Coracle Trust E-Reflections
Holy Week: Who am I?
Thursday 21 April 2011
Who (be quiet) are you? In silence, Thomas Merton
The arrest of Christ, Albrecht Altdorfer
Read John 18: 1-27 and return 'They came carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.'
The eye and the storm
The night time arrest of Christ seems, with darkness and hissing torches, part menace and brute force and also part melee and scrum. Jesus replies to the questions put to him with the clear, still and powerful 'I am he', twice and the 'I am Jesus of Nazareth' twice. This is one heck of a grounded person – settled with his earthy and also heavenly roots. We look back to his early days, of discoursing with the learned as a boy, of working with Joseph, of his confirmation at his baptism, ‘behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’. And here the two faces, if you like, of Nazareth and heaven are integrated. He has claimed himself fully, and though not unaffected, is ready for the denouement. Peter on the other hand instinctively swings his sword and also replies to the questions put to him with, 'I am not he' in his denials. It's comforting for me to read of the humble awareness of self, of limitation and projection that Peter is latterly led to.
We come into this world with many faces and it is good toward the latter part of our life to have unified them into one*.
Question: Who am I?
Who am I? What relation does that have to heaven, to God? At our very centre, entwined with God we are one. Again Merton speaks: Our own deepest self is not so much our own self as it is the self one with the risen and Deathless Christ. Andrew Hook * vague and poor reworking of a Thomas Merton thought
