A Maundy Crucifix

An illustrated sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at St Catherine’s Parish Church, Crook, Maundy Thursday, 5^th April 2012.

Since spreading its wings in February 1998 Antony Gormley's The Angel of the North has become one of the most talked about and controversial pieces of public art ever produced. Rising 20 meters from a former Gateshead colliery pithead baths, the Angel, made from 200 tonnes of steel, dominates the skyline, dwarfing all those who come to see it. Most surprising of all was that the design model for Gormley’s Angel became the first £1m object to be valued on BBC One's Antiques Road show in 2008. 

But like most of Gormley’s work the Angel at the time of its construction aroused quite a bit of controversy including a "Gateshead stop the statue" campaign. His work is still controversial. Here is a piece, called Transport, it is suspended above the site of the most venerated shrine in all Anglicanism, the first tomb of Archbishop Thomas Becket, murdered at Canterbury cathedral in 1170. It is made up of old iron nails taken from the repaired roof of the Kent Cathedral.  

Another controversial sculpture which excited the religious press last year was this.  The Scottish artist David Mach made this 9-foot sculpture of the crucified Christ out of 3,000 coat hangers, in part, to honour the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.  The "Coat Hanger Christ," as it is being called, was on display outside St. Giles' Cathedral on Edinburgh's Royal Mile.  This year it is in Southwark Cathedral, London. My Methodist churches in Spennymoor, Sedgefield, Ferryhill and Crook Churches Together have already viewed it during my Lent services – their comments reflect that of my wife – they don’t like it!

Perhaps one of the most controversial pieces of twentieth century art is a piece entitled Victim no resurrection, a uncompromising and controversial crucifix painted some 27 years by Terry Duffy in the aftermath of the 1981 Toxteth riots (it seems astonishing that last month in Liverpool the Labour Council made a Tory grandee Freeman of the City, Michael Heseltine. He was overheard to say that walking the streets of Toxteth after the riots was one of the most influential experiences of his political life). Over the years the painting which originally sought to bring attention to the plight of the poor and black of Liverpool, now inspires a more contemporary context to Christ’s passion focusing upon issues of global importance, the victims of genocide, holocaust, slavery, torture, terrorism, tyranny, bigotry and hatred. From Liverpool the crucifix has been installed in a variety of locations around the world, Dresden, South Africa, Belfast, New York, Auschwitz, Sudan, Bosnia, China, South America, Palestine and finally Jerusalem paradoxically at Easter 2014 for the 'Resurrection'.

I caught up with the cross a couple of years ago at St Ethelburga’s, Bishop’s Gate near Liverpool Street Station, London. It seemed to me when I was looking at it that this cross is like a window into human suffering. What this cross articulated was not salvation, but a very raw scream – a scream welling up from the guts of pain and suffering. The head of the figure shakes in chaos. The left hand is flayed open as though fanning the panic, the right hand frail as though starved of nourishment. In the midst of the image, a knot of agony: dark, bruised, cut, defaced, bleeding, a vulnerable body – exposed, defaced, tangled, running.

Looking into this controversial cross I am reminded of the victims of torture, today; the victims of natural disaster, the refugee, the asylum seeker – struggling, alienated, confronting; homeless people longing for change. I am reminded of the lonely, the broken, the struggling, the elderly fighting old age, my friend dying with cancer. I was reminded of my own deepest fears. When the crucifix was hung last year in St Martin’s in the Field, London, the vicar wanted to put a question mark at the end of the title Victim – no resurrection? To seek to imply that yes, in faith we believe that all suffering is redemptive.

But as I looked at the crucifix I began to think there is something profoundly disturbing about a victim without hope. Who wants to acknowledge that? It is ugly. It is frightening. We turn away. “No Lord, I will never betray you – even if others forget you and fall away, I will never betray you.” “No, this cannot happen to you.” “What are you talking about?” the disciples ask Jesus. So what do we do? We try to make the narrative safe – to turn the horror of this death into an episode on the way to happy ever after, where Good Friday will soon lead us into Easter eggs and new life, fresh flowers in an Easter garden. Of course it struck me that Jesus did not know this narrative and neither did his disciples. Certainly he may have glimpsed a beyond – but not for sure. Tonight begins a journey into darkness – a journey made more fearful because, if we open our eyes, we realise this journey into darkness is the experience of many and can be our own journey too. It is the journey of faith, where the future is not known.As I look at Duffy’s controversial cross and that knot of agony I think of my mother-in-law soon to be 103 and the weariness of old age. I think of my terminally ill friend facing only further illness. I think of the anger of a homeless unemployed person telling me of the injustice he is facing, and what am I going to do about it? I think of the lives lost 100 year ago this month from that great ship Titanic which we remembered in our choir concert last Saturday night at The Sage.

Here is the Irish sculpture’s Rowan Gillespie’s new statue Titanica, crucifix in shape, unveiled last week in front of the new Belfast Titanic Museum. I think  of  the service men who lost their lives 30 years ago in the Falkland conflict, the plight of today’s people in Syria, Christians in Zimbabwe and Pakistan – an unexpected and sudden death on a Spring morning, a death that left the family confused, bewildered, even angry. The sudden mystery of death can seem cruel, sudden and like all deaths final, irrevocable, absurd, often savage. The world can be a contradictory place. There is so much wonder in it, so much splendour, like David Attenborough’s recent acclaimed Frozen Planet. So much enjoyment and pleasure like a good novel, the love of grandchildren, the music of Beethoven, the Beatles and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. On the one hand one is bedevilled by the sight of so much poverty which destroys human life; diseases which frustrate the happiness of thousands; hunger and want which afflicts multitudes; the threat of war and disaster and constant violence turns a garden of paradise into a valley of death. How can all this suffering, all this agony, all this darkness be reconciled with the God who claims he is a God of love, of mercy and friendship?   

And I know...... know deeply that all of us at some stage in our lives we like that bereaved family must make that journey into darkness, that journey into the unknown. Christ is in that very position on the night he is betrayed, on this Holy night. And tonight we have come once more to look to him. He is about to make that journey we most fear, to ‘the root of the scream’ on the Duffy crucifix. What does he show to us? What does he leave with us which can help us? Why have we chosen to remember this? 

Take heart! Jesus is not simply going to leave us with platitudes, and words. He is going to leave us actions – sacraments, visible signs, to help us in the darkness.

The first thing we are told is that he had always loved his disciples in this world, and he loved them until the end. The reason we have gathered tonight is that this is not past tense; this is now. We too have gathered here as Christ’s disciples and we are told, he loves us until the end. To show that love Jesus performs an action. It was awkward and controversial then for the disciples; it is awkward now. It disorientates us, makes us uncomfortable, feel embarrassed and unworthy. “Not my feet. Choose someone else’s.” Our leader, the one we respect, admire, love, look to, give authority – strips off his outer garments and wants to wash our feet. There is an impulse to resist this. “I don’t want my feet washed. I don’t want this reversal of roles.

I want my God to control things, not to serve me, not to depend on me.” “I have given you an example,” he says, “and you must also do what I have done to you.” In the face of his own death, Jesus’ action is not one of obvious defiance but profound humility. Quite the opposite of self defence, he responds to his impending betrayal and attack with an action of complete self-giving – an action so contrary to self-preservation that it disturbs us, disorientates us, perhaps makes us cry out with Peter, “Are you going to wash my feet too?” He even responds to his betrayer with love.

The next controversial action that we will remember tonight is also startling, disorientating, hard to explain. Jesus will take bread in his hands and say to us: “This is my body, given to you,” take wine and say “this is my blood, shed for a new relationship between humanity and God – my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.”

In a very direct and radical way Jesus is giving himself to you, body and spirit, as we enter the darkness. I cannot say these words at a communion table without sensing that they reach to the deepest part of all of me and all of us. I cannot explain these actions, I don’t think any sacramental theology ever really can explain and define them or make them safe. And yet these actions do speak to us. Speak to us at the deepest level of our personhood. We must dare to live them. This is God’s love given to you. This is God’s life given into your life. This is the visible sign of the truth that will lead you through the darkness.

Perhaps at moments, we, like those first disciples, will lose sight of all of this. We will be swept up into doubt and confusion, but return again and again to these signs – even with trembling. This is the height, the depth, the breadth of God’s love. Nothing will separate you from that love. On the one hand, this seems to be the most vulnerable thing, the most exposed thing to be offered, and yet it is also the most precious gift in all the world and the one we are called to share.

This is where resurrection begins. Begins in darkness. Begins in fear. Begins in doubt. Begins in the offering of a love seemingly so powerless.

Amen

 Exodus 12.1-4, 11-14;

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit