The sermon for Maundy Thursday, 24 March 2005

Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans

Had you gone into the parish church of Eaton Bray in the early 16^th Century you would have seen a Rood Screen, with images of Mary and John the Evangelist either side of the Great Crucifix. Then dotted around the church you would have seen images of saints: there was St Anthony, St Nicholas, St Christopher, Our Lady, St George, St Erasmus, Our Lady of Pity, St Eligius, St Sunday, St Thomas, and an image of the Holy Trinity. Burning in front of them there would have been candles. We know about these saints because some of the parishioners of Eaton Bray left money to them in their wills – including one man who rejoiced in the name of Cuthbert Cutlatt. He left money for the Lights of St Eligius, St Sunday and St Thomas.

It was the same here in the Abbey: saints and images everywhere, 12d. was left by Maurice Wyrall in 1471 to the Light of St Erasmus; Edward Auncell in 1471 left money to the Holy Trinity Light; John West in 1471 left money to the image of St Mary and they and others also left money for the “new Rood Loft”. Within fifty years of those wills being made the images had been completely destroyed. In 1538 Henry VIII sent out a series of injunctions which ordered that all ‘feigned’ images in parish churches which were the object of pilgrimage should be moved and it was also ordered that no Lights were to be set in front of any image or picture except for “the Light by the rood lofts, the light before the sacrament of the altar and the light about the sepulchre”.

Although images had been subject to attach and defacement by the hollards before the 1530’s – it was only the late 1530’s that the wholesale destruction of images began.

The evidence, if you go to East Bray now is to be seen in the remaining and empty image niches and brackets; and here, in St Albans, in this Nave Screen…..

I am not going to go in to the reasons, theological and ideological which led to this destruction, but what it did do, visually was to radically reshape the way people looked at their Church buildings – and looked at their faith. As well as being an attack on what some people called idolatry, it was a recognition that looking could have profound spiritual and social consequences. If you can control what people look at you can control, to a certain extent, what they think…

Now skip a few centuries, to the 19^th Century and this Cathedral. You will need to picture the nave empty of chairs. At the far West End you will need to imagine one of the vergers with a series of blindfolds. Standing near them are some visitors. The vergers blindfold the visitors and then tell them to run the length of the cathedral. It was, as the chaos and confusion ensured, a considerable local sport. It all goes to show, I suppose, that each generation treats sight and understanding differently; but every generation recognises the significance and importance of its visual world.

Now, come swinging back through the centuries to the last week in Christ’s life: and see the events unfold through his eyes. He has made his way south down the Jordan Valley – the hills stretching up on his right hand side, and to the East, beyond the flat plain of the Rift Valley, the blue hills of what is now Jordan. He comes to Jericho, and there is met by a blind man (Mark calls him Bartimaeus) “What do you want me to do for you?”: “Lord, let me see again….”.

Jesus’ visual world, of the Jordan, the Rift Valley, the palm trees, the walls of Jericho – was a full-scale, panoramic vista. Then he began the climb up the zig-zag mounts road that led to Jerusalem- - the hills either side, the occasional flock of sheep an goats grazing amongst the boulders – through the Pass itself, and eventually the view of Jerusalem, the Temple radiating the morning sunlight; sharp shadows, shifting colours – and then up on to the Mount of Olives with the City itself in front of him, strong and massive in its beauty; followed by the ride on the donkey, the driving out of the money changers.

But note this: Jesus’ visual world became narrower. The open skies and distant horizons of the Jordan Valley, were replaced by the urban, the enclosed, alley-ways, market stalls, crowds – and the dominating architecture of the Temple and the fortress.

During the week the visual world narrowed still further until it became confined to the interior shapes of an upper room; and, following that, the darkness of night when the prayer on the Mount of Olives was interrupted by the noise of a crowd, and the half-faces and menacing shapes of a crowd picked out in torch-light.

Then narrower still – to the High Priest’s house – until, the visual world of Christ was blotted out completely by a blindfold. (It’s only St Luke, by the way who includes that detail).

And if you explore this theme of Christ’s visual world you will realise how, of course, the final glimpses of the world would have been thought blood and sweat, the world hazed with pain, until the darkness of death fell upon him.

It is part of Luke’s genius, consciously or unconsciously, that a week that began with the opening of the yes of blind Bartimaeus should come towards its end at Emmaus with another miracle of being. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him and he vanished from their sight”.

This day, apart from its inherent holiness and poignancy, is also a very significant one for us as deacons and priest and Readers – we meet in this holy place, with each other (oh! let me emphasise and re-emphasise this), with each other, sharing discipleship, looking again at Christ.…looking at Him with yearning perplexity and love.

I state the obvious, I suppose, when I say that we are called as priest, teachers and evangelists to open people’s eyes to the beauty of Jesus Christ….though, note, that we seem to do this more by words than anything visual – but that’s another story. Our task is not to create Christ, to package Him, to gossip Him….our task is to enable others to see Him.

But let me move from stating the obvious to another layer. And I hesitate to do this, because it is so threatening.

What I am referring to is to our calling, not only to teach and preach, but also to follow ourselves the Way of the Cross. Presumably, that may mean that spiritually, if not physically, we may discover that our visual world like Jesus through force of circumstance, becomes smaller. We move from the broad horizons to the City, from the City to the inner chamber, the Upper Room (and that I can probably cope with); but it’s the next stage – from the Upper Room to the darkness, and maybe even from there to the disorientating darkness to the blindfold, which is a frightening challenge.

We experience it from time to time in miniature. You will have had the enormous privilege of being with others, priests and lay, who have entered that blindfolded darkness – and you will know that there all we can do is to be alongside, to wait, to be in solidarity. Love requires nothing less of us than this.

But you will also know, in prayer, in the sacraments, in the Scriptures, in conversations with others the grace of the Emmaus moment when our eyes are healed again by Christ and we can see Him for who He is…..

The iconoclasm of the 16^th Century was a powerful attempt to control the visual world of Christian people… Such forces, wanting to constrict and restrict are always there. We are witnessing something similar in our own generation in the Anglican Communion: that quest for power and dominion which is designed to control what we see and, therefore, what we think and what we say.

I believe that that has to be resisted; and resisted with courageous honesty and openness.

What we have to pray for, for each other and for ourselves, is that we may have our eyes, our sight, healed and restored by the Risen Christ: the blindfold released by wounded hands and by the tenderest, gentlest touch bidding us yet again to follow Him out of the darkness and in to the radiance of heaven.