The Story within the stories

 

Reflection given at Zoom Night Prayer on Monday 4th April 2022

John 18.12-24

Reading tonight’s gospel passage reminds me that the Story of our Salvation is found within the everyday stories of daily life in first century Jerusalem.  It is the story within the stories.

Take Annas, faither in law to the High Priest Caiaphas.  His story dominated the initial decades of the first century.  He had been High Priest himself and remained the ‘power behind the throne’ whilst he fours sons, in turn, succeeded him.  Now, with his son in law in power, he remained the mover and shaker in chief.

Annas, it’s thought, was just about as corrupt as they come.  He was a sycophant to the Roman Governor rather than a champion of the Jewish people. 

His family were immensely rich because they owned the stalls in the temple selling unblemished animals, the only sort suitable for sacrifice.  Even the poorest worshipper had to buy their sacrifice at the Booths of Annas at a price which was almost ten times more expensive than outside the temple precincts.  These were the booths that Jesus turned over when he took a stand against extortion in the name of justice. 

No wonder the troops took Jesus to Annas first.  The old high priest wanted to see the young upstart face to face.  And when he did, he broke the law.  A Jewish law which said no question could be asked of a prison which, when answered, would self-incrimate him.  So, Jesus answers back by saying, ‘Ask others, not me’.  He wasn’t evading the law, just reminding Annas that it was he, Annas, who was breaking it at this point by asking this type of unlawful self-incriminating question.

So much going on.  So much history. The story, within all these stories.

 

And then, this evening, a mystery.  The mystery of an un-named disciple who has right of access to Annas’ house, who is allowed in first because he is well known there, and then sends out a message to Peter that he too could come in.

Who was that mysterious disciple with unexpected connections in high places?  Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Judas, or was it John, the writer of the fourth gospel himself, the beloved disciple?  Some think it might have been.  They suggest John’s Galilean family had a branch office in Jerusalem and sold salted fish from the north in the capital, even supplying the house of Annas.

Another story within the story.

For us, of course, there’s only one story in Holy Week, yet in reality it was going on within the context of all the others.

I remember those days after my parents or grandparents died almost feeling surprised that other people were still getting on with their routines in the shops, on the buses, on the TV, when the only thing that mattered to me seemed so earth shatteringly big, yet no one, outside the family, was noticing.

The final ordinary, routine story of the night came at 3am, the start of the 3^rd watch.  Peter denies his Lord three times, not as a real cock crowed, for no cocks were allowed in the city, but as the early morning trumpet call, which happened at 3am every day to signal the beginning of the 3^rd watch of the night, was sounded.  A trumpet call commonly referred to as the cock crow. 

And once again The Story of Holy Week finds its place within the stories of every day and every night.

God’s activity, the moving of the Spirit among us, isn’t separate from but integral to our ordinary lives and the many stories that make up our every day.  It’s in those ordinary moments when we meet with God and his story becomes ours.  There really isn’t something called sacred, and something called secular, just life. And God is part of it all.