On Resurrection: a ‘Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time’

An address given by the Dean of Melbourne, at the Funeral of Neville Finney (13 January 1934—20 May 2023), Lay Clerk Emeritus of St Paul’s Cathedral, on 26 May 2023

Neville loved magic. For many years, after the first Christmas Carol Service at St Paul’s Cathedral, the choir would gather at Bishopscourt for their end of year celebration. After the barbeque the boys (in those days the girls’ voices had not yet been established) would be allowed to kick their footy across the hallowed lawns of the Archbishop’s house, while the lay clerks, clergy and parents enjoyed a glass of wine in the summer sun. 

Then it was time to head into the Drawing Room for the choristers’ treats—choir boys receiving commendations and gifts—after which Neville would step into the ring and magic coins out of thin air and make them disappear in front of everyone’s eyes. A silk handkerchief would be produced—see: only one handkerchief—and turn into a vibrantly, colourful length of silk scarves. Cut ropes were magically restored to their full length. Coins would be pushed through the tabletop. In Neville’s hands, the impossible became possible and seemed effortless. A magical performance to conclude the choir year, that matched the magic of music which had gladdened the hearts of those attending that year’s Christmas Carol Service at St Paul’s only an hour or so earlier.

Neville was an integral part of music-making at St Paul’s Cathedral for 40 years, just as he had previously been at All Saints’ East St Kilda as a treble, then as head treble, and then an alto. He brought the same magic of making the effortful seem effortless, that was a hallmark of his performances as a magician, to his commitment to music. A cornerstone of the choir back row, at St Paul’s Neville sang at multiple Evensongs a week.

Neville not only sang music but set it, so that others might sing with him. In an age when computers meant hard-coding, and people knew ‘Sibelius’ to be a Finnish composer and not a universally accessible music notation program, he put his hand to music notation, for instance by setting the psalter composed by his wife Dr June Nixon, which is still in daily use at St Paul’s. Twice a year, Neville would put together and publish the Music Foundation Newsletter, sharing the choir’s accomplishments, and those of Australia’s first (and only—thus far) woman Director of Music, with a  faithful and generous cohort of supporters.

Neville was devoted to June, and her music-making: it was at his suggestion that she took on leading the choir here at All Saints’ in 1965. At St Paul’s, it was he who set her compositions for performance and arranged for them to be published. Neville organised their regular international recital tours and overseas visits; taking care of each detail. Recordings of the Cathedral Choir were produced by Neville, first as vinyl—a 7-inch EP, The Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral: AE Floyd remembered; June’s tribute, a year after taking on her role as Director of Music, to an illustrious predecessor organist and composer—later Neville would help produce the choir’s CDs. 

Without Neville’s magic of making the effortful seem effortless, Cathedral music at St Paul’s would have been all the poorer. As it was, Neville magicked sheet music and recordings out of thin air—or so it seemed to those who did not recognise the hard work that went into making things look effortless. Unless you knew the trick, it all seemed magic because so much happened out of sight, unseen.

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There’s another magic that happens unseen: the power of new life where death had reigned. The author CS Lewis called the resurrection a ‘deeper magic from before the dawn of time’ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, London: Geoffrey Bless, 1950). Lewis called the new life wrought by the resurrection ‘magic’ because it, too, happened out of sight. Unseen by any witnesses, in the dark before the dawn of Easter Day, Jesus Christ rose from the dead so that we might not have to fear death anymore.

God’s life-giving action at Easter is hidden; only the incredible result is visible. We only ever see the empty tomb, the stone rolled away, the folded grave-clothes and the messenger witnessing to the event. We never see the actual resurrection itself. However intently we examine the facts, we will only ever see the result of the resurrection: new life where there had been death; an empty tomb where the crucified Jesus had lain; a risen, living Saviour, greeting his friends in the garden of the resurrection.

Now, I don’t want to spoil Neville’s magic tricks—so if you want to maintain the illusion, now is the time to cover your ears. Neville worked with props and practised hard to make things appear and disappear out of thin air. I am not sure whether he’d show you the magic box he used, or the clever device—‘Slydini’s own “Coins Thru Table”’—that enabled him to press a coin into a table, only to vanish. Neville’s magic was based on props and a lifetime of experience as a showman—like his music making, his magical career started precociously early: he began practising with a children’s magic set aged four. But Neville’s magic was practised, was a clever illusion.

The reason why CS Lewis speaks of the power of the resurrection as a ‘deeper magic’ is because it is not an illusion. Jesus truly did rise; his disciples saw, touched and held him, and spoke with him. And because of this profoundly life-changing, incredible action we need not fear death when it comes to us. Death does come to all of us. Indeed, for Neville, and his family who cared for him, in these past months the shadow of death was never far away. Neville’s health deteriorated, and his physical strength gave way. His care was intensified until last Saturday, when he died, on the birthday of his beloved June.

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The patron of St Paul’s Cathedral, the apostle Paul, wrote these words to the church in Corinth: ‘Behold, I show you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet’ (1 Cor 15.51). Because of God’s ‘deeper magic’—the incredible power of the resurrection—life will come to all who died. We will change, will be restored, when Christ brings his new life to all who believe: ‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ will all be made alive’ (15.20-22). Our grave-clothes will be rolled up, and we, the perishable, will be clothed with imperishability, and the mortal with immortality, because ‘death has been swallowed up in victory’ once and for all, when Christ rose from the dead at Easter (15.54). 

When life comes to all; when the resurrection of all those who have died takes place, what happened unseen on the first Easter Day will be signalled by unmissable music. The trumpet will sound, and all the dead will be raised, and the world will join in Christ’s death-defying anthem: ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ (1 Cor 15.55-58). The great trumpet will sound, to signal that death is defeated and all are alive.

I never was able to talk with Neville about his own confidence in what Lewis called the ‘deeper magic’ of resurrection. But I know that he and June understood well the symbolism of the clarion call of resurrection: when the great organ at St Paul’s was restored in 1990, they both donated a new organ stop—the Tuba Magna, the ‘great Trumpet’. Our own musical herald of the resurrection, forever embedded among the bombarde stops of the mighty Lewis organ in St Paul’s.

Until that other Tuba Magna, heaven’s great trumpet, sounds for all of us, we live in hope and faith. We have to make do with the symbols of resurrection in our midst—the Tuba Magna adding lustre to our organ playing in St Paul’s, the life-giving power of music-making, the joy-giving power of magic—symbols by which we may remember Neville and comfort one another in our grief. As we entrust him to the ‘deeper magic from before the dawn of time’ today, I do so in the firm and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life that Christ has wrought for Neville and all of us. May he rest in peace and share in God’s ‘one equal music’ (John Donne, Bring us O Lord God), until the great trumpet sounds to summon all who rest in Christ to life imperishable.

© Andreas Loewe 2023

Easter: Hope for living today

A sermon preached at St Paul’s Cathedral by the Dean of Melbourne, 
the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at the Easter Vigil 2023:

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

In his first letter to the Corinthians, our patron, St Paul, challenges the early Christian community: ‘If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and your faith has been in vain’ (1 Cor 1.13-14). If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then there is no reason for us to believe, Paul confronts us. Yes, our society would be a lot fairer if we followed Jesus’ teachings to work for justice for others. Our lives would be much happier if we lived according to Jesus’ instruction to treat others in the same way in which we ourselves want to be treated. But without the resurrection, Paul tells us, there is no real purpose to our faith. ‘If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins’ (1 Cor 15.17).

Because without resurrection the world would have stopped on Good Friday: Jesus would have remained a condemned, crucified man. Without Easter, Christ remains dead. He cannot raise humanity, let alone forgive sins. How could Christ justify us, if he had not first been justified by God? If Christ had not been raised, there is no chance for reconciliation and forgiveness. Sin and death would have the final word. Without the resurrection, ‘those who have died in Christ have perished’, Paul knows (1 Cor 15.18). We remain guilty before God, and our faith would have no real purpose. ‘We of all people would most be to be pitied’ (1 Cor 15.19), because our lives as Christians are founded on the reality of Easter, Paul tells us. Our faith is meaningless without the resurrection.

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What does resurrection look like? Jesus spent much time teaching his disciples what new life in God looks like. New life in God looks like a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. When it has been buried, it germinates; rising through the soil to bear much fruit. New life in God is like a light that is placed on a lampstand and gives light to a dark house. In his parables, Jesus draws on the natural cycles of death and life in the world around us to explain that death is only ever a stage of life. Yes, every seed we plant dies, but only by dying, it can bear fruit. Yes, the darkness comes every night, but remains only until we light a candle, or the sun rises again. In the end, life and light will win out, Jesus assures his disciples. The very death of nature contains the seeds of life.

But the parables from nature that Jesus tells his disciples reflect only one aspect of the resurrection: the regenerative aspect of resurrection. The rhythm of life and death that is rooted in nature. In nature we see how new life is contained in each seed we plant; how immortality is already embedded in the natural order of creation. 

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True resurrection, however, goes far beyond a natural cycle of death leading to renewal of life. Easter speaks of resurrection—not regeneration, nor immortality—precisely because Easter takes so seriously the effects of death. When Jesus is crucified, we are confronted with a death that is real, brutal, and unequivocal. There is no doubt that Jesus died; tortured and broken on the cross. That this terrifying death has been overcome by God’s extraordinary intervention at Easter is what makes the Christian faith so powerful.

Imagine if the Easter story had ended on Good Friday. On Good Friday, we saw the powers of the world—betrayal, denial, injustice, inaction, spite, hatred, fear, mockery and anger—fully unleashed on Jesus. As he hangs on the cross, unrecognised as a Sovereign by the Romans, denied as God by the people of his own faith, Jesus holds the suffering and pain of all humanity between his outstretched arms; experiences the full impact of the despair of abandonment and God-forsakenness.

Imagine the story of Easter had ended that Good Friday, with Jesus’ lifeless body taken from the cross. Death would have had the final word in the story of humankind. Had Jesus remained in the grave, Jesus would have died twice condemned: both by his peers and by his God. ‘Let him save himself just as he saved others’, the cries of the crowd rang on Good Friday, as Jesus hung dying on the cross (Mt 27.42). A dead Saviour can’t save others, can’t justify others. Paul puts it starkly: ‘if Christ has not been raised, then you are still in your sins’ (1 Cor 15.17). Without God’s powerful action at Easter we would have been convicted alongside the One we follow. Then we of all people would be most to be pitied.

But Easter means that God is the God of the living, and the death of death. God is alive, and so is Christ; the tomb is empty and the stone that was meant to contain the Lord of life has been rolled away. Love lives again, in spite of the cross. Easter means that God has broken the power of sin and death. That God has not given up on his world. By conquering death, God has broken the power of destruction and death once and for all. By raising his Son from the dead, ‘as the first fruits of all who died’, he has raised all humanity to life (1 Cor 15.20). All may be forgiven and restored. When we die, none will have to die in fear. Because Life has been restored by the inexpressible power of God.

Paul knows that this hope was true not only for Jesus at the first Easter. God did not just raise one man from the dead. He has raised all people from death. The transformational power of the resurrection is true for all people, for all time. ‘If for this live only we have hoped in Christ, then we of all people are most to be pitied’ (1 Cor 15.19). But Easter is true eternally, it is true forever for all who put their trust in the risen One. God is the Lord of Jesus’ death, and God is also the Lord of our deaths. Just as he raised Jesus from the dead, he will lead all people from death to life. ‘As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ’ (1 Cor 15.22). Because of the power of Easter we, of all, are most to be blessed.

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At the end of all time, the risen Lord himself will tell the story of how he had been raised from the dead. Until then, we are given signs and symbols to assure us in our faith: the empty tomb; the witness of the first apostles who saw and touched, walked, ate and talked with, the risen Lord; the giving of God’s Spirit and the impact of that Spirit on each one of us as we grow in faith and trust. Until the time when we behold him in his glory, we behold the power of the resurrection aslant, Paul suggests earlier in his epistle: ‘now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall we will see face to face. Now we know only in part; then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known’ (1 Cor 13.12). We will only ever be able to comprehend the full power of Easter at the end of all time, when Christ will return and we behold the true glory and power of God with all the redeemed. 

Until that time, we see as if through a mirror; are granted glimpses of the resurrection to confirm our hope and strengthen our trust. We may see new life in the power of Christ to change lives—when we let our own lives be transformed by God’s love. We may see reflections of resurrection light in our world—when we carry his light to the places we live and work, the places we pray and come together to celebrate. We may see this power at work in entire nations: it is through the resurrection that we are enabled to work for reconciliation, and seek that new beginning, new heart that, for instance, a Voice for First Peoples in Australia offers, and the more just settlement for Indigenous People and Torres Strait Islanders offered by the gracious gift of the Statement from the Heart. And we see God’s life-transforming resurrection power at work this morning, in the lives of the 19 candidates for baptism, confirmation and reception met here today.

‘I am the first and the last, and the Living One. I was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever’, the risen Lord speaks to us in the final book of our Scriptures (Rev 1.17). And he assures that because he has overcome death forever that first Easter, we may have hope for living today: ‘I hold the keys of Death and of hell; do not be afraid’. 

Thanks be to God for giving us the victory, through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Easter in times of conflict

Easter Oration delivered at Melbourne Grammar School by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, on Wednesday in Holy Week 2023

406 days ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, setting off a war in the heart of Europe that has embroiled the entire world. Last Sunday, I walked alongside Ukrainian Christians at the Palm Sunday Rally for Refugees. There is a large Ukrainian community here in Melbourne, and I joined Bishop Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and other faith leaders in leading the rally through the streets of the CBD. ‘The war in Ukraine has led to 8 million people being made refugees’, Bishop Mykola told the thousands of people attending the Palm Sunday Rally. ‘Four million are refugees in our own country, Ukraine. Another four have fled to places as far away as Australia, Canada and South America’. More people than live in our state have been made homeless and fled the war. 

Earlier, I had asked another Ukrainian priest what it is that we can do here in Australia now that the war in his homeland is in its second year. ‘Pray for an end to the war’, Fr Andrej told me: ‘work for peace in the world, and tell the truth about the war in Ukraine’. These three actions—prayer and worship, working and advocating, and truth telling—are central to our lives as followers of Jesus, and will sustain us in times of conflict such as these.

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During Holy Week and Easter, we follow Jesus on the journey to the cross in real time. Day by day we follow more closely to the place of his suffering that is our salvation. For Christians, the cross is not the end of our journeys. Rather it stands at the beginning of our walk with Christ. One of my heroes of the faith, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, put it this way: ‘The cross is not the terrible end of a happy, pious life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of our community with Jesus Christ’. For those of you who do not yet know about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, let me give a brief introduction. A charismatic academic theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was well known for his direct, persuasive writings about what it meant for ordinary people to follow Jesus. Actively opposed to the rise of Fascism in Germany from its earliest days, he was one of the leaders of a group of over 7,000 pastors who, in 1934, broke away from the German Protestant church in protest of Nazi anti-Semitic laws that required all state employees, including pastors, to be ‘Aryan’. Bonhoeffer worked to train pastors for this illegal church, and worked to create communities of people who would understand what it means to follow Christ in times of conflict.

Because of his resistance, Bonhoeffer lost his lectureship, his freedom to broadcast, publish or speak in public. Over the coming years, he was sent out of the country for his own safety multiple times. And yet he chose to return and join his family in actively resisting Nazism. His brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi recruited him into a group of double agents, The Canaris Group, led by none other than the head of the German military intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Bonhoeffer committed to truth telling by smuggling evidence of Hitler’s war crimes out to Allied countries, while his brother-in- Hans was personally involved in a number of attempts to assassinate Hitler. The Canaris Group helped smuggle Jews to safety from Germany and occupied territories. 

It was sending money to support Jewish refugees they had helped reach Switzerland, that led to the whole Canaris Group being arrested in 1943. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned. First in Tegel Prison, then in a cell under the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, and later in Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1944, he was tried late at night, without witnesses, before a drumhead court-martial hastily set up in a laundry in Flossenbürg concentration camp. The documents about the failed ‘20 July Plot’ to kill Hitler had been found. In the final weeks of the war, Hitler personally demanded the liquidation of the entire Canaris Group. On 9 April 1944, three weeks before Germany’s total surrender, Admiral Canaris, his deputy General Oster and Bonhoeffer were humiliated, stripped and hanged on a butchers’ hook. Some witnesses say Bonhoeffer’s death took six hours. His brother-in-law Hans died the same day, in Sachsenhausen Camp. This year, their anniversary of death falls on Easter Day.

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‘The cross stands at the beginning of our community with Jesus Christ’, Bonhoeffer tells and adds: ‘the cross is laid on each Christian’. ‘In each case’, Bonhoeffer says, ‘it is the one cross’—the cross of Christ, on which he suffered and died on Good Friday, and over which he triumphed at Easter. When we witness to Christ through our words and actions, we bring Christ to the world, carry an inestimable gift to others. We witness to the One who carries our cross by carrying one another’s burdens. By telling the truth of the suffering and injustices others face, by advocating and fighting on their behalf, and by praying for and with them.

Telling the truth is one of the most powerful things a Christian can do. Last Sunday, faith and political leaders from across our state, Muslims, Christians, Jews, people from all walks of life, came together in calling on our government to give refugees a fair go. Holding nations accountable for their actions by speaking out, making the state responsible for what it does, is what Christians are called to do in times of conflict. Telling the truth, time after time, even against hope, even when we are wearied by the effort, will ultimately win out. Prophetic truth telling is what brought down Apartheid in South Africa and, here in Australia, led to the release the refugees on Nauru and the Park Hotel in Carlton, and to the opening of a visa track for refugees on temporary protection visas. Telling the truth about the sins of the past brought reconciliation in South Africa and, I hope, will be what also will lead to greater justice for First Nations people here in Australia.

Working for peace in the world, likewise, is an essential part of Christian discipleship. Commenting on Christian living under the repressive Nazi regime, Bonhoeffer said: ‘Where the world despises other members of the Christian family, Christians will love and serve them. If the world does violence to them, Christians will help them and provide them relief’. The outpouring of practical support by the nations neighbouring Ukraine, the unheard-of support of the world-wide community, is one way of showing forth the values of Christian living in times of conflict. If the ‘world’ feels too big for you, your local community and government is tangible and knowable. Supporting community organisations working with refugees, or even attending rallies like last Sunday’s are good ways in which each of one of us can show practical support. (Xavier College had a group at the March. I’d be delighted to welcome a group from Melbourne Grammar next year). 

Working for peace in the world means writing to our political representatives; advocating for swifter, more generous action in settling those displaced from war zones. You may never receive an answer back from your MP, but where many express the same concern, MPs do take note. In this way, we work regardless of the many people who seek to make faith irrelevant in modern society, and regardless of the many people, perhaps even a majority, who slumber when others suffer. This is what heroes of our faith like Bonhoeffer did in the 1930s and 1940s, and it is what we are called to do as we face the same challenges today.

All these actions—telling the truth and working for peace—are underpinned by prayer. Prayer is what unites us with Christ and resources our resolve. Prayer reflects the inward reality of faith to our world. By our prayer and worship this Holy Week and Easter we, too, can help others gain glimpses of this eternal reality. If you are already committed to being part of a worshipping community, do join its Easter celebrations. If not, then please join one or, of course, come to your Cathedral this Easter. 

It is by our own actions that we can shine some of the light of the resurrection in our world. When we live as disciples in this world—by our prayer, by working for peace and by telling the truth to power—Jesus himself will help us bear our burdens of faith-filled living and sacrificial action in this world. In the same way that Jesus’ disciples witness to his deeds of liberating power, so Jesus himself will witness to us in the time of our trial and suffering. 

This is what celebrating Holy Week and Easter, what faithful following of Jesus in times of conflict means: to stand by Christ in his suffering in the trust that, by doing so, we will also share his victory. Stand with him in the darkness of Good Friday in the trust that, by doing so, we will shed the brilliance of his resurrection light into the dark places of our world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer assures us that our Easter celebration becomes real when we witness to Christ in this world. Because Jesus will bear witness for us in the world to come: ‘Those who have held onto Jesus in this life will find that Jesus will hold onto them in eternity’, Bonhoeffer assures us. ‘Easter reveals to us the entire glory and power of God. Just as God raised Jesus in inexpressible power, so too will he lead his people from death to life. This is where we look in hope today’.

I wish you all a blessed Holy Week and a happy Easter.

Andreas Loewe and Katherine Firth have published Journeying with Bonhoeffer: Six Steps on the Way of Discipleship, on which the biographical summary is based.

Image attribution: Dietrich Bonhoeffer with children preparing for confirmation (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R0211-316 / CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Cathedrals: Places that make known God’s call

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, on the Sunday after the Ascension, 17 May 2015, at the National Cathedral, Washington DC:

I am delighted to be with you this morning, and I thank Dean Gary for his kind invitation to come and visit with you, and preach here this morning. Although I have come a long way today, I am not a complete stranger to your neighbourhood: some eighteen years ago, I had the privilege of living in Cathedral Heights. Then, I was a seminarian from the Church of England working at an inner-city parish in your diocese, and I daily undertook the audacious (some might say foolhardy) commute by bike from my temporary home near your beautiful Cathedral down to the centre of town via Wisconsin Avenue and Dumbarton Oaks. The way to work was exhilarating and fast; the way home was quite literally an uphill struggle.

Since my time in this city, discerning God’s call for my life and preparing for ordained ministry, I have served churches in the West of London and the heart of Cambridge in England as a parish priest, and worked as the Senior Chaplain and Senior Lecturer in Theology at Trinity College in the University of Melbourne. And so it is that a former neighbour from Cathedral Heights today brings you greetings from St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, which I am privileged to lead as Dean. St Paul’s is the Seat of the Anglican Primate of Australia, and I bring you warm greetings from our Primate, Archbishop Dr Philip Freier, and our four Sunday congregations.

St Paul’s stands at the heart of Australia’s second largest city. Built in warm sandstone, with soaring gothic spires—the second tallest in Anglicanism—it is an icon of God’s call to all people to encounter and know him. Our Cathedral is a church that not only the parishes, agencies, schools and colleges of our province call their home, but that is the regular place of worship for people from more than 25 nations; people whose backgrounds and stories, languages and cultures, could not be more diverse.

At St Paul’s we delight in the Good News that God calls people into his friendship and service regardless of their background or past. And we are profoundly aware that as Cathedrals, you and we are uniquely placed to invite others to come to know and serve God through our own witness and ministry.

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God’s call to all people to testify to his love stands at the heart of this morning’s readings. Our first lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles, shows probably one of the more unexpected ways in which God can call people to serve him (Acts 1.15-26). The story of the call of Matthias to be added to the number of the twelve is extraordinary: a lottery to decide who should take the place of Judas ‘who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus’ (1.16). For me, though, Luke’s story as told in Acts is not only an account of the surprising way in which God has called into his service an apostle of old. I believe that our first lesson says just as much about discerning and responding to God’s call to follow him in our own lives today.

We heard in our first lesson how the apostles and the 120 believers met in Jerusalem to choose a successor to Judas Iscariot. The Apostle Peter instructed the early Christian community of how this important choice would be made: the person to be chosen was someone who had ‘accompanied us … beginning from the Baptism of John until the day when Jesus was taken up from us’ (Acts 1.21-22). The person would be someone who had known Jesus at first hand, someone who might even have been baptised like Jesus with the baptism of John, who heard Jesus’ call, who saw the works of power he undertook, who saw him arrested and raised from the dead, was to take the place of Judas to become ‘a witness with the other apostles to his resurrection’ (Acts 1.22). The pool of potential candidates cannot have been unlimited, and so it should not surprise that the apostles proposed only two names to be a potential fellow-witness to the resurrection: Joseph the Son of Saba—Barsabbas—and Matthias.

The narrow field of candidates reflected the importance of their task. The apostle-elect was to share with the other apostles in the ministry of oversight, which in the first part of the Acts of the Apostles meant first of all the building up of the people of God by ‘daily adding to their number’ (Acts 2.47). Such a ministry not only required a personal experience of the transformational power of resurrection, a personal knowledge that ‘God gave us eternal life, and [that] this life is in his Son’, as our epistle puts it (1 John 5.11). It also required having walked with Jesus and the other disciples, having ‘accompanied us’—the word literally means ‘having broken bread with us’—‘throughout the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us’ (Acts 1.21).

Not only a personal knowledge of Jesus, but knowledge of the other followers of Jesus, the people with whom the Lord himself had broken bread. The person allotted the ministry of apostle was to be a fellow overseer with Peter and the other ten. Both Joseph and Matthias were already well equipped for their task: they knew Jesus, they had heard the ‘words that you gave to me … and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you’, as our Gospel reading tells (John 17.8). They also knew well the eleven apostles, and the 120 new Jerusalem Christians, and they were respected among them.

The call of the new apostle was not that of the early church, but Jesus’ call. Those who serve Jesus were called to be Jesus’ own, are called to be set apart: ‘sanctified in the truth’ and ‘protected in the Father’s name’, as we heard in our Gospel reading (John 17.17). Therefore, the apostles left the choice of their new fellow overseer to the One who had also called them, as Peter’s prayer in our first lesson makes clear: ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these you have chosen’ (Acts 1.25). Peter’s prayer is addressed to the ascended Jesus; in Luke’s Gospel, the word Lord, kyrie, is almost always a reference to Jesus. Peter and the ten regard the calling of the twelfth apostle entirely in terms of their own calling: Jesus himself would call Joseph or Matthias to the office and work of an apostle. The eleven would merely identify and confirm that call. And so it was that lots were drawn, and Matthias was called into his allotted place as an apostle, a fellow overseer, a fellow episkopos or bishop, of the growing group of early Christians.

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Today’s first lesson (Acts 11.15-26) tells us as much about discerning and following God’s call in the early church as it tells us about responding to God’s call to ministry in our own lives. As we think of the calling of Matthias to be an apostle, I would like to offer you four areas for your own further reflection on how God may call people to his service, and on how you and I may be equipped to serve God in our own communities:

• First of all, I think it is important to realise, as Peter knew so very clearly, that the One who calls is not the Church, nor the council of overseers or bishops, nor the congregation of the faithful, but Jesus Christ. Peter is confident that it is Jesus who calls people into his service, and that the Church, and the overseers or bishops, merely identify and confirm that calling. The call is Christ’s, but the people who identify this call are members of the community of believers and those who are given gifts of leadership and authority in that community.
• Secondly, it is important to remember that those who are being put forward as candidates for apostolic ministry are often people who have already acted upon a sense of calling in their lives. Joseph and Matthias had been with Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry: like Peter and the other apostles, they knew him to be not only their own Lord, but the Lord over life and death, whom they saw ascend to heaven to reign at God’s right hand. They already had much personal experience of what it meant to know and follow Jesus. This does not only mean that they knew Jesus to be Lord and God. It means that they knew his teachings and were able to share them with others with confidence: they were already people ‘who believe in the Son of God and have his testimony in their hearts’, as our epistle reminds us (1 John 5.10).
• Thirdly, the two candidates, like the other eleven apostles, were people of prayer. Their process of discernment about what it might be that God calls them to do in their lives began and ended with prayer—in fact ‘they were constantly devoting themselves to prayer’, we read in the first chapter of the Book of Acts (Acts 1.14). Not only the process of discernment, but their entire lives were shaped by this habit of prayer. The prayer in which the eleven apostles shared, and of which the calling of Matthias in today’s first lesson is an example, was corporate prayer: the apostles prayed together with the family of Jesus, shared in prayer with ‘Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers’ (Acts 1.14). Together they forged a community, a family, of believers who centred their lives around learning to pray together.
• Finally, the candidates were fully equipped and ready to take up their allotted task. Joseph and Matthias did not know where they would be sent—the Greek word apostolos means someone who is being sent—nor did the know with whom they would minister in future. Yet they chose to accept the call to the apostolate as if Christ himself had spoken to them through the casting of lots. Matthias to join the eleven and to take the place of Judas as an overseer, Joseph to continue his ministry as a respected member of the Jerusalem community of believers who knew and was able to testify personally to the power of resurrection.

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I said at the beginning that I believe that as Cathedral churches at the heart of our nations, our Cathedrals are uniquely placed to make known God’s call to fellowship and ministry to others. We are places where our bishops gather with their people to pray and confirm, through the laying on of hands, the calling of the Christ and his Church. We are natural places of invitation, where people from all kinds of backgrounds—tourists who visit our wonderful buildings, committed members and those who perhaps do not yet fully know what it is that they are searching for—can come together to worship, and thus learn more about God’s call to us and all people. We are places of prayer, whose common life is shaped by the rhythm of our daily life of communal prayer. And we are places from which those chosen for ministry are sent or are enabled to enter into their own apostolic ministry in the places in which they are to serve. As Cathedral churches we are placed like few others to equip and confirm others for ministry.

I give thanks for the gift of God’s call in the life of our church, and the role we can play, as Cathedrals, in bringing others to God so that they may receive his gifts of fellowship. As the season of Easter comes to a close, and we look forward to the season of Pentecost, with its promise of the gifts of the Spirit to equip and build the body of Christ for its ministry, I should like to encourage you to ponder what it is that God is calling you to do in your lives of worship and witness—both in your own lives, in the life of this Cathedral, and in the lives of the communities of which you are a part.

Again, our first reading provides us with a number of important pointers:

• Remember that the call to serve God is Christ’s. The ministry of Joseph Bar Sabbas would have been as important as that of the apostle Matthias. Not all people are called to an ordained office, yet all are called to exercise the ministry of making known the message of Jesus Christ. Rejoice in that calling.
• Remember that it is important to know Jesus and know about Jesus. Joseph and Matthias knew Jesus first hand. We, too, can know Jesus through the words that are recorded about him in the Scriptures, as well as through our personal prayers. Use the opportunities given to you at the National Cathedral, your local church, or the community from which you are visiting today, to further your own understanding of Jesus; to learn more about his words and works recorded in Scripture, and about the ways in which we can deepen our understanding of Jesus in worship and spirituality.
• Remember that it is important to pray as a community. The decision to appoint Matthias was clearly underpinned by communal prayer. It is important to pray as a community—and the first Chapter of Acts makes clear how a community can be shaped by regular common worship and the breaking of bread, and so be equipped to grow. Come and join the daily prayers at the National Cathedral, or share in weekday prayer at your home churches as often as you are able to do so. It is in this way that we belong to, and are shaped into, communities of prayer.
• Finally, remember that there is grace in accepting your allotted place. Matthias readily stepped into the role allotted to him, yet he did not know where his response of faith might lead him. It is often easier to assert with the benefit of hindsight that the allotted place was indeed the right place, and I would encourage you to take courage from the example of Matthias whenever you may be presented with your own ‘allotted places’ of ministry; your own allotted calling.

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‘The apostles prayed and said: Lord, you know everyone’s heart.  Show us which one you have chosen. … And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles’ (Acts 1.24-26). As we give thanks that God continues to call women and men into his friendship and service, I pray that the examples of Joseph and Matthias sustain us in our own journeys of faith, and ask that God would bless you and me, as we continue to discern and seek to follow his call.

‘Now to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, ministers serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen’ (Revelation 1.6).

© Text: Andreas Loewe, 2015, Photography: carmengroup.com

Mary, Cleopas and we: Making the Easter Vision real

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, on the Third Sunday of Easter at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne:

‘The Lord is risen indeed and he has appeared to Simon’ (St Luke 24.36), the couple rushing back from Emmaus told the startled disciples—a couple transformed by their meeting, on the open road, with the risen Jesus. In today’s gospel reading, we hear how Cleopas and his wife Mary, who had stood with the women under the cross of Jesus (John 19.25; for the view that Cleopas’ unnamed companion is, in fact, his wife, Mary of Clopas, see: Richard Bauckham), make their way from Jerusalem through the hill country to ‘a village called Emmaus’ (St Luke 24.13). All their hopes were quashed, ‘they stood still, looking sad’, we hear (St Luke 24.17). And they told the stranger who had joined them on their walk about the things that worried them: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place’ (St Luke 24.19-21). ‘We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’, they said to the stranger. And in their hearts may well have thought: ‘but this was not to be. It was all in vain’, they may have thought. ‘And now it’s too late to do anything about it’.

And the stranger who had joined them on their way told them: ‘You fools—do you not know that the Messiah had to suffer in order to be glorified?’ (St Luke 24.26). The Messiah has to suffer, he told them, before he can be revealed in glory. And he interpreted the Scriptures, so that they would understand why this was so. And they took to him, and asked him to stay with them: ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over’ (St Luke 24.29). And it was there, as night fell and deep darkness surrounded them, that they recognised the stranger by the way he broke the bread at table. And just as they recognised him, Jesus—for it was he—disappeared from their sight. And they said to one another: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ (St Luke 24.32). And Cleopas and his wife Mary rushed back into the night to return to Jerusalem, to tell the other disciples that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead.

The couple on their way from Jerusalem were wearied from the events that had led to Jesus’ arrest and his crucifixion. Their world had been shattered; they still found themselves surrounded by the darkness that descended onto Jerusalem on the afternoon of Good Friday—during the time that Jesus hung on the cross. That cloud had not been lifted from them. And for some of us, that cloud may not have been lifted, either. On the contrary—news reports from Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and, closer to home, Nauru—only add substance to that darkness. And then there are the many personal darknesses in our lives. I can understand why Cleopas and Mary want the risen Christ to stay with them: many of us would want the risen Christ to remain with us in our darkness: ‘Stay with us’, we’d like to say to him, ‘because darkness is gathering, and it will soon be completely dark outside’ (St Luke 24.29).

Stay here, Lord, stay with us and shield us from that darkness. But that is not what Jesus does. Jesus does not stay with the couple on the road to Emmaus. Instead the Mary and Cleopas leave their homes once more, and turn back, and enter the darkness once more. They brave the darkness that holds all their fears in order to return to their friends, to tell them that it is indeed true: ‘The Lord has risen, indeed’, they say (St Luke 24.34). And their joy at the news of Christ’s resurrection bursts through the darkness that had frightened them so much. The psalmist assures us that darkness, the thick tangible darkness where those horrors lurk that make the news or the subject-matter of deep and difficult conversations, that that darkness is not dark in the eyes of God: ‘Even the darkness is not dark to you’, we read in Psalm 139, ‘the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you’ (Psalm 139.11). And in the light of this assurance, and the experience of Cleopas and Mary, we are to do as they did: we, too, are to rush out back into the darkness to tell others that there is no reason to be afraid any more.

How great the surprise of Mary and Cleopas must have been when they returned to Jerusalem: they had just finished telling the other disciples what had happened on the road, and how they recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread when, we read in the continuation of today’s gospel story, ‘Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you”.’ (St Luke 24.36). The same Jesus who would not stay with them in their comfortable road-side inn, the same Jesus who sent them hurrying back into the night of their fears and worries, that Jesus appeared before them in the midst of their room and told them: ‘Peace be with you’. And they must have understood why Jesus just could not remain with them in the inn at Emmaus. Why they had to journey through the night—only to be greeted by Jesus at Jerusalem. The peace that Jesus bestows on them—the ‘peace be with you’—was the peace that had overcome their experience of the darkness, on the road back home.

Meeting Jesus can change lives like that. We heard in our first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, how the frightened disciples, who in last week’s gospel were still seen meeting behind bolted doors in that desolate upper room of the Last Supper, became bold preachers of the message of Christ’s resurrection. We read how they overcame their own darknesses to spread the light of Christ. And we are told, that we are called to be ‘witnesses of these things’ (St Luke 24.48). We, too, are to tell those around us that there can be light in the midst of all that darkness. We are to tell—we read—‘that forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Jesus’ name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’ (St Luke 24.47). And this is the most important message to us this Easter-time: that meeting Jesus changes lives. That Jesus—now as much as then in that Upper Room—speaks words of peace to his people. And I have come to know that this work of transformation from sinfulness to forgiveness, from fear of darkness to peace and radiant light, begins when Jesus’ followers—when you and I—join together in making this Easter vision a reality.

It is this Easter Vision that lies at the heart of our Cathedral’s vision to become a place of transformation in the life of our city and diocese. We can glimpse it when we meet to break bread in our worship Sunday by Sunday; when we share a meal at our monthly congregational lunches and young adults’ group meetings. We can see it in the lives of others whenever our many volunteers—Chaplains, guides, shop volunteers and welcomers—welcome visitors to this building. We observe it through our work with migrants and refugees through our English as a Second Language program, our ministry of prayer and healing. We see it at work when we witness adults and children come to faith through our enquirers’ programs, through baptism and confirmation preparation. We see it at work even when we plan to renew our office and meeting spaces, or our procedures and governance, so that they become resources and instruments for ministry.

A record of this lived-out vision is set before us in our 2013 Annual Report. It gives glimpses into our rich life and many ministries, and pays tribute to the generosity of time and talents of our staff and volunteers, and records some of the milestones on our journey—the achievements our Cathedral community who have already joined to help make our Easter Vision a reality. I am delighted to serve this Cathedral as Dean, and am thankful for the many moments in the past year when the Easter Vision has been shown forth in the lives of our congregations, and our Cathedral community: moments that help us on our journeys to transform our city and diocese through the light of our Easter faith.

The Easter Vision that today’s readings set before us encourage us first of all to recognise the signs of renewal in our midst—the ‘talking on the road’, the sharing in the breaking of bread, that can lead to recognition of the living Lord in our midst, that can set our own hearts aflame. And out of that recognition, our readings tell, comes the motivation for action: with the first disciples, and all those who, through the generations have borne witness to this Easter truth, we, too, are called to share in that life-changing power: we are invited to recognise the signs of Easter life in our midst, and then to go and face the darknesses that surround us. I look forward to contributing with you—through giving of our gifts, our time and our talents—to this Easter Vision. For like Mary and Cleopas, who braved the darkness of the Emmaus road to witness to the true light in their lives, so we, too ‘are to be witnesses of these things’ (St Luke 24.48); people who to carry the good news to those who yet have to recognise and believe that the Lord is risen indeed, and is alive and changing lives in our midst today.

© Andreas Loewe, 2014.