Open our eyes, Lord, that we might see heaven open

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at Christ Church St Lawrence Sydney on Laetare Sunday, 19 March 2023:

John’s Gospel, through which we are journeying during the middle of Lent, is the gospel of the coming of the light into the darkness of our world. The central theme of the coming of God’s light, and its rejection by the world is set out right at the start of the gospel, in the great prologue of the Incarnation. In Jesus—God’s eternal Word-made-flesh—was life. That life was ‘the light of all people’. Jesus’ life brings light. God’s coming into the world as one of us can open our eyes, and help us see ‘even greater things’—even heaven opened, as Jesus promised Nathanael in the first Chapter of John’s Gospel. 

Throughout the Gospel of John then, the drama of the light coming into the world is played out. In the first ten verses of the Gospel, John tells us how his story will end: ‘the true light, which gives light to all people, has come, yet the world did not recognise him’. In spite of this incredible gift—light to walk by in darkness, and life to live by eternally—people rejected him. From the very beginning, John lays out the division that the coming into the world of the Son of God brings: those who prefer darkness are unable to recognise Jesus’ light. They seek to extinguish the Light of the World, by killing Jesus.

At the highpoint of the Gospel, which has been sung so evocatively for us yesterday evening, the light of life blazes in judgment on the world. There is no darkness in John’s Gospel at the point of Jesus’ death. The sun is at its peak, as Jesus is crucified. Jesus accomplishes the work of salvation on the cross as the sun shines at its brightest. A reminder to us that even though the darkness can put Jesus to death, the world’s darkness will never overcome his light.

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Jesus is the world’s light, and Jesus gives the world life. And, as Jesus wants to open our eyes so that we may see ‘even greater things’: the reality of heaven opened.

This morning, the parable of the battle between light and darkness that underlies all of John’s Gospel is played out in the miraculous healing of a man born blind. All who follow Jesus—even those born blind—may have God’s light of life. While the disciples are trying to score some theological point—‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’—Jesus tells them that this sinless man had been denied sight so that God’s works might be manifested, and proceeds to open his eyes.

Without much ceremony, Jesus made mud. Mixing dust with his own spit, he anointed the blind man’s eyes. Jesus—God’s Word-of-creation-made-flesh—takes the stuff from which all creation comes and to which all creation will return, and uses it to anoint the blind man’s eyes. Our translation lets us down here: the Greek reads ekchrisen—which really means ‘anoint’, not ‘spread’: from the root we get our words for chrism and Christ. Jesus, God’s Anointed, anoints blind humanity and sends the man away to wash in the pool of Siloah.

And just in case we might have missed the point of the story, and John’s Gospel—that Jesus has been sent by God to give people the light of light—John helpfully tells us that the Hebrew name of the pool means ‘sent’. In the same way in which the Father sent his Son so that the world may have God’s light, so the nameless man is sent by Jesus to have his eyes opened and have light. And the man went, washed, was able to see, and came back to his neighbours. And Jesus disappears from sight, leaving the man to explain what happened.

Obviously, the man had never set eyes on Jesus. He was blind when they met. All the man knows about Jesus is his name. When he returned home, now able to see, his neighbours were suspicious: either he had not really been born blind, or he was not the same man. ‘Never since the world has began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind’, the man himself reflects later. And because they can’t understand what has happened, his neighbours take him to the religious authorities, the Pharisees.

Where his neighbours were incredulous, the Pharisees were dismissive. There was nothing to see here. Jesus was not from God because he did not keep the commandments. He had healed on a Sabbath. Therefore, the miracle was a sham: the man couldn’t really have been blind. The final encounter between the nameless man and the Pharisees is a masterpiece of John’s storytelling, as the people who believed that they were specially enlightened—because they guarded the faith—try to get the man to deny that Jesus had given him light and sight.

Increasingly isolated (disbelieved by his neighbours, not really supported by his parents—‘he is of age, ask him’—bullied by the Pharisees), the man has realised that Jesus was much more than a miracle healer. During his three interrogations, he has come to understand the truth: that God sent Jesus to bring light. Where first he called him, ‘the man called Jesus’, he now knows Jesus to be ‘from God’. That conviction—combined with his bluntness and boldness: ‘why do you want to hear my story again, do you also want to become his disciples?’—led to his excommunication.

The Pharisees ‘drove him out’, John tells. Leaving Jesus, who was nowhere to be seen during the man’s interrogations, to search for him. Jesus finds and asks him: ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ And the man who, through three interrogations, had in his heart already chosen to follow Jesus, affirms his choice: ‘Lord, I believe’, he told Jesus. As he had his own glimpse of heaven opened—his own Epiphany—he worshipped Jesus.

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Becoming a believer in Jesus, and worshipping him, is the reason this Gospel was written, St John tells us at the end of his book: ‘These signs are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that you may have life in his name’. People who accept Jesus’ light will live. They will see the world through Jesus’ eyes—in need of God’s life, in need of God’s salvation. They will be able to snatch glimpses of heaven open in their daily lives.

Jesus calls each of us to open our own eyes to that life-giving light. He tells us that have our need for life and salvation is met in him. He charges us to look at the world around us and shine his light into its darkness. He dares us to look at our community through his eyes, and there see glimpses of heaven opened. And most importantly, he tells us to invite others in sharing his life-giving vision and light.

We are invited to shine Christ’s light into the dark places of the world by our advocacy and action. At St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne, we meet together regularly to pray, think and talk about how we as a community of disciples can help shine Christ’s light. Our members help shape our vision for our Cathedral advocacy. Together we decided to shine a light on First Nations Justice. Since 2016 we have been actively working with our First Peoples to seek a more just settlement for Indigenous Australians. During the past three years have appointed three First Nations Canons. Last year, we studied the Statement from the Heart together. This year we want to shine the light of Christ’s justice into our nation, by our advocacy for a Voice to Parliament. When we shine Christ’s light into the dark spots of our life—personal, corporate or national—we can see more clearly what needs to be done to change, and can work together to bring about change.

We are invited to carry the light of Christ into our communities by our welcome and service. At St Paul’s we carry Christ’s light into our city by working for Refugee Justice; being a place of welcome for people from all nations and backgrounds. For more than a decade we have advocated for, and welcomed, migrants and refugees. Our welcome to people who have fled their homelands and our helping them rebuild their lives here in Australia has changed our life as a Cathedral community. We are truly international now, with people from more than 25 nations; some with their own national fellowship groups. When we carry the light of Christ to into our communities, we can not only bring hope and healing, but will be changed by that light ourselves.

We are invited to open our own eyes afresh to see heaven opened in our daily lives by our learning and living. At St Paul’s we believe that, before we go about inviting others to open their eyes to the reality of heaven open, we need to open our own eyes first. Which is why we take Christian formation seriously. We meet Sunday by Sunday to study God’s Word together. We invite people to explore our faith by regular enquirer courses, leading to baptism and confirmation. This consistent invitation bears much good fruit: this Lent, we are preparing 25 candidates for baptism, confirmation and reception on Easter Morning. Our congregations have grown, not only in numbers but also in self-awareness and confidence. In a recent study group, we asked ourselves how we can be better equipped to talk of God’s love with our neighbours or work colleagues. When we let our eyes be opened to Christ’s light, and actively invite others to share Christ’s life-changing vision, we may ourselves see greater things and be given a new and broader vision.

Friends, we all are invited to let our eyes be opened to the reality of Christ’s life-giving light. We Christians are given that light to shine into the darknesses of our world. We each are given that light as a guide on our own journey of life. We each are called to look out for glimpses of heaven opened in the places where we live, work and worship. And by letting ourselves be changed, be suffused by that light, we are called to work to make heaven open a daily reality, not just a distant possibility. ‘I am the light of the world’, the Lord assures us as we journey together with him: ‘whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life’.

Thanks be to God.

© Andreas Loewe, 2023

Sleepers wake: the Advent call to rise from the darkness and be lights in our world

A reflection given by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, on Advent Sunday, 29 November 2015, as part of a service of lessons and carols for Advent:

[Click for Audio on Soundcloud]

One of the first classical concerts I ever took part in, as a boy treble attending a German Lutheran High School named for the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, was a liturgical performance of Bach’s famous Advent Cantata, ‘Sleepers wake’ – ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’. We were all dressed in our black and white concert gear, assembled on the choir galleries of the large impressive city centre church, the orchestra at our feet, with the conductor poised to break the silence of the audience with Bach’s wonderful music.

As the violins soared, the trebles called out the solemn cry of the watchman on the city wall of Jerusalem, ‘Sleepers, wake, the bridegroom comes; wake up, all you who sleep in the city of Jerusalem’, we sang. It was an electrifying moment when the director gave us trebles our entry: ‘Wachet auf’, we called in Bach’s unforgettable setting of the timeless words. And the basses, tenors and altos took up our theme, calling the audience to be alert, awake; to listen to the Good News that the long awaited bridegroom had finally arrived.

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The text on which Bach’s famous cantata is based is one of the last parables (or teaching stories) Jesus tells his friends, the disciples (Matthew 25.1-13): Jesus tells of those who kept alert, awake, through the night, who had kept the light going in the middle of darkness, and were able to see when the bridegroom arrived. As they joyfully entered the brightly-lit wedding hall for a midnight feast, those who had let their lights go out remained outside, were left behind in the darkness, Jesus told his friends. And encouraged them, ‘be alert, therefore, for you do not know the time or the hour’ (Matthew 25.12).

We do not know the time or the hour when Jesus Christ will return, joyfully like a bridegroom, to take us out of the many darknesses of our nights into his brightly-lit chambers for a feast of light. For each of us those darknesses may be different, may pose different challenges, represent different fears. For some, those nights of waiting are spent in fear or nightmares – the fear of persecution for their faith or displacement, the nightmare of terror or war; the fear of ill-health or age, the nightmare of depression and anxiety; the fear of redundancy or injury; the nightmare of unemployment, or of no longer being able of to make ends meet. Each of our nights, each of our Advents; looks and feels different.

But in each of these seasons of waiting through the hours of our nights and darknesses, we are encouraged to keep a light burning. Jesus’ story tells us to keep a light burning. A light that will both cast a glimmer of hope in the darkness, and that will keep our eyes alert, wakeful, ready to see the light-filled procession when the bridegroom comes. Jesus’ story tells us to keep our lamps trimmed; drawing on the resources of our faith – our prayers, our intent to love the Lord our God, and our neighbours as ourselves – in order to keep those lights burning through the night.

And Jesus’ story invites us to come together in our waiting; to leave behind the isolation of the darkness and to seek out glimmers of other lights, others who will share with us in our season of waiting. Because where many small lights come together, there the darkness is already disappearing. Jesus’ story invites us to fill the dark hours of our world with our lights, and to do so together, as a community of faith: encouraging one another as we wait for the greatest light of all to come, and extinguish all darkness forever. And as we wait, as a token of that hope, we are each given a lamp, a light, to share and to shine into the darkness, as we await the promised feast when Jesus comes again.

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I loved performing Bach’s music as a child, and am delighted that I still get to sing today, once or twice a year, with the MSO Chorus. I well recall the excitement of that first performance, poised for my entry to sing the joyful song that the darkness now is over, and the bridegroom is here: ‘Wachet auf’, we sang, ‘Sleepers wake’, we sang out; telling all who would hear that those who kept their lights burning through the night were already on their way into the wedding hall, and inviting others to join the joyful feast of the Light that has overcome the darkness, of the Light that illumines even the middle of the darkest night.

The season of Advent is a bit like preparing for a musical performance, like Bach’s ‘Wachet auf’. Rehearsed and ready, in our concert clothes, standing in our places, with music in our hands and the song ready in our heads, watching out for the conductor to signal us to sing. Alert and awake, ready to sing out at the right signal, ready to call others to join the joyful song, ready to call any who will listen to hear that now is the moment to awake, to leave behind the darkness and to enter into the light.

This Advent, I give thanks for the joyful song that promises to call us from darkness to light. I give thanks for the time of preparation, the time when we rehearse that song through our prayers, our reading of the stories that remind us of God’s promise that the darkness will not have the upper hand, when we share our works of hope in a world where there is still so much hopelessness. I give thanks for those who rehearse, who wait, with us, who share their light, their companionship, with us as we wait. And I give thanks for those who lead us in our song, who keep their eyes alert with us, who encourage us to keep our joyful song ready in our hearts – ready to call out: ‘Sleepers, wake: the Lord is here’.

Ⓒ Text and Audio: Andreas Loewe, 2015 

The Good Shepherd: Life and Light to all he brings

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, 24 April 2015:

St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne: ‘Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep”.’

‘I am the good shepherd’, Jesus told the people gathered in the Jerusalem Temple at the Jewish winter festival of lights. ‘I know my own and my own know me’. His own, those who had followed him from Galilee to Jerusalem and who surrounded Jesus on his journeys, now share with him in the Jewish celebration of light. Those who are his own, sought him out because they saw in Jesus a ‘light shining in the darkness’ (John 1.4).

Early on in their journey with Jesus some of their number had intuitively known Jesus to be ‘the Son of God, the King of Israel’; had felt in their hearts that here was the One who would be God’s light for this world (John 1.49). And so they followed him, and walked with him. And heard him confirm to those who had ears to hear that he was God’s answer to the rising darkness: ‘I am the light of the world’, they heard him say, and heard him invite others to leave the darkness behind: ‘Who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of light’, they heard him tell (John 8.12).

And now it was winter, and the light was at its lowest. As darkness was increasing across the world, they remained with the One whom they knew to be God’s light, stayed close to the One whom they knew to be the life and light of all people (John 1.4). They heard Jesus tell the people that the rising darkness and the absence of light were connected: they heard Jesus tell the people that God’s light would be extinguished because ‘people loved darkness rather than light’ (John 3.19). They heard Jesus tell how the people would ‘stumble, because the light is not in them’ (John 11.10); how when the ‘light of this world’ did not shine any more to guide them, many would fall.

Now the light was still shining, and the world did not need to think about the coming darkness: ‘Those who walk during the day do not stumble’, Jesus acknowledges (John 11.9). But just as certain as the midday sun, was the dark of midnight: ‘There are only twelve hours of daylight’, Jesus cautioned his hearers (John 11.9). Yet even though God’s light would not shine forever, those who had heard Jesus’ voice would be kept safe: ‘I have come so that they may have life, and have it in abundance’, Jesus tells them (John 10.10). And the way by which they would be kept safe, Jesus told, was by choosing to follow him as their guide, their light, through life.

For following Jesus was as if they had a good shepherd to guide them on their ways. Was as if they had someone to walk with them when the darkness rises. Someone to ensure that their steps are kept safe, even though it was certain that the ‘darkness will overtake them’ (John 12.35). Jesus cautioned that that those who walk in darkness without the light would lose their way: ‘they do not know where they are going’ (John 12.35). Those who have the Good Shepherd, on the other hand, would be able to walk even through the darkest places: ‘I have come as light into the world’, Jesus assures his followers, ‘so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness’ (John 12.46).

The Good Shepherd would walk with those who hear his voice and know him through the darkest places; even though the darkness of the night that was encroaching. With the Good Shepherd at their side, they would be able to walk even through ‘the valley of the shadow of death, for God is with them; his rod and staff comfort them’ (Psalm 23.4). Where those who loved the darkness would be subsumed in the shadows, and stumble, Jesus’ followers would be able to walk even through the darkness of the valley of death. They would be able to do so because their Good Shepherd knew each stumbling block in that dark valley; knew each right pathway through the place where death was at home. The Good Shepherd knew the way through the valley of the darkness of death because he himself had walked through that fearful place. ‘I am the Good Shepherd’, Jesus told the people, ‘the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep’ (John 10.11).

There would be a time when those who had heard the voice of the shepherd would be bereft of their guide. At the time when the light of this world was extinguished, darkness would fully cover the earth. At the moment when Jesus died on a cross, there would be no guide through the dark places of this life: for the Good Shepherd was laying down his life so that all who followed him might have life; was himself walking through the darkness in order that all who followed him might never again walk in darkness but have the light of life. There would be a time when the light was extinguished, at the moment when darkness was finally overcome. There would be a time when life was laid down, at the moment when death was finally defeated. For the Good Shepherd lays down his life in order to take it up again (John 10.18). The Good Shepherd himself walks through the valley of the shadow of death, so that goodness and loving kindness may follow us all our lives.

The Good Shepherd braves the darkness of death freely. Jesus told the people that the life he would lay down was his to give. Jesus’ life would neither be consumed by the darkness of evil, nor sacrificed to the shadow of death. Jesus’ life was his, as was his death; both are a free choice. ‘No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’, Jesus explained, ‘I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it up again’ (John 10.18). And he added, by way of an explanation: ‘I have received this command from my Father’ (10.17). And because he freely lays down his life for those who hear his voice, and because by his death he gives life to all who obey his call, God loves the Good Shepherd: ‘for this reason my Father loves me’, Jesus told the people, ‘because I lay down my life in order to take it up again’ (John 10.17-18).

At the time Jesus died on the cross, as the Light of the World was overshadowed by death, sun and moon were extinguished. At that time, the Good Shepherd entered the valley of the shadow of death to lay down his life. At the time the Good Shepherd took up his life again sun and moon were still extinguished. ‘It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark’ on the day of resurrection, we read. Between the darkness of Good Friday and the darkness of Easter morning lies the Good Shepherd’s journey through ‘death’s dark vale’. A journey made, so that he might be able to lead all others through the darkness of suffering and death; that he might ‘refresh our souls and guide us’; that he might ‘comfort us with the presence of his rod and staff’; and might sustain us ‘in the face of those who trouble us’ (Psalm 23). A journey entered in darkness and concluded in darkness, so that we might not have to endure darkness forever, but may walk by the Light of Life; may walk at the side of our Good Shepherd.

At the end of our journey guided by our Good Shepherd stands the vision of safe pasture ‘in the house of the Lord forever’ (Psalm 23). Because the Good Shepherd has laid down his life for the sheep, he will bring us to a place of safety, will lead us out of the darknesses of our lives to a place where we might enjoy his presence forever, and finally be ‘one flock under one shepherd’ (John 10.15). At the end of John’s story of the struggle of darkness and light, of the struggle of death and life, we find Jesus standing in the rising sun at the shores of the Lake where the disciples first knew him to be the Messiah and the one who calls—fishermen to fish for people, and flocks to follow the Good Shepherd. Jesus spreads a table before them; those who had once troubled them are now far removed. They share a meal, and know Jesus to be the One who walked through death so that they can live.

And as they share the bread he broke for them, and the fish he grilled for them, the risen Jesus asks Peter, ‘do you love me?’ (John 21.15). And Peter confesses his faith in the Good Shepherd, and is charged to ‘feed my lambs’ (John 21.15). Two times more Jesus asks Peter ‘do you love me’, two more times he is given the opportunity to confess where once he had denied in what, surely, must have been his own valley of the shadow of death. And as he declares his love and loyalty to Jesus, he is told to ‘look after my sheep’ and to ‘feed by sheep’ (John 21.16-17). At so, the end of the story of the Good Shepherd stands the command to love and obey him: by looking out for his flock. ‘I have other sheep also that do not yet belong to this fold’, Jesus had told Peter and the disciples before he walked into the darkness of death: ‘I must bring them also … so there will be one flock, one shepherd’ (John 10.15).

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The risen Good Shepherd continues to call people to his flock. And he charges us, the people who have experienced his care, who have experienced his forgiveness, who rely on the presence and comfort of his staff, the light that shines on our paths, and the food that he provides for us at his table, to make that call known to others. ‘Do you love me?’ – ‘look after my sheep, and feed them’, he asks all who have heard his voice.