I stood tonight after night prayer here in the church on Holy Island looking over to the cross on St Cuthberts Isle. I’m led to reflect tonight on the call on Christ’s church in Holy Week to be a cross centred authentic community.
Perhaps the best text to consider the challenge of the cross is The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
He writes: “The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.”
“When Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die.”
We don’t go to church to die! But perhaps we need to. When we come face to face with God in the silence of worship, we are confronted with our selfishness and desires and how far we are from sacrificial living. We want what we want! But perhaps what we want needs to die.
The cross standing in the midst of the fire in the Notre Dame is a powerful image. A lot of what that building stood for has died in the flames but out of the tragedy new life can come. The cross stands at the heart of suffering.
Canon Ian Black, one of the canons at Peterborough Cathedral writes very helpfully in the context of this week: “Tonight a Cathedral has been seriously damaged by fire - the full extent is yet to be revealed. Churches stand as symbols of stability, security and the soul of life. To see one on fire shakes us to the core.
This is the holiest week of the year when we journey to the cross with Christ. As we do we are reminded of our mortality where we come from dust and to dust we return. We make our progress not in despair but in the hope of the resurrection that comes through Christ.
Good Friday holds our sorrow and real grief, and all for whom Notre Dame stands for so much will feel that acutely. But Good Friday is itself held in hope by the life giving and restoring power of Easter.
For all who mourn and grieve may this week be a journey from death to new life.”
Can we this week come and die in order to find new life? What needs in your life tonight to die in order for new life to come? Where do you need to be sacrificial rather than getting all you want?
Over the last few months I have not got what I wanted. I didn’t want to leave my appointment in Hastings. It was going well! But circumstances have meant I’ve had to let it die. It’s painful and it hurts and tonight I don’t know what the future holds. I need help to walk the journey of bereavement and yes, death. But I believe at the foot of my own cross this week new life can come. I have to!
Someone wrote this to me the other day: “Your ministry still continues to offer solace to others Ian even if you are not in church, do not underestimate the good you do so quietly.”
There is a future, while there is still uncertainty - I don’t know where we will be living and what shape ministry is going to take but I’m glad of those who stand at the cross with me.
We need a cross shaped Christianity urgently. We need to focus on what Christ leads us to rather than our own agenda. When we let things go and stand at Calvary God can speak to us. If we always get what we want then we will never be open to new possibilities and if we aren’t prepared to see what dying might lead to we aren’t really doing it right, are we?
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