I’ve noticed a change of mood in people this past week. This lockdown I think we kidded ourselves was only going to be short, so we’d get through it by doing those things we never had time to do round the house, use up all the things we’d forgotten about in the pantry and have interesting meals, watch box sets, do PE with Joe in the morning, watch worship on line, get some permitted exercise once a day.
Now, we’ve been told the lockdown is for at least another three weeks, we are not feeling it will be lifted then, we are hearing horrific stories from those serving us in the NHS and care sector, not just with huge numbers dying every day, but them working dangerously without the amount of protective equipment they need, we are playing Downing Street press briefing steep stake each day guessing who will sent out to not answer questions, we are facing up to our long term plans, some of which were huge life changes, having to be put on hold, we are going slowly mad looking forward to knowing who will win Four in a Bed (it was the Crown Inn in Grewelthorpe this week, I’ll have a church next door to it soon...) and we get hooked on Belgravia, which has absolutely no plot whatsoever except ooh, what has Lady Brocklehurst to do with Mr Pope? (I can’t cope with Philip Glenister in a period drama. He’ll always be Gene Hunt to me. I keep expecting him to say in period costume “fire up the Quattro!”)
I am noticing people are getting tired and anxious, we need encouragement to keep going. Games you can play keep coming: like this:
Or this...
This week we’ve been moved by a 99 year old army captain Tom Moore who wanted to raise £1000 for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the end of the month. He’s become an icon for us to keep going through this crisis, not just because he has raised £23 million but because he’s encouraging us in our worry and our fear.
It’s rather fun that the competition for the top spot in the charts next Friday will be between We’ll meet again which Vera Lynn and Katherine Jenkins have recorded, and You’ll never walk alone which is Captain Tom and Michael Ball’s record to raise more funds for our beleaguered NHS.
The song was written for the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. In the second act of the musical, the character of Nettie Fowler, a cousin of the main character Julie Jordan, sings 'You'll Never Walk Alone' to comfort her when her husband Billy dies. It’s a song to lift us when we are feeling at rock bottom. I love Carousel, it’s a brilliant musical.
What has Easter to do with where we find ourselves this week? I think if we are honest we are full of fear, how do we get out of this, are we safe before they find a vaccine, can I move house, will I start work again in a few months, will people stop dying, will lovely businesses we liked to support, survive, will my mental health survive being unable to go out and see people for a long time? We miss our cats! It’s nice one comes to see us, but ours have now been in a cattery since the beginning of February. Poor Velvet!
I think if we are honest we feel like the disciples in the upper room locked in and wondering whether life can begin again. I read an article this morning saying couples will get closer in this time. The writer wrote “I don’t want to get closer to him, he’s only two metres away and he keeps watching old episodes of Kojak!”
I’ve been thinking about death. What will death be like? We are living through a time when many people are living in fear, fear of an invisible enemy which could catch up with any one of us, and especially those who are more vulnerable, whose health is weak. As with those first disciples in the upper room, it’s a fear of the unknown, of forces beyond our control.
The disciples time with Jesus had been a great adventure, now they were recovering from betrayal, denial and desertion. They were afraid for their lives. And we may find ourselves there right now - we look at the devastation of our lives and feel utterly abandoned and forsaken by God.
It’s been my testimony over the last year or so that when I’ve needed God to speak into exactly where I am, that word has come, it’s often been at an evensong but when I’ve not been able to get to an evensong, it’s come through the passages given to me in daily prayer in the lectionary. So I offer you three passages:
Psalm 145
Song of Solomon 8: 5 - 7
Mark 16: 9 - 15
Look at what God says to us in our fear.
“The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all those who are bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season.”
We will be upheld, lifted up, given food in due season. Enough.
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”
Love is never destroyed. There’s another verse isn’t there? “Perfect love casts out all fear.”
“And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterwards Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”
The shorter ending of Mark’s Gospel added because the early church couldn’t cope with women running away in terror from the empty tomb, has the risen Jesus’ promise to us in fear and lockdown and worry. The sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. It’s what he proclaims to us right where we are mentally and sends us to proclaim to others.
That’s where the Church is at the moment through its kindness.
That’s where Captain Tom has been this week. He’s said the sun will come out again! That’s why a song to comfort tears from an old musical speaks to us.
That’s where we are in our closest relationships which are keeping us together — they are imperishable (we hope!)
We refurbished a lounge in my time as the minister at Trinity Storrington and put some modern art in the room which proved to be very controversial. The paintings were by John Reilly. I love this one. It’s called “Refuge” - look at where we are in relation to Jesus. We are held.
What does the risen Christ say to demoralised disciples and to us in 2020?
“Peace be with you”
“Do not be afraid”
“Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
It’s okay to say we are not alright today. We hold on together. But Easter faith is that all will be well one day. It will!
I picked up some books earlier, one of which is by Katharine Smith, a lay reader at Wells Cathedral.
She writes this:
“Life will probably feel dark and scary. Sometimes it’s true that our world is at its darkest just before dawn - but the dawn is on its way. Easter Day will dawn for each of us, from our Gethsemane and Golgotha to our Easter Garden.”
(“Recovering from Depression: A Companion Guide for Christians, SPCK, 2014)
Here’s another way to look at it. I sat and marvelled at the colours on this tree this afternoon. They weren’t there a few weeks ago. This hymn came to me. It is what we will need to remember as we cope with this lockdown for however long we need to...
“When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, then your touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.”
No comments:
Post a Comment