Then Jesus cried out,
‘Whoever believes in me is really believing in the One who sent me. Whoever sees me sees the One who sent me. I have come as light into the world so that whoever believes in me would not stay in darkness.’ John 12:44
Possibly it is something of the Lenten pilgrimage of discipline, prayer and during Passiontide, the focus on Jesus setting his face towards the Jerusalem and the cross, which remind us that an essential focus of Christian vocation is that of building hope. It is also a really challenging work because such positive transformation is a powerful force. There are therefore strong forces that will try to stand against it. Yet we must remember that despite the challenges, God goes ahead of us and meets us along the way and empowers us in such work.
In our humanity, our organisations and planning are a gathering of pressures, ideas, hopes and struggles, initiative and the church is no different, yet also holding realities in tension with identity as the body of Christ. Passiontide is perhaps a time when we focus most on our understanding of church as gathering and worshiping community and everything that means in terms of our worship and liturgy the days leading up to Easter. In some ways maybe it is in that tension that we encounter something of the mystery of the Incarnation as God with us, completely with us in our humanity and struggle, as we encounter Jesus’ journey to the cross, yet also as the light of Christ that shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Those words from John 1 remind us that the struggle of Christian pilgrimage will always be profound, but that hope is always a powerful part of the narrative as well. And perhaps most of all Passiontide reminds us that wholeness and healing as expressed in the Gospels are presented as a lifelong journey and pilgrimage as we carry the light forward faithfully, carefully in our hope solidly founded in the resurrection of Christ.