy kiss deepens our intimacy
with that which we venerate; that it is not simply the stone, paper or flesh
that we touch with our lips but the Divine presence within them – present in
the Blessed Sacrament consecrated on this table of sacrifice; present in the
words written in the Holy Book, and present beneath the skin of our sisters and
brothers – even if they cannot recognise that presence. But, perhaps, we might deepen our
recognition as we open ourselves to an intimate encounter with the Word made
flesh: you have seen your brother; you have seen your God.
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Sadly,
Jerusalem has been damaged and destroyed many, many times; its walls pulled
down, Temple looted and houses raised to the ground. Every age is tempted to destroy what it
cannot understand or what has gone before, believing it has something better to
offer, be that the destruction of reforming fundamentalists – smashing statues
and disfiguring frescoes – or town councils up and down the land who bulldozed
much of our Victorian heritage. We so
often fail to appreciate something until it’s too late; instead of honouring
creation we misuse and abuse it.
Jerusalem reminded me that we, people of faith in a God who entered
matter, need to learn to venerate that matter once again if we are to be true
to our calling. For God so loved the
world that he gave His only Son – Himself – to inhabit creation.
‘I
worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit
matter.’
May
we deepen our intimacy with God through our veneration of creation. And as we offer one another a handshake at
the Peace, let’s not forget what we are really doing – offering a holy kiss to
one another who are the image of our God made visible.
