When I was rector of a parish with teenagers, I often found myself saying to one or more of them, “I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read the book.” Well, right now, I’m reading a book because I saw an episode of the BBC television production of Hillary Mantel’s 2009 novel Wolf Hall.[1] I’ve had a copy of it for quite a while. It got such good reviews when it was published. Historical fiction. It’s based on the life of Thomas Cromwell, who would become the minister of Henry VIII who oversaw, among other things, the king’s divorce from Queen Katharine, his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and Anne’s beheading.

For the last Sunday of the Easter Season, the appointed gospel from John takes us back to the supper before the Passover. That night, Jesus knows that he is going away, and he knows that he’s going to return. He shares this news with those he will for the first time that very night call “friends.”[1] Jesus also knows that he is going to die, but he does not speak of it directly.

Humankind’s relationship with God comes from God. Humankind’s awareness of God’s relationship to humankind changes with Jesus Christ. When the Word became flesh, humans were revealed to be, like Jesus, children of God.

What we know as the tenth chapter of John stands between Jesus’ healing of the man born blind—chapter nine—and the raising of Lazarus from the dead—chapter eleven.

The disciples whom the Risen Jesus met on the road to Emmaus—perhaps a man and a woman[1]—know all about Jesus, but—and I’m not sure how to understand this—“their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”[2] Dr. Mark Davis translates the Greek here as, “their eyes were held from him so not to recognize him.”[3] (An echo of the Exodus where repeatedly Pharaoh’s heart is hardened so God can perform the miracle that he wants to perform?[4]) (By the way, the title Davis gives to his comments is, “Two Idiots and a Lord Walk into an Inn.”)

Two important words that accompany the different accounts of the resurrection are fear and joy. In Mark’s gospel there was only fear when the women left the tomb. In Matthew there was fear and great joy. In Luke fear and joy. And in John, fear and joy—for everyone except Thomas. John the evangelist narrates the story in a way that covers a lot of what we would call theology.

At the supper before the Passover, Jesus told his disciples, his friends, that he was going away and that in “a little while . . . you will see me.”[1] Yet nothing Jesus did or said prepared his friends for the reality of his death, and nothing Jesus did or said prepared his friends for the reality of his risen life. Peter and the unnamed disciple whom we know only as the disciple Jesus loved left Jesus’ grave when they found it open and seemingly empty except for some cloths. They did not understand what they had seen; so they left.

The historic gospel reading for this Eucharist is from the very beginning of John’s account of the supper before the Passover, what we call John chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. These five chapters are together the longest narrative by far in any of the gospels—and tonight we heard only the first fifteen verses of the account.

Jesus’ words about being the Shepherd of the sheep are found between two of the most powerful narratives in John’s gospel, the Healing of the Man Born Blind[1] and the Raising of Lazarus.[2] The man born blind asked nothing of Jesus; but Jesus healed him and sent him to wash. His healing will not be welcomed by his parents or his community. He doesn’t even know what Jesus looks like, but Jesus again seeks him out. Then Jesus explains to some Pharisees who are watching them that he is the Shepherd of the sheep. He says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”[3]

Fifth-century pope Leo the Great is credited with assigning Matthew’s passion narrative to the Sunday before Easter and John’s passion narrative to Good Friday.[1] In the seventh century Mark and Luke’s narratives were assigned to Tuesday and Wednesday of what we call Holy Week.[2]

The promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their descendants would dwell in the land of Canaan[1], lived on after Jacob died in Egypt.[2] On Wednesday night gone, our reading from Genesis ended with Jacob’s son Joseph requiring a promise by that his body would be embalmed and would be carried into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when God visited them and fulfilled the covenant.[3]

The man born blind did not ask Jesus for anything. He did not know who smeared dirt on him and sent him to wash. I can’t help but think that in the moment he was manhandled, it would have seemed to him to be just another one of the humiliations like those he had known all his life. Yet at the heart of this story, New Testament scholar Sandra Schneiders points out, is the unnamed man’s commitment to the law of God given to Moses, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”[1] The truth—lower case “t” for the sense of what is true, not false, and capital “T” for the one who is the “Way, the Truth, and the Life”[2]—sets him free in more ways than he could have imagined before he could see.

I pulled out the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament the other day to look up the entry for a word that I’ve been paying more attention to since last Easter. The gospel for Easter morning, of course, is John’s account of the resurrection—Mary Magdalene, Peter and the disciple we know only as “the disciple Jesus loved” at the tomb. Quite honestly, I was looking for something to help me with John—on which I think I have preached for 28 Easter mornings in a row—so I turned to Matthew. It’s the only other gospel where the risen Jesus himself speaks on the morning of the resurrection. And I got lucky.

In this lectionary year, we started reading Genesis at Evensong on the First Sunday after the Epiphany. We began at the beginning with the first creation story. We’ve had two Sundays away from Genesis. We picked up Genesis last Monday with what Genesis calls the story of the family of Jacob, but it’s really the story of Joseph. And that’s where we are tonight. During the fourth week of Lent, we will move from Genesis to Exodus. But this year, like most years, we will end up hearing almost all of Genesis through the Sundays and weekdays at Evening Prayer.

In the background of today’s gospel lesson are words from a song of Moses found in Deuteronomy, which  “Moses spoke . . . in the ears of all the assembly of Israel.[1]I He said to the assembly, “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”[2] Into the world of the descendants of that assembly of Israel, the Word of God was made flesh. Salvation no longer belonged to the old covenant but is the gift to all who believe and become children of God,[3] to all who are born from above by the Spirit.[4]

Dr. Mark Davis in his online scripture blog, “Left Behind and Loving it,”[1] suggests, for grammatical reasons, that instead of hearing the devil say, “If you are the Son of God, [then] command these stones . . . throw yourself down [from the building]; . . . fall down and worship me,”[2] we should only use the word “if” in the first two tests. Instead, we should use the word, “since.” Checking the dictionary, he’s not wrong.[3]

The first record of ashes being used by Christians in association with penitence comes from sixth-century Spain.[1] Ashes were given to penitents who, because of serious public sin, had been publicly excommunicated.[2] A ritual for the imposition of ashes is found in the altar book for the bishop of Mainz, now Germany, in the tenth century as part of the liturgy at the beginning of Lent.[3] In spite of the words of Jesus that we just heard—always associated with the Mass for the beginning of Lent—at the end of the eleventh century, Pope Urban II decided ashes would be offered to everyone on this day in the Western Church.[4] Maybe not this year with the rain, but most years, in our city of New York, more people will enter churches today for ashes than on any other day of the year and for any other reason. I know of no other city where this is true. So what do ashes mean for us? What can ashes mean for us?