The edge of Holy Week: sunsets and sunrises

I am almost finished in my preparation for worship for Holy Week, just a Maundy Thursday supper, a sermon for Good Friday and an Easter Sunday service to write, somewhere in the busyness of this coming week. This week not only will bring church services but also two funerals and two pastoral visits which need to be done this week because people are struggling. We also have a big day personally as we go to see our future home in Hastings again, which is exciting, yet a reminder we are soon on the move which is a bit scary!


I guess I am reminded in all this activity that Holy Week is all about Jesus entering the busyness of the real world. In a week, he feels the acclaim and rejection of people, he goes through every human emotion possible, he suffers and dies, and he gives us hope that negativity is not the end of the matter. Part of what I still feel called to do is to share with people that in the craziness of life, and yes, even in the craziness of the Church, there is always hope. The Christian story has to face hard things, even death, in order to celebrate new life. At two funerals this week, I shall preach the Gospel. My pastoral tutor taught me years ago always to preach the Gospel at a funeral and I have never forgotten his advice.


I enter Holy Week which is always a tremendous privilege to lead people through, remembering the good news that there is nothing we face, where Jesus has not been first. I have a crucifix in my hall in the manse. Some Methodists find this difficult, but I need it there to know that my God suffers with me and transforms that suffering. Easter Sunday is a wonderful celebration. Jesus had to rise from something, and it was from the worst that another person could do to you in his day. To see Jesus on the cross is a constant challenge to me to help those who struggle and a constant source of peace to me that he is somehow there ahead of me especially at times when I struggle with stuff.


I took this picture of the sun while I was on Holy Island. It is setting above the hills. We were just coming out of Evening Prayer at about 6pm from the Parish Church and felt a tremendous sense of peace as we just watched the view in wonder. I guess that Holy Week while hard is a comfort, in that there is nothing in life or death that can separate me from God's love. Tomorrow, it being All Fools Day, I am thinking about Jesus being a holy fool, using some of an essay I read a few days ago. The author writes: " I believe in the hopeful, comic spirit that stays one step ahead of the darkness reaching out to swallow it – or is reborn out of the darkness when it chances to be swallowed. I believe in the unexpected, sometimes preposterous spirit of grace breaking into the times of darkness in our lives.” And he concludes thinking about the hard work, the pain, but the determination to journey the right way, even if it is madness:“The divine dances in our lives and something  new comes into being."


What does this week mean for me? Well, we were sent this reading some time back which one of our friends used going through a hard time. Perhaps this is why this week should be kept by all Christians properly. My picture is of a sunset which brought peace. This is all about a sunrise, and is about Easter morning.  I love the picture I've put below. It is sunrise on Easter morning last year on the Downs above Storrington, another time of real peace.  

"When I cannot see the end of things. When the darkness shines brighter than the sun. When the wound will not be healed. When I can see no answer to my questions. Fill me with knowing you are there, for me.

You are the first to weep over shattered lives. The wounded healer who mends broken hearts. The first to die and rise. The holy victim who shouts through the silence, “It is finished!”

When I am blinded by the power of present things, fix my eyes on you, the battered God of the cross. And break the power of my painful days, with reminders of new and better days, still to come. Your resurrection sunrise, for me. Amen."        

Dying and rising

Some random thoughts about dying and rising reflecting on this week's lectionary:

I’ve been thinking this week about Saint Aidan. Saint Aidan brought Christianity around the year 634 to Lindisfarne, Holy Island, where I was on retreat last week. The English in the north were described as “an ungovernable people, and of an obstinate and barbarous temperament.” No one wanted to go and share with these people and it was Aidan at a conference who offered to go. Just like that he seems to have been consecrated bishop and sent out to preach on the island. We learn that although he didn’t want to be there, he knew a large group of people had a real hunger for God. He was not like a normal bishop who rode a horse, he walked around meeting people where they are, at their own level. He shared a message that God loved and accepted everyone.

It is often I think being led somewhere difficult, we find the resources within us to be the person we are meant to be. To die to the world means being different, being put out, not behaving like others do, being Jesus where we are, even when that puts us out. I was reminded yesterday of two quotes of Mother Theresa, who said, “I know that God will not give me anything I can’t handle, I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.” (Ever had that inner struggle?) But she also said, “I have found the paradox that if I love until love hurts, then there is no hurt, only more love.”

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground…   

Then maybe we need to think about dying to self, falling in order to rise, dying to the sin that separates us from God, the need for a new heart. Sometimes we simply need to say we need to stop behaving so atrociously and seek a new beginning as people. We get it wrong. We don’t take responsibility for when we get it wrong. Part of our faith is the need to say to God we’ve made a mess, and God reaching out to us and saying we can start again. I think there is a need for some of our ways to fall in life, in order for new fruit to grow. Perhaps we need to show some regret about words we have said, mistakes we have made, wrong decisions, hurt we have caused. Part of what we do when we come to worship is to say sorry, and when we do and really mean it and show we can move on, God comes to us and gives us a new heart and new spirit. Jesus calls us to be selfless and open to being renewed to his agenda  but sometimes we aren’t really that committed to take that seriously. But I believe in the end we shall only grow as a Church if people notice there is a difference in us and we show some regret when self becomes dominant in us. We need a constant commitment to community and to the other. Otherwise, all that will happen is that we will be permanently unhappy. 

Unless a grain of wheat should fall into the ground and die…

And maybe this dying to self, the seed falling and dying in order to bring new life is really healthy. Sometimes when things die, we think it is the end of everything. When a cause finishes, we assume we have failed. I think in today’s church where people have more commitments outside, and less time to be here, we cannot sustain everything we once did.

But actually letting some things go, can lead to new beginnings in different ways. Let me give you an example:

My church at Ashington closed in October 2010. We now have a house group there. We sold the church to a lady who is opening a nursery in a few weeks. On Friday I spent an hour looking at what she has done to the building and to the grounds. It really is lovely, especially a lovely play area outside. She has asked me to be the “local vicar” and go in for specials to share with them when they do God. In many ways, this is a parable I think of dying and rising. We still have a presence and an influence in Ashington. We couldn’t maintain what we had. Without it dying, new life would not have been able to rise. Sometimes we need to let things die, in order to have space to breathe and live healthily.

We need to be people prepared to give, to go to a cross, to die to self in order to enjoy amazing new life. We follow a Jesus who does this, and we are called Christians after him.

I find Jean Vanier's words from The Broken Body a challenge as Holy Week gets nearer... 

This road is not always an easy road to follow. There will be times of discouragement and anger; there will be many setbacks, times of ups and downs, times of doubt. But little by little if you are well accompanied on the journey you will begin to see the light in the darkness, you will drink the water, which springs from arid land.

Reflecting on clearing our Temples

There is nothing like a good clear out at home. We keep far too much “stuff”! It is therapeutic to have a tidy up. There are periods when my study is a mess, piles of paper everywhere. It feels good when I make the effort to do some sorting and then I feel in control. What about spiritual spring cleaning and the priorities of the church today?  

Jesus was angry with a place of prayer and worship being overtaken with commercial activity and financial reward and profit being more important than God – a danger for us today where we need to fund raise, but fund raise for what? But there is more to this cleaning up of the Temple in John’s Gospel than in other Gospels where this story appears. It is right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in John, and it says well actually you don’t need the Temple you need me. To defile worship of me to neglect prayer to me, is to desecrate me. Put me first. We must note John’s Gospel is all about us reflecting on who Jesus is, primarily, it is a commentary on him rather than a series of events. To destroy the Temple for orthodox Jews was blasphemy, no wonder Jesus went to a cross. But they failed to understand that worship of God can never be dependent on physical properties alone, but on Jesus’ love and life in the believer. One commentary I read this week says, “if these are absent when we engage in worship, we talk to ourselves rather than communicate with God.”

We must note also that John wrote his Gospel after the Temple had indeed been destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, that event was huge in the Jewish calendar, and with no Temple the people had to completely rethink their spiritual life. Imagine coming to a place of worship since birth and suddenly it was no more. What would you do? Methodism today has too many buildings, our headquarters are saying, some of them are in the wrong place, and are not doing very much, but if you’ve been to a church which closed, that is hard, and to have your church criticised by someone, or ruined from within sometimes, is really painful. The General Secretary of our church, Martyn Atkins, was at Ministerial Synod in Canterbury with us on Wednesday. He said the aim of our church over the next few years is to say less “I belong to that church” and more “I am a disciple of Christ.” Perhaps buildings will become less important and perhaps we will be church where people are, more. I don’t know. It is a frightening yet also exciting time to be a Christian.

I wonder reflecting on this passage, and most of the passages in Lent are really hard – what do we need to clear out in order to be better Christians? Are there things we need to stop doing? What in our lives needs a good scrub and a good deep clean in order for us to feel better? Jesus simply today asks us to think and maybe reassess what is important.