IGNATIAN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES TRAINING (ISET)
2023-BLOCK FOUR – SESSION 28
THE BIG PICTURE OF THE FOURTH WEEK
Annemarie: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Great to see you again, to be with you. I hope everyone had a good break even though you were [00:01:00] writing assignments.
Okay. I’m going to hand over to Kathi to lead us in our time of prayer. Thanks, Kathi.
Kathi: Good morning. Good evening. Feel free to take your video off if you prefer, or you can leave it on. Just take a few moments to be still and allow yourself to be fully present, [00:02:00] body, soul, mind, and spirit. Become aware of God’s loving gaze upon you, knowing that you are held close in our Creator Spirit’s deep embrace and all-encompassing grace.[00:03:00]
I’m going to read a poem by John Burnside. I’m just going to read it once, and then I’m going to put it on the screen. And I [00:04:00] invite you to linger on what touches you and have a conversation with God.
Something is green in the house of a sudden. All the morning I finger the windows, revealing the moisture, the heartbeat that rises through stone.
And later, in the stillness after Eucharist, I guess what it might have been to discover the tomb, the empty linen painted with stain
of presence, like a broken chrysalis, where something has struggled loose through embrace, through remembrance and [00:05:00] pain, and the angel, a hand’s breath away, in the blood scented shade, a breathless, impossible being, diverting my gaze from that which is risen. The living, unnameable God,[00:06:00] [00:07:00] [00:08:00] [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] [00:12:00] [00:13:00]
Loving and Holy God, as we hear about yet another war breaking out in our world, we’re aware of the privilege it is to be in a place of safety where we can come and learn and not fear for our lives. We pray for peace in our world.
I was struck again this morning, seeing the reminded of the change from Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s [00:14:00] Day, and how you’re giving us new eyes to see others and your creation. I pray your particular blessing upon the Indigenous people in our world today, and I pray that you will give us new eyes to see, resurrected eyes.
And now as we enter into a time of learning, help us to be receptive to your Holy Spirit as you work in us and teach us to be able to accompany others in Christ’s name. Amen.
Annemarie: Amen. Thank you, [00:15:00] Kathi. So, we are starting the last block of our year now and Trevor’s going to kick off with the big picture of the fourth week. Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor: Really good to be with each of you and to see your faces. I’m quite struck by how more visible your faces have become as we’ve journeyed together over this past year.
Over the years, Debbie—Debbie is the woman I’m married to—and I have developed a habit that every Easter Sunday morning, our first words to each other before we have said any other words and no matter what may be happening in our marriage or what may be happening in our country or in our world, [00:16:00] we’ve developed a habit simply of the one person saying to the other, “Christ is Risen,” and the other person responds “He’s Risen Indeed.”
We’ve been saying that to each other now for over 40 years. It had particular poignancy for us during the COVID years. Especially the second year of lockdown where we had known loss in our own family and I can still remember I was sitting in the lounge early and Debbie just coming in and saying, “Christ is Risen and I responded, “He is Risen Indeed.” I guess it’s even, and Kathy hinted at this in her own prayer today, that even as we witness the [00:17:00] devastation of the conflict in the Middle East, as we witness the death of over 2000 people in Afghanistan because of the earthquake, as we witness even our own pool of tears right now, each one of us sits next to our own pool of tears as we witness our own heartache and heartbreak, we say to each other very simply “Christ is Risen” and we respond, “He is Risen Indeed.”
It’s really the bottom line, friends. It’s really the bottom line. Paul puts it so bluntly in his letter that if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. That’s really blunt language. I think if he was with us tonight in person, he would say to us, if Christ be not raised, then your online training [00:18:00] program and your giving of the exercises is all in vain and it’s of no use whatsoever.
The resurrection really is bottom line for our lives, for our faith. for our world. As you most probably know, and I’m still saying this by way of introduction, the earliest mention of the resurrection in the New Testament is made by Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. He had received a tradition that Christ had died for our sins, that Christ had been buried, that Christ had been raised, and that Christ had appeared to Peter and to the twelve. In that tradition, you see [00:19:00] the two main features, as it were, of the resurrection being affirmed in terms of its foundational place in our faith.
On the one hand, that Christ was killed and was buried, and the tomb was empty. So that is the one strand. I think that’s why I was really struck in that poem that Kathi shared. The empty linen printed with the stain of presence. I found that so beautiful. The empty linen printed with the stain of presence. So that’s the kind of one’s foundational basis, as it were, for the resurrection being the bottom line.
And the other strand is that the Christ who was [00:20:00] crucified now lives beyond crucifixion and had encountered His followers and the authenticity of that strand of the tradition, the strand of living encounter was rooted in the transformational nature of that encounter in the lives of those who were encountered by Christ.
I want to say that again, slowly, that the authenticity of this strand of the tradition, not only that the tomb was empty, but that Christ encountered his followers, that the authenticity of that was rooted in the fact that those encounters really transformed the lives of those early disciples.
And that’s always been a very a huge encouragement in my own life, particularly in [00:21:00] some of my darkest times of doubt and struggle. How does one really explain this historical reality? That Jesus’s followers on one day, hopeless, despairing, fearful— somehow after his death, become a people who are filled with hope and boldness and energy. How does one account for that transformation? What hypothesis does one offer for that historical reality? It’s a historical reality. We offer the hypothesis that not only was the tomb empty, but that people were encountered by the living presence of the Risen Christ. [00:22:00] So, those are the kind of the two features of that tradition that Paul received.
Now, we can build on that tradition, and that tradition has been built upon in the formulation of the creeds. The creeds of the church, that Jesus Christ now Risen is indeed one with God, that Jesus Christ indeed is the Eternal son of the Father, that Jesus Christ indeed is the second person of the Trinity.
Now that’s quite a mouthful for the introduction, but what I am wanting to do as strongly as I can is—this is bottom line stuff and seeking to offer for all of us, including myself, [00:23:00] some basis for this bottom line that can really give us confidence as we offer the Fourth Week of the exercises to people. I may just want to say, I know that for many people, the resurrection can be a very difficult journey intellectually, and I offer one resource. Tom Wright’s magnificent work, The Resurrection of the Son of God I think is worth one year’s whole reading. It really is.
What I want to do now after offering that bottom line of our faith is maybe now to look at it more specifically through the Ignatian lens. How did Ignatius see the resurrection and what can we glean from the way the exercises are [00:24:00] structured and what can we glean particularly from the grace that Ignatius suggests that we pray when we come into the Fourth Week.
Maybe the very, very first thing we can say is that for Ignatius, it would seem there was an essential continuity, an essential continuity between the crucifixion and the resurrection—between a kind of Friday and Sunday. David Fleming again, part of the Ignatian tradition, argues that Ignatius affirms this essential continuity by the way this week is particularly structured; that for Ignatius [00:25:00] he does not see the cross as it were as defeat and the resurrection as victory. He doesn’t have that sense in his own in his own thinking that the resurrection as it were doesn’t correct the mistake of the cross, that both the cross and the resurrection are two aspects for Ignatius of the same great turning point in history.
Fleming points out that this continuity between cross and resurrection is so close that Ignatius does not put a time frame between them, and you see this in the literal translation. You don’t have, like you have in the Second week and the Third week, this is the First Week of the first day. [00:26:00] That is missing. So, the time frame, as it were, is softened.
Also, Ignatius points out that what, as it were, was hidden—remember he stressed that in the crucifixion, the divinity, as it were, of Christ is hidden. In the resurrection, it is revealed. So, what is hidden on Friday is revealed in the resurrection, so you can see that in the fourth point. If you just want to see where it is, if you look on the literal translation, it’s there in the fourth point.
So, I love the way that one of my favorite writers puts it, Rowan Williams. I can’t understand most of his writings, but I do understand one or two [00:27:00] of his simpler books. He writes these words, and I find them so helpful. “God was God, even while God in human flesh was dying in anguish on the cross. And God is God, now in the new life of Jesus, raised from death.”
Can I just read that again slowly so if you want to get it down, you can get it down. “God was God, even while God in human flesh was dying in anguish on the cross. God is God now in the new life of Jesus. raised from death.” I think Ignatius would just go along so strongly with that, that what was hidden, as it were, in the cross event gets [00:28:00] revealed in the resurrection event. Both cross and resurrection demonstrate the power of God’s self-giving love over the dark powers of sin and evil. I think that continuity we need also perhaps to have in our mind as part of the big picture as we give the exercises.
I think second, perhaps just through the Ignatian lens is that this week, and I had never really done this ever in my life before prior to doing the exercises, that there is an invitation here to participate in Jesus’s joy. My emphasis usually was we can be joyful because Christ was raised.[00:29:00]
Ignatius comes at it the other way around. He invites us to participate in the joy that Jesus must have experienced in His own resurrection experience. And you will see that if you look at the grace of the Fourth Week that Ignatius stresses the joy of Jesus. That there is, in fact, a joy that Jesus Himself experiences—the joy of coming through death, the joy of the validation, as it were, of the reign of God not being defeated by the powers of evil and sin and death. The experience of just Abba’s love for Him, that this love that Abba had for Him could not be [00:30:00] extinguished. And especially, and I find this so moving, especially the joy that Jesus receives that knows that now He can again give and receive love to those around about him.
And this is, I think, beautifully expressed in Ignatius’s rather, which was for me, radical suggestion that Jesus’s first appearance was to his mother. And there is that delightful, and very moving to imagine Jesus in His risen presence, living beyond crucifixion, coming to be with his mom. And again, being able to [00:31:00] receive and give love within the context of that formative relationship in Jesus’s own life.
This is really important; the spotlight is not on our joy. The spotlight is not on our joy. The spotlight is on our participating in the joy of Jesus Christ. Aschenbrenner suggests that this really can be a very difficult grace; that it’s not easy sometimes to really participate in another person’s joy. There’s something self-forgetful about this, something selfless. William Barry stresses [00:32:00] that in terms of this grace, we really need to ask Jesus to reveal this joy to us. That goes for every grace, but we can only enter the joy of Jesus to the degree that Christ himself shares His joy with us.
Now Gerard Hughes—with that in mind, and I’m going to quote Gerard Hughes, and if you want to find this quote, it’s in the God of Surprises, page 133. He says and this is so important—
As with the passion narratives, so too we should approach the gospel’s resurrection accounts without, as far as possible, any preconceived ideas of its theological [00:33:00] meaning. Simply putting ourselves in the gospel scenes and begging to know the joy of Christ’s resurrection.
That, for example, when we’re in the Third Week we lay aside our theological ideas of atonement theories. We just enter into the rawness of that event. And now similarly, Gerard Hughes suggests, we lay aside all our theology and we enter into the gospel narratives, begging—that’s a strong word from Ignatius—begging that Christ reveal His own joy to us—that His own joy may rub off on us as it were. I think of Jesus’s own words just before his crucifixion in John chapter 15—”I’ve [00:34:00] said all these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy complete.” Ignatius got hold of that verse, I think, in a way that few of us do.
It’s an invitation to share in the joy of Christ.
And then through an Ignatian lens, and again, this was a bit of an eye opener for me when I did the exercises, was to encounter the Risen Christ primarily in His ministry of consolation, or in His office, as it were, as Ignatius puts it, as consola. Ignatius stresses the role of the Risen Christ as consola.
And so [00:35:00] what happens for us is that as we enter into the Fourth Week, as we enter into the resurrection narratives, as we encounter the Risen Christ and the Risen Christ encounters us, so our understanding of consolation now is enriched and expanded.
The grace of consolation now almost moves into another depth, and we find ourselves energized and empowered by consolation in a whole new way. Now just keep the meaning of spiritual consolation in mind. If you can take your mind back to all the lectures, the descriptions of spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation, the warming of the heart, the [00:36:00] tears, the increase of faith, hope, and love, the experience of a very deep peace. All of these features of consolation come alive at another level for us. in the fourth week.
Gerard Hughes points out, and I find really helpful, that as we just simply enter into the resurrection narratives, all the resurrection narratives share three common features. In every one of the resurrection stories, all the people that Christ comes to are in a negative situation. All of them. Mary is weeping. Emmaus’ pilgrims are feeling hopeless. Thomas is battling with doubt. [00:37:00] Peter is struggling with memories of betrayal. Disciples are locked behind doors because of fear. There’s this common denominator that the Risen Christ comes to each person In what Gerard Hughes calls a negative situation, a darker, difficult situation.
The other feature he points out is that none of them recognize the Risen Christ immediately. There is a sense in which the recognition of Christ’s presence in their lives is a recognition that gradually unfolds. I find that very helpful and very often it’s been as I’ve reflected back a little bit that I have a growing recognition perhaps of how the grace of [00:38:00] the Risen Christ has met me or come to me.
And then he says thirdly in every one of the situations, folk get sent on mission. There is an apostolic dimension to the resurrection encounters. None of them say at the end, Jesus is Risen, I’m so happy, and I’m on my way to heaven. That’s not what they say. Christ is risen, death has been defeated, and now we’ve got a job of work on our hands. There is ascending, there is an apostolic dimension that the Risen Christ now calls us, as it were into ministry and sends us. This consolation is a fundamental part of our ongoing ministry. I’m going to read to you the words of Paul, because I think Ignatius would love these words. [00:39:00]
Blessed be the God and Father. of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that [it’s a massive ‘so that’]we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation which we ourselves have been consoled by God.
And for me that gets this dynamic of the resurrection appearances. So, it just captures it that the consolation that comes to us in our encounter with the Risen Christ is a consolation that flows through us in apostolic ministry to those around about us. So that’s for me would be a kind of third thread.
And then again, [00:40:00] going back to the grace, particularly in the literal translation, that the invitation is to share in the glory of the risen and the ascended Lord, the glory of Christ our Lord.
I’m going to put this in home brewed South African English. There is a sense, as you do the exercises that Jesus gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. That’s the only way I can put it. There is a sense in which He just gets bigger. We meet him as a baby and we’re ending up as it were with His glorious and His ascended presence.
I think we need to emphasize that His risen and ascended presence isn’t about him going away from us. It’s rather about Him [00:41:00] coming to us in a new way. It’s rather about Him being available to us. Each one of us, wherever we may be, that somehow that historical confinement has now been broken open— Paul puts it so beautifully—that His presence now fills the universe. It fills the universe and is available to everyone and anyone.
One of my mentors in the Ignatian tradition, Father Fitzsimmons was saying—he’s talking about the Fourth Week and talking about the availability of the ascended Christ that this really is the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what the Fourth Week of which Father Fitz says is all about the this energy and the power of the Risen Christ available to us in and through the Holy [00:42:00] Spirit. So, the Fourth Week isn’t about a kind of empty kind of triumphalism. It’s rather about us entering into the resurrected life of Christ, of knowing his consolation and becoming ministers of that consolation to, to others.
I just want to begin to move towards the close, and I’m thinking, just kind of a basic question, like, where is the Risen Jesus now? And as I was saying earlier, we have this very strong sense in the exercises, of Christ being born, a little baby, growing up, preaching, healing, on the cross, resurrection, ascension, and now His presence, as it were, available and present to everyone.
Veltri, I find very helpful. He [00:43:00] suggests that it could be helpful in our scriptural reflections outside of our prayer times, particularly in this week, to be aware of how the Risen Christ comes to us now, and I think he’s saying that because I guess the retreatant is going to move into the Fifth Week now. How am I going to be with the Risen Christ? How is the Risen Christ going to be with me? And he offers a whole lot of suggestions in terms of additional prayer material, and I’ve just summarized it for us.
I’ve always found that Jesus was a master teacher and almost knew that this would be the kind of [00:44:00] question we would ask—where could we encounter Him as it were beyond crucifixion and beyond death? In the gospels, we get some wonderful addresses where He has, as it were, promised to meet us and I’m just going to give them to you. He’s promised to meet us in His words. He says to let my words dwell in you, (John 15:7) and there’s a sense that as we continue beyond the Fourth Week into the Fifth Week, and as we carry with us His gospel words, He inhabits those words. He says that My words are spirit and life—that (John 6:63) there is a spiritual nature to His words that keeps them alive and keeps alive His [00:45:00] presence for us as we treasure his words in an ongoing way.
He meets us in the Eucharist, in communion. It’s my body. It’s my blood that the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, whatever language we may use. And again, putting aside just for one moment, our theologizing around it. It’s a place where the Risen Christ meets us.
I’ve always been struck by that, especially when I’m with someone who’s dying, and I might say to them, “Is there anything I can do for you?” How many times the person will say, Will you please give me communion? Please will you give me communion?” And they may not have a theology, but somehow, it’s a meeting place where the resurrected Christ has met them, [00:46:00]
“Where two or three are gathered together,” (Matthew 18:20)—that in the context of relationship and friendship with two or three, within that context, Christ meets us and takes shape, that He comes to us disguised in human need and suffering, that “in as much as we have done it unto to the very least, we have done it unto Him.” (Matthew 25:40) This is another address where the Risen Christ encounters us. I’m in debt here to Veltri, that ultimately, in the very depths of our own being, we meet him; that he makes His home in us as we make our home [00:47:00] in Him.
That whole mystery of John chapter 15, of mutual abiding, that as I seek to abide in Him, He abides in my own depths, and the one thing which I find astonishing is we never know where the vine ends and where the branch begins. Even as we share in this deep mutual indwelling in Christ and Christ in us, we have no idea where we end and where Christ begins. That this intermingling of Christ, the Risen one, within us, is an intermingling that is profoundly intimate and deep and [00:48:00] real.
And so, I just offer that again to you as a kind of big picture. I’ve tried to stay out of Russell’s lane and Russell next week will be sharing how do we give this Fourth Week to those that we are taking through the exercises.
I’m ending a few minutes earlier, and that gives us a bit more time to maybe have a break or maybe a bit more time later to have conversation. I’ve got two questions— What has struck you most, even as I’ve been speaking? But perhaps even more importantly is I wonder if there could be a little bit of reflection, even on your own experience of the Fourth Week, and maybe even your own experience of the Risen Christ in the here and now. I think it’s important for us as givers [00:49:00] to just be in touch with our own present here and now experience of the one who lives beyond crucifixion. So, let me end. Thank you.
Annemarie: Thanks, Trevor, so much for that, and maybe we could come back at 10 past the hour. It gives you just two or three extra minutes this time to reflect. So, we’ll see you then, 10 minutes past the hour.
Trevor: Can I start? Welcome back. Good to be with you. And as we often say, the screen is open for comment and sharing of insights and wonderings. I am obviously wondering where the input has left you and wondering where [00:50:00] your own reflection upon your own experience has left you as well so it’ll be good to engage.
Thoughts, wonderings, little bits of light, question marks, resistance. I have never been so clear in all my life. [00:51:00] Thanks, Jaco.
Jaco: Yeah, this Week Four when I did the exercises, it recalibrated my whole concept of Christian joy and the importance of that because I see too many people in ministry even, and lots of Christians living without this kind of joy—where the spiritual journey is like a tough one, and we just need to pull through, and we’re praying for the end times, Lord Jesus, come save us from all this drudgery, and I don’t see this. So, this was a total fresh breath to me. Ignatius understood this, that the driving force inside of a believer is the joy of living with Jesus. It changed my whole perspective then.
Trevor: Oh, [00:52:00] thanks, Jaco. There are quite a few threads in what you have said that we could just be attentive towards.
I think the word—the energy that joy gives and the fact that we’re in the Fourth Week and moving, as it were, into the Fifth Week, or life beyond the exercises. The energy is rooted in this experience of the Risen, Living Christ’s reality in our life, which seemed to be so real for Ignatius Himself. That energy of his own life and again, the exercises arising out of the reflection upon his own experience. This isn’t a kind of theory; it’s him reflecting upon his own life and journey [00:53:00] with Christ. And this Fourth Week is reflective of his energy as well, found in the experience of the joy of Christ.
I think just for the sake of full disclosure, I need to say I have moved through this one quite slowly having had very deep tendencies towards maybe, the sadness, the suffering, the Crucified One, so it really has been for myself, a long, long journey of opening up to this reality of joy within the context of sadness and pain and suffering.
I think that’s where the continuity and fact that crucifixion and resurrection for Ignatius are a continuity. He holds the two together. It’s not sorrow or joy, but he [00:54:00] seems to hold both. We enter into the suffering of Christ as we enter into the joy as well. I again go back to Paul, all I want is to know Christ, and then the joy, the fellowship of His sufferings—that tension again, I’m going on a bit, I’m sorry, but you’ve just sparked a lot there for me.
Jaco: I’m not quite sure what the graces we are asking for in this week, but I would surely look for the grace of deep joy.
Trevor: Just to word it as Fleming words it, “I beg for the grace of being able to enter into the joy and consolation of Jesus.” And again, if I may, and I know I’m repeating, but maybe repetition is okay, that this is something that [00:55:00] Christ has to reveal to us. It’s not something I figure out. So, it’s asking Him to reveal His own joyful heart to me in a way that I will know it’s Him revealing it to me. It’s really a grace that I’m asking for. I don’t know if my co Marie, Russell, Brenda wants to say anything more in terms of your Jaco’s observation. Okay. Heather, I see your hand.
Heather: Thank you, Trevor. A thought’s just been coming to me, and it’s about Christ’s joy—that amazing joy. I’ve just been wondering, do you think that maybe when He was crucified, when He was on the cross, that [00:56:00] there was a deep, I’m going to say fear, but I think a sadness and then this overwhelming joy came because He was alive, actually. It’s like when we find something that we think is gone. There’s a much bigger overwhelming joy and love energy kind of thing. It’s just a wondering of mine.
Trevor: Part of me wants to say, I don’t know, but it would seem that, in His own humanity, there is an entrance, that the resurrection is an entrance in His own humanity into the joy of His own resurrection and all that that resurrection made possible for Him and all that had validated in terms of [00:57:00] what He had given his life for and what He had offered His life for. So, for myself, I would go with you very strongly in the sense of that there’s a genuine experience of being surprised by joy in terms of what I have given my life to has been validated and affirmed, and the Father, Abba Father has [quote unquote] “come through for me.” I’m sure that was part of His joy, which I think you are indicating.
Heather: It makes it so real when you say it like that.
Trevor: I think, yes, and I think, the stress always in doing it is really to take the humanity of Jesus Christ extremely seriously, which Ignatius really helps us to do. Yes. [00:58:00]
Heather: Yes. Thank you, Trevor.
Trevor: Yeah. Hi Liz.
Liz: I think that is echoed in Luke 15 with the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal father that he talks about, my son was dead and now he’s alive. He was lost and he is found. And he says, knowing the death, really knowing that he’d lost everything. He lost his friends. He lost his contact with everyone. He lost his reputation. He lost everything on the cross, and then everything is restored again, and He comes back to life, and He finds everything in greater fullness. Like the father, he throws a banquet; like the woman, she invites her neighbors in; like the shepherd he celebrates that this is a great [00:59:00] celebration for all of us.
Trevor: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Liz. I feel your heart communicating that very powerfully, and the background images of the lost coin and the father—very, very powerful. Thank you, Liz.
Russell: Trevor, I’m just wondering from Jaco’s question, it’s almost like that sort of split spirituality that sometimes you talk about, that we tend to, this is Jesus’s death and the suffering, and this is Jesus’s resurrection. And we really can’t do that because the one speaks to the other speak. I don’t know; certainly, from my own tradition, the tendency is to maybe give or spotlight more the Good Friday rather than the Easter Sunday.
And the[01:00:00] image would go through my mind, like Good Friday, the church is full; it’s full-on Easter Sunday, but not as full as what it is on Good Friday. This inability sometimes that we have to make sure that we have to hold the two together. The two have to always be held together, and I think that’s what Ignatius is doing. He comes to realize that the two have to be held together.
Trevor: Yeah. That deep continuity of the two events being together and not separate. Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: Thanks, Trevor. And maybe this is a follow on to what you and Russell were just saying, but I found that I really needed to hear what you said when you first began the teaching this morning in light of the horrors that we’re all witnessing. I just have felt [01:01:00] there’s a sense in which the evil being so starkly apparent can make what we’re talking about seem small and I was struggling all weekend to get my feet on the ground with asking the Lord to give me his thoughts about it and his feelings about it, rather going off with my natural tendency, which leaves me thinking well, why should I go swimming? Or why should I write that? Or just the downward pull of the enemy of human nature. So anyway, I found so much of your teaching an antidote to that. So, I just wondered, I don’t know, I’m not really asking anything except maybe just to say if there is more you could say that would be even more consoling.
Trevor: Yeah. Elizabeth, I’m not too sure if [01:02:00] I’m going to be helpful or not. I think for myself, and I think Russell was saying this—I think the one danger I feel that sometimes face people of faith, it’s almost a spiritually bypass—the very painful side of life, and I don’t find that kind of bypassing helpful. I think it also spoils our witness when I’m not willing to face the realities of the dark powers of evil and death and suffering. So, for me it’s really holding two things together of facing for myself, facing my own tendencies towards evil, facing the world’s dark powers of evil and [01:03:00] sin head on as much as possible as they stain human life and yet at the same time, allowing myself to be energized by the resurrection and the one who has both absorbed these powers in reality and also triumphed over them. And for me, it’s holding both.
So, it’s not an empty triumphalism, which I don’t think is helpful all round, but it’s much more a real lament of the pain of this world and an engagement with it as we are able to engage it, as well as at the same time, [01:04:00] allowing myself to be energized by the reality of the resurrection.
So, I think the last thing I want to say, and maybe I can really rely on my colleagues here, I find myself asking myself the question a lot of how do I nourish? How do I practice resurrection in a crucifying world? How do I do that? How do I practice resurrection? Not think about it; how do I actually practice it in a crucifying world? And for me, I find that almost a daily invitation to engage myself—and within the context of my own life, relationships, community. How do I [01:05:00] practice resurrection? So, it’s to take it for myself out of theory into practice and let my faith energize resurrection practice and action, but I hope that’s helpful.
It sounds a little bit clumsy, and I think we practice resurrection in very small ways sometimes within the context of our crucifying world. Yeah. I don’t know. Russell, Annemarie, Brenda—help!
Russell: That emphasis on praxis, Trevor, I think is so important, because we can land up being like sucked into watching these [01:06:00] visuals on TV. For example, let me speak about myself. I find a real diminishment in hope in myself. Yet maybe not denying that. In a way what you said at the beginning, which I think is a very helpful image sitting next to your own pool of tears, not denying that, but also trying to aware of that, put something into practice where there is a sign of resurrection, or even when I’m looking at those images, look for other signs of resurrection, I think is so helpful. I think that helps us balance it a little bit, because it cannot just become a theory in our heads.
I suspect maybe that also links a little bit into what Jaco was saying, we watch that and there’s no joy in Christian people, because we are surrounded by so much, we forget to actually do resurrection, and if we were doing [01:07:00] resurrection that maybe also brings that kind of joy in the midst of this world, which is so painful.
I want to really just underline that. I also think sometimes—I’ve been looking at some of those images as well coming from the TV and so forth. This morning, I was thinking, and even when I spoke to someone who’s actually in Israel, who left here and who’s in Israel for the last few days—allowing ourselves sometimes to feel that as well and not to run away from it. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but it is that sense of sitting with that pool of tears, but not allowing ourselves to drown in that pool is maybe a better image, but to recognize it’s there and still look for those signs and try and practice resurrection.
Trevor: I saw part of a note, I think, from Adri- Marie, which I really found helpful, that this is where the examen as well [01:08:00] can be such an empowering practice of just—and Adri-Marie, I didn’t see that—I must bring it up, but just maybe noting resurrection moments within the context of one’s day can be and it’s almost like strengthening that resurrection muscle of our lives by noting little moments, little Easter’s and little resurrections that have occurred in in ordinary life during the day.
I think that also, for me, stops me theorizing about the resurrection. I think, for me, that’s the big danger, is moving into theory about it rather than allowing myself to be drawn into the resurrection story in a very practical way.
Russell: Just linked to that, Adri-Marie, you remind me of something. There’s [01:09:00] a book written called Practicing the Examen. I think it is by a guy called Mark Thibodeaux. I’d have to just check the title. And what he does in there is he gives many different forms of the examen, and he says things like praying the examen in a time of joy or praying examen in a time of Thanksgiving or praying examen in a time of fear or anxiety. He also slants the examen in ways that could be helpful and creatively which might be worth a resource for people to look at as well. I’ll check the title and put it up.
Adri-Marie: Okay. Sorry. I don’t know what is happening with the sound. [01:10:00] Can you hear me? All right. I must confess that this is where I find voices and examples like Desmond Tutu extremely helpful that what you said, Russell, they’re not shying away of the hurts. They are also acknowledging the hurts, but also that enjoyment of God, as well as sitting amongst the pain. It’s almost if we shut ourselves off of the pain, that we’re also shutting ourselves off of the joy sometimes, But it is to help.
And it’s helpful to know that the Spirit is collaborating this within us. This is what the Spirit is yearning also for us. We don’t have to make it work or feel happy or feel joy, where there’s a collaboration.
Trevor: Thank you, Audrey. I appreciate that.[01:11:00] Gav, I see your hand.
Gavin: I found when you were speaking about consolation; for me personally, in days past and months past beginning to call 2 Corinthians the 5th Gospel because of what Paul is experiencing in his own journey in the depths of his own pain, in the depths of his own mortality, in the depths of his own situation with the Corinthians, and then tying that to what was happening in Jeremiah 30 to 33. In his own pain, in his own suffering, he’s talking a lot about ongoing love of Jesus, ongoing love of God, in terms of commitment to us, and the invitation into experiencing this while there’s all this turmoil [01:12:00] going on within his own nation and amongst the nations.
So, I found that for me, a very helpful place to put down an anchor, especially when I get news of Israel, of Afghanistan, of ongoing situations in our own country, it just helps me not to get sucked in and move into heaviness. But, in fact, Jesus is still offering, as you helpfully said earlier, this joy in John 15, and His words from beyond the grave are still words of life to me today in my own experience. This whole thing of abiding, finding a home when I’m not yet home, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I just wanted to add that in terms of other consolation friends.
Trevor: Thanks, Gav, and as I listened to you, I think [01:13:00] the encouragement that in moments like this, almost to keep one foot in the biblical text and in terms of what you were sharing, Jeremiah 30 to 33 and 2 Corinthians, keeping one foot there and the other foot within the context that we are living, and it’s in that one foot in the Bible kind of thing and one foot in what the human context is that word gets spoken to us that sustains us or helps us or energizes us or keeps us going. And maybe that tension of keeping one foot in either world being an important task for our own ongoing faithfulness. Thank you. Thanks, Gav.[01:14:00] Any other wonderings, encouragements, observations, questions? [01:15:00] Liz?
Liz: I have found it helpful to see myself as a day laborer in the Lord’s Vineyard, and that at the end of the day I just lay my burdens at the foot of the cross and I rejoice that God is in control and that’s all I can do. I’m just hired help for the Lord, and everything is really His and not mine. And so, I cannot get sucked into all this grief and sadness because I’ve done what I could do for that day, and I leave it at the cross and go on.
Trevor: Thank you, Liz for that. I’m just wanting to let your words sit with me a little bit. I’m wondering if I can add to what [01:16:00] you’ve said that maybe sometimes also as I enter into the sadness and the grief of the human situation, I also enter into the sadness and the grief that God experiences at this moment in time. So, my experience of the pain and the grief of what we’re going through is that God is not aloof from this, but that there’s a—and for me I know it’s a deep theological question and I’m not wanting to go down that rabbit hole, –but that God is also suffering and that God is also in pain and that my experience of sadness and grief is a fellowship with Christ in His ongoing pain and [01:17:00] suffering in this world. I’m adding that a little bit, if I may, Liz, to what you were saying that our sadness can—I think it’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer who asks the question, can we stand with God in God’s hour of grief?
That has been a haunting question for me that there’s a sense in which God is also involved in the pain and the suffering of this world, and that there’s a sense in which Christ not only is the source of joy, but Christ also weeps as well, and that it’s not one or the other, that Christ is the source of joy, Christ also weeps as He shares in the human predicament. As I say, I’m just wanting to respond from the [01:18:00] heart there, if I may.
Liz: But I’m not the savior of the world. Jesus is, and I can only do so much for people, and then I have to let it go and let God take over.
Trevor: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Just aware that our conversation is just so important because it just touches very deep spaces in our own life and what we are experiencing right now, and that the Fourth Week happens within the context of a real world, and I think our conversation is underlining that very, very strongly.[01:19:00] Maybe one more. Hi, Diana.
Diana: Hi, Trevor. I think what really struck me in the last little while is the conversation about validation—how Jesus’ joy came from the resurrection and how his life. was validated, and I wonder if you could just say a bit more on that.
Trevor: I think for me, when I use that word validation, that the major thrust, as I understand it, of Jesus’s ministry was the Kingdom of God, the reign of God, that Jesus proclaimed the reign taught about the reign of God, demonstrated it, [01:20:00] and that somehow the resurrection validated the reality of that reign of God, which Jesus had given His life for and proclaimed and taught about that the reign of God, the kingdom of God had triumphed. The reign of God had triumphed over the dark powers that stained human life. evil and death. That was a dimension of Jesus’s own joy that what I’ve given my life to and proclaimed has won the victory over these dark powers. I think that’s my imagination around this word validation. [01:21:00]
Diana: And how there’s a difference between approval? Is there a difference between approval and validation?
Trevor: Okay. I think I would keep a little bit of a distinction between the two in my own thinking. I would, yeah.
Diana: Yeah. I think there’s just something about, like for myself personally, people who’ve been serving the church for a long time.—bringing a lot of fruit how consoling validation would be
Trevor: Right. This is an expression of my hope, Diana, that maybe all the hidden acts that did not receive recognition or approval or [01:22:00] whatever in this, that every act for God’s reign of goodness, that one day there will be a knowing of a deep validation of those actions-that they really did count greatly to God.
Diana: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Trevor: I need to hand over to.
Annmarie: Thanks Trevor. Yeah. We’re going to hand over to Russell for prayer, but maybe I can just say thank you so much for that. And also, just to mention that I won’t be here the next three weeks. I’m going to be in the UK doing some visiting of people and some teaching. So, your assignments won’t be marked imminently, but I will get to them as soon as I am back. I just wanted to say that and [01:23:00] hand over to you, Russell.
Russell: Hey, so maybe to bring our time to an end, just to be still, if you would like to close your eyes. Given our topic this evening, I’m going to invite you just to listen to these words—
Lord God, your son, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. By his rising, our hope of resurrection dawned.
Help us in times of grief to take comfort in the Risen Jesus. [01:24:00] He shows us that the sadness of death gives way to the bright promise of immortality.
The Risen Jesus assures us that life has changed, not ended.
Be our confidence in times of loss and grief. Help us always to feel the gentle support of Jesus who by his rising has destroyed death forever.[01:25:00]
And we respond to these words. Amen.
Thank you everybody. Have a good week ahead and we shall see you in the same place next week. God bless you all.