The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A, February 3, 2008, St. Matthew’s Church McMinnville

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil.3:10-11).

There are lots of things we “know about”: we can read them in books or in newspapers or see them on television, or even learn about them on talk radio. We can surf the web and collect information about all sorts of things. There is so much to know about that we can suffer from “information overload” if we’re not careful. There are also things we think we know, but which turn out to be false. There’s a lot of misinformation, and some downright lies: you can’t believe everything you read or hear. And then again there are times where what we know changes, and suddenly we are in a strange country where everything we knew is different.

When the Apostle Paul says in our second reading that he wants “to know Christ”, “the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings” he is not talking about this kind of knowledge. It is one thing to “know about” something, and another thing to “know” it. I can pick up People magazine and read about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and I will “know about” them. But I don’t “know” these people like I know my wife and children. I can “know about” the theory of relativity, or the history of France, but I don’t know it like I know my job.
The way of salvation, Paul tells us, does not lie in “knowing about” the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but in “knowing” the crucified and resurrected Lord. This knowledge is closer to the bone than just “knowing about” it. If you just “know about” your spouse or children, you are a complete fraud. If you “know about” your job, you are still looking at the instruction manual, but if you “know” it then it has become a part of yourself. The people who are closest to us and the jobs that occupy us are a part of our lived experience; they are things we know, because they are a part of who we are.

Paul wants to share in the sufferings of Christ so that he can share as well in his resurrection. This is our vocation as Christians: to come to know these things so closely that they become a part of ourselves. It’s not easy to share in suffering, so I do not say this lightly. But for Christian faith, there is always the movement from death to life, the movement that we find in Jesus Christ. The confirmation that we celebrate today is part of this grand movement, where we come to know Christ and become a part of him. Our confirmands are keeping this truth before us, through their commitment and their willingness to “know” Christ. That knowledge, that lived experience, only comes through our own suffering and the discovery through it of the joy of resurrection.

Lent is the time when we come, not to “know about” Jesus, but to know him. It’s not head knowledge, but heart knowledge. That knowledge of Christ, unlike the things we “know about”, can never change. That knowledge does not depend on misinformation, and is never based on a lie. It becomes a part of who we are as we become a part of who he is.

I think that the experience of Saint Matthew’s Church in these past few months is part of this larger picture, the coming to a knowledge of Christ’s sufferings so that we can attain the resurrection. God knows this knowledge is close to the bone. It’s heart knowledge, piercing to the quick. It’s knowledge that has been dearly acquired, at great cost. It’s become a part of who we are. Now, it is our opportunity to become a part of who he is, in the glory that shines forth in our Gospel today. For all of us, there will be resurrection, and new life in Christ.

The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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