Message of Abbot Paul - Easter Saturday - 6th April 2024

I would like to thank everyone who wrote to express their sorrow and condolences at the sudden passing of dear Toby. I must confess that I found each word, each phrase, each expression of respect and love so moving, so touching and so comforting in this moment of parting and loss. Yet, I am so grateful to God for bringing Toby into my life eleven and a half years’ ago and through him bringing so much happiness and joy to so many people.

 

​Today’s Gospel passage comes from Mark, (Mk 16: 9-15), and is a kind of appendix to the Gospel. It’s a summary of three appearances of Jesus to his disciples after the Resurrection. The Gospel proper ends with the women running away from the empty tomb, frightened out of their wits. These verses seem to have been added later so as to complete the Gospel story on a more positive note. The first concerns Mary of Magdala. “Having risen in the morning on the first day of the week, Jesus appeared first to Mary of Magdala from whom he had cast out seven devils. She then went to those who had been his companions, and who were mourning and in tears, and told them. But they did not believe her when they heard her say that he was alive and that she had seen him.” Essentially, this summarises the account in John 20, but emphasises that Jesus had cast out seven spirits from Mary and that the disciples don’t believe what she has to say. Also, they’re called companions rather than disciples and are mourning and in tears.

 

Then follows a brief summary of Luke’s account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. “After this, he showed himself under another form to two of them as they were on their way into the country. These went back and told the others, who did not believe them either.” Rather than say that they do not recognise Jesus, we are told that he appeared under another form. Yet again, like Mary of Magdala, no one believes them.

 

Finally, we have what could be a conflation of John 20, Jesus appearing to the disciples in the upper room on the evening of Easter day with Matthew 28: 19-20, the Great Commission, or sending forth of the apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation, which in Matthew takes place on a mountain in Galilee. Strangely, in the Lectionary verses 16-20 are missing today. We will come to them another day. “Lastly, he showed himself to the Eleven themselves while they were at table. He reproached them for their incredulity and obstinacy, because they had refused to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation.’”

 

​The question for us today is whether we believe or not. Perhaps we just half believe. St Augustine did say that the only proof of faith is doubt, so that’s a start!

We can always pray as the disciples did, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.”