Images of Hope

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Images of Hope 27 February 2011: pm The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Psalm 148
• Proverbs 8:1, 22-31
• Revelation 4

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

Your mind, like mine, is probably on overload, full of the many dramatic and horrific images that have been broadcast from Christchurch since Tuesday's earthquake. Perhaps like me at times you've had to tear yourself away from the TV and go and do something else, just to have a break from the unrelenting awfulness of it all, only compounded by us knowing it is far worse for those who are experiencing it.

That is why tonight I want to let our Bible readings speak for themselves, to provide us with some alternative images of hope, just as they have always done for people through the tragedies of the ages. In the same way we let the familiar cadences of Choral Evensong, the canticles and the rhythms of worship minister deep within our souls, so that we may find strength for the days ahead to continue our prayers and actions of love and support for those in such great need.

Our first reading from the book of Proverbs brought us the stunningly beautiful poetic description of Lady Wisdom, a personification of divine Wisdom.

Wisdom says : The Lord created me as the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth…When he established the heavens, I was there…when he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was there beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

What a delightful picture that is, of Wisdom there beside the Creator God, like a master worker, or another reading of this could be that Wisdom is there alongside the Creator God “like a little child". You can imagine the child Wisdom, playing at the feet of God and delighting in all of God's creation, including us human beings.

This is the same God depicted in today's Collect who like a mother never forgets her children, but comforts and quiets those who are restless and fearful; this same God who like a father knows already what we need. This is the same God who weeps with those who weep today and who takes the child up in his arms to comfort it.

Who then is this mysterious Wisdom figure? The fact that Wisdom is there with God right from creation has led many to equate Wisdom or Sophia (as it appears in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) with the pre-existent Christ, Christ who is called in the New Testament "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24), the Wisdom of God incarnate.

You may like to explore the figure of Wisdom further both in the Hebrew Scriptures: Proverbs 1-9; Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) chapters 1, 24; Wisdom of Solomon chapters 6:12ff, 7:22-30, 9:9-11. And then in the New Testament depicting Jesus as the Wisdom of God incarnate - Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:35, 11:49, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1.

Others equate Wisdom with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord described by Isaiah (11:2) as 'the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord', the same Spirit who would anoint the promised Messiah.

We recall in the imagery of Genesis that the Spirit hovered and brooded over emptiness and chaos before creation (Gen 1:2) and then in-breathed the entire created order and humanity to bring life (Gen. 2:7).

May we pray that the Spirit will brood over the chaos of Christchurch and its people at this time as the 'life-giving Spirit, Comforter most gracious' of tonight's first hymn (Father most holy, merciful and loving - CP 419).

The second image I want to leave you with tonight is that of our second reading: Revelation chapter 4, an awesome description of the vision the seer John is granted of the heavenlies, as he struggles to put into words what he sees, and resorts to piling up images of jewels, rainbows, angels, thrones, crowns…how to express in words the holiness, glory, majesty of worship in God's presence?

We are fortunate to have here before us as we worship a glimpse of that glory in our magnificent dossal hanging, depicting the glory of Christ, and amongst its many symbols, those of the four living creatures: the lion, the ox, the human being and the eagle (Rev 4:7). We have too our white marble floor in the sanctuary to remind us even a little of 'the sea of glass like crystal' (Rev 4:6) before the throne of God.

As we reflect on these our own 'visual aids' in this Cathedral, I find some words written by Anglican priest Sande Ramage, ('Christchurch's reasonable hope', http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=25162, 24 Feb 2011) since this week's quake worth reflecting on:

'Great cathedrals, their magnificent processions and choirs come into their own at times of community chaos. They unfold rituals that promote stillness and which suggest a way of holding the untenable, the overwhelming and the incomprehensible. This is their raison d'être. This is why the people of Christchurch love their cathedral even if they'd never dream of hanging out there. Sometimes, as we get on with coming to terms with our despair, it is enough to know that there's a place that has been prepared for people to sit in the mystery and hold a place as sacred.'

As we as clergy discussed this Revelation 4 passage last Tuesday morning, Dean Rowan Smith, with us from South Africa, commented that it follows straight on from the letters to the seven churches (Rev. 2-3). This vision was granted to real people in real churches, and it was given to those who were undergoing great suffering. And this vision of Revelation 4 is not complete without its next chapter 5, where we see next to the throne of God the Lamb that was slain (Rev 5:6, 9, 12). Our God is a God who suffers with and for his people. For 'to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.' (Edward Shillito, 'Jesus of the Scars')

'In the midst of life, we are in death', says the Book of Common Prayer Funeral service, and our country has been brought up sharp with the reality of our own mortality and vulnerability this week.

Yet too in the midst of death, we are in life. Wasn't it so encouraging to see the young woman Emma who was trapped for some time in the ruins of the Pyne Gould building on Tuesday, able to be there to marry her fiancé, Chris on Friday.

Midst the tragic news of the deaths of two young babies in the quake, we know too that there have been babies born since the quake, small symbols of hope.

Following this service, we will be having a short service of blessing for the marriage of Suzie and Stephen, as we give thanks for their time with us and farewell them now as they return with Phyl to England.

In the midst of life, we are in death. In the midst of death, we are in life. This gives us hope to carry on.

The writer Peter Abrahams put it like this (The View From Coyaba, 1985): 'To live with the conscious knowledge of the shadow of uncertainty, with the knowledge that disaster or tragedy could strike at any time; to be afraid and to know and acknowledge your fear, and still to live creatively and with unstinting love: that is to live with grace.'

May our prayer for the people of Christchurch and for ourselves be that in the days ahead we may still live creatively, with unstinting love and with grace.

And may our faith be in the God of Wisdom, the God of Glory, the God of Love:

'And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs – Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.'

(Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'God's Grandeur')