We remember Our Lord’s crucifixion on this solemn day in the Church’s calendar.
Traditionally we hold a service on Good Friday morning, but for safety reasons this is not possible in 2020 owing to the restrictions in place.
However we have put together a short video presentation which poses a few thoughts for Good Friday and offers a short reflection.
Thought for the week 27th March 2021 – Palm Sunday
Our thought for the week today is a video presentation. Today we remember the occasion when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and how the people strewed the way with palm branches.
It begins his journey towards the cross and to his victory over sin and death culminating in his resurrection on Easter Day.
Thought for the Week March 21st 2021
5th Sunday of Lent
I am a person who genuinely likes to house clean! I like it when things are neat and tidy and free from the dirt and grime of everyday life, as it gives me a sense of order that creates a deeper inner calm once it’s finished, especially after several hours of labouring at it. Of course I also know that the chaos and clutter of our everyday life will mean it will need doing again sometime soon and so, like many, I know there will be at least one day of every week where I will have to focus my attention on getting everything back to how I like it. Now I have to confess that my cleaning standards are, on reflection, somewhat superficial in that if it looks clean then that will do, I do not move heavy objects like sofas or beds every week, as that takes a lot of effort and I have enough to do already, life is busy, therefore what the eye cannot see the heart will not grieve about.
So what has this to do with Lent?
Well, for me Lent is represented by that big heavy sofa we have in our house, there’s no ignoring what is required, the time has arrived for it to be moved to find out what is lurking beneath, to reveal the residue of my spiritual life that I have been conveniently avoiding for an awful long time. This deeper, introspective Spring clean, is something I find quite challenging and is not always a pleasant experience, because rather than just a light flick with the duster of contrition that I usually offer most days, I want to get right into the difficult to reach corners of my life in Christ, the uncomfortable reality of not always being who He wants me to be, the moments where I could have done more but instead denied Him, the shame and guilt of not living a life that is deserving of what He did and still does for me.
My current Lenten journey is feeling even more of a challenge as lockdown has meant that I have not been able to go to church to do my weekly cleansing of the sin that David mentioned last week, the offering of my transgressions before God, seeking restorative forgiveness through absolution, one that revives my soul for the week ahead, because this would have been my weekly spiritual clean that gives me the deepest of inner calm that only the forgiving love of God can provide. It meant that at the start of Lent, I really was filled with trepidation as to what had gathered out of sight beneath my spiritual sofa during this enforced separation from my mother church and I desperately needed, wanted and prayed for a Lenten journey to reflect my genuine desire to find a straighter, more Christ like path to God. It has also become yet another reminder of why church is so important to the Christian wellbeing, whether it be the individual or the collective and I truly yearn for its return.
The words of Jeremiah found in the Lectionary readings for today (Ch.31 v31-v34), give a prophetic reminder of the purpose behind our Lenten observance as we enter Passiontide, taking us through to the unfolding events of Holy Week and culminating in the joy of promised salvation that is the Risen Christ on Easter Sunday. We are to bear witness to the completion of the final and absolute covenant between God and His people, a covenant like nothing that had gone before nor will again. All the preceding covenants, such as those with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David all required the usual two-way contract of God promising to do something for His people and in return that they do something for Him, but of course there was a flaw, the nature of human beings. God always keeps His promises but humanity is fickle and it seems God eventually recognises something needed to change and a new covenant is written, one that requires nothing of us, it seems more like a contract between God and Himself. God sits one side of the table offering endless grace, redemption and salvation to those who seek it and looking across the table He sees himself sitting there as Christ, representative of the people in the form of the ultimate sacrifice, made to cancel the debts of our iniquity, all is equal with nothing left but to forgive and to love.
Part of our Lenten observance is of course to recognise the cost of the New Covenant, written with the blood of Christ and obtained through the Passion of both His suffering and execution upon the cross, for if we become complacent of the reality of what He actually endured for us, of the love He had for each and every one of us in order to do it, then we can only serve to dilute and diminish the joyful message of salvation found within His rising on Easter Sunday.
The other important point to be found in the words of Jeremiah, is that the New Covenant is not written on any parchment or tablets of stone, God in His wisdom made it a living part of us, written upon our hearts, we carry it and Him with us wherever we go and I find that the most beautiful of sentiments.
Back to my spiritual sofa, which in a couple of weeks will be pushed back into place and I will go back to tidying up around it, hopefully at church sometime in the near future. When will I move it again? If I’m honest it will probably be Advent even though I know I should do it far more often, but I’m also honest enough to recognise that I really won’t because I’m busy or tired or for some other self-absolving excuse for avoidance. Interestingly though, it does now leave me wondering as to how often others might move theirs.
Danny
Lord,
all I want is to be faithful to you in my life,
but so often I fail.
Free me from my many sins
and guide me to the life I will share with you.
I wait for your promise to be fulfilled
with great hope in my heart
and your praise on my lips.
God of love,
I know that you are the source of all
that is good and graced in my life.
Help me to honour the covenant
forged in your love and sacrifice,
walk with me and show me the path
into the new life of grace that you offer me.
You know what it is I need to prepare for your kingdom.
Please bless me with those gifts.
Amen
Thought for the Week March 14th 2021
To err is human…
I am beginning to write this on “Random Acts of Kindness” Day – or, as Christians know it, Ash Wednesday. It’s another attempt by Cadbury’s to flood the world with chocolate on religious occasions. But let’s say you resist – instead, you walk into one of the churches open at the moment, and hear the choir beginning to intone the set psalm for Ash Wednesday:
Have mercy upon me, O God, in your great goodness ; in the fullness of your mercy blot out my offences.
Wash me throughly from my wickedness : and cleanse me from my sin.
It pulls you up short, doesn’t it, especially if you’re a happy-clappy sort of Christian for whom sin is cancelled (Wesley’s word), or a priest who avoids mentioning the s** word in case you upset your parishioners. Yet there it is. And even if we sideline it for the rest of the year, somehow Lent forces it upon the attention – beginning with that psalm. And continuing:
Behold I was born in wickedness : and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Well, that’s a line you won’t expect to hear on Mothering Sunday. In a nutshell it’s the doctrine of Original Sin – that we are innately sinful, just as Adam and Eve, the father and mother of us all, were not satisfied with perfection, broke the only rule God gave them, and thus brought sin and death into the world. Thanks a bundle, guys!
On the one hand, many of the big religious moments only derive their full meaning from this doctrine. Christ became incarnate at Christmas, died and was resurrected at Easter, in order to defeat the power of sin. Sin gets a big mention at baptism and confirmation; it gets a passing reference in the old marriage service; it’s there in the last rites, and the elephant in the room in funeral services. Holy Communion gathers all of these up:
Grant…that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body
And our souls washed through his most precious blood.
It moves me every time I say it. Yet its influence doesn’t seem to last very long – minutes after I’ve taken communion, I’m feeling cross if someone hits a bum note in the next hymn (especially if it’s me), or if someone gets to the best (most chocolatey) biscuits after the service while I’m still playing the voluntary. There it is – what can I do about it?
It’s easier to say what I’m not going to do about it in Lent. I’m not giving anything up. Too often such things are tainted with self-interest. You give up chocolate and then feel very pleased with yourself because your weight goes down and your money goes further. And in my experience it’s easy – go a couple of days without chocolate and forty become…a piece of cake. But that psalm nags at me again:
For you desire no sacrifice else would I give it you : you take no delight in burnt-offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit : a broken and contrite heart O God you will not despise.
Giving up chocolate for Lent then is not really an acceptable sacrifice at all. Giving up gin might be, but I do not feel inclined to find out!
Equally, I don’t think Tony Cant, the vicar of Roxwell, would feel all that pleased if we all popped round to make our individual confessions of specific sins to him on a Saturday evening. Luckily, the Church of England covers all eventualities:
We have sinned against you in thought and word and deed; in the evil we have done and in the good we have not done; through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault.
I can quite easily think of at least one thing under every one of the eight headings there, and if in Lent I can try to deal with just eight, then for me that should be something worthwhile to attempt, however (un)successful the outcome.
I would add that the modern confession in the Church of England also refers to sin “against our neighbour”. It’s an idea that I have always felt uncomfortable about. I go back again to the Ash Wednesday psalm:
Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight : so that you are justified in your sentence, and blameless when you judge.
Yet the fact remains that most of my sins involve my thought, word and deed in respect of other people: the psalmist makes it clear that these are offences in God’s eyes too. So I feel my Lent observance should be marked by greater tolerance and generosity (handing over to others the chocolate I decided not to give up?). Perhaps Ash Wednesday’s rebranding as Random Acts of Kindness Day is, after all, not totally inappropriate…
For I acknowledge my faults : and my sin is ever before me.
This is a starting point. To acknowledge sin is to open the door to repentance; repentance opens the door to forgiveness. To me, forgiveness is one of the most powerful attributes of humanity; it is of the essence of God, and the act in which we most closely partake of the divine nature. It is at the heart of some of the greatest literature (King Lear, for example, when Cordelia lovingly forgives her father for disowning her), the key to some of the most moving music (Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, for example, when Butterfly forgives Pinkerton and his new wife for taking her beloved child). And in real life, we have all watched and marvelled when someone publicly forgives someone who has done them unimaginable wrong and harm. It shows how to overcome evil with good. It transforms Lent from its traditional connotations of gloom into the path to reconciliation, redemption, Resurrection:
Make me hear of joy and gladness: renew a right spirit within me.
My tongue shall speak of your righteousness : and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
David.
Thought for the Week March 7th 2021 (3rd Sunday in Lent)
Psalm 51:10-12
Create in me a clean heart, oh God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Lent is a time to reflect on our lives and our walk with God. It prompts the thoughts, what have we done? Where do we want to be?
We seek forgiveness for our wrong doings, in order to greet Easter with a clean heart and renewed faith in God.
I have really missed our services in the chapel, and will especially miss our services leading up to Easter, but it has been a really great alternative to have our video services led by Steve, so a big thank you to him and his readers.
What does Lent mean to you? To me it is a feeling of expectation. A time to think about where I am in my Christian journey, to reflect on what things in my life I could have done better. A friend of mine once said “if we all followed the 10 commandments, the world would be a better place” how true, but how hard! We don’t set out to fail but life gets in the way.
For me personally, when I look back I think I must have failed from an early age. Take the 8th commandment for instance thou shalt not steal. I remember when living in Handforth in Cheshire (no I didn’t know Jackie Wheeler from the parish council) my friends and I went on what we thought was a mercy mission and tried to steal what we assumed was a scruffy neglected old donkey that had been tethered up to a post in our village pub car-park, in the hope of giving it a better life – clearly not thought out. Needless to say the donkey had other plans and was true to his reputation, stubborn! he wouldn’t budge an inch. Come to think of it, that probably comes under number 10 as well, Thou should not covet thy neighbours Ox or his Donkey. Two in one, that’s impressive, NOT!
I won’t go into how many more I can tick on my list.
I saw it written once that it would be easier if the 10 commandments were like an exam paper in which we only have to attempt any three of them. The Old Testament reading (James 2:10) says if we break any part of the law then we are guilty of breaking all of it. Looking back over my lifetime so far, I have indeed given our Lord and Teacher so much to work on. Oh dear, 100 lines (again), I must try harder!
But all is not lost because we have Jesus and the Easter message.
We do reflect at this time of Lent about Christ’s journey to the cross, how he felt in the desert, fasting for 40 days and nights just living off locusts …. Can we really begin to imagine?
I suppose those who do fast for Lent, may have a slight inkling of how it felt, and of course it is a heartfelt gesture that perhaps gives people a sense of unity with Christ, but we have to remember, we still have the comfort of our home, water on tap, a comfy bed, friends and family support and in some cases, Sunday off from fasting.
Unfortunately there was no let up for Jesus, all the time being tested by the devil. We mustn’t forget that Jesus was human and felt the same pain and suffering as we would. It must have been so tempting to give up, especially as time went on and the more his thirst and hunger grabbed a hold of him, but his faith kept strong and true. What a lesson to us mere mortals. Could we ever be so strong? Do we need to be? Does God expect us to be?
As I mentioned above, for me the Lent season is an expectation, although this season has the terrible sadness of Jesus being beaten, humiliated and then crucified on the cross, it ends with the glory of the risen Christ.
I take heart that Easter is coming and that we as a church change from singing those beautiful laments and move on to the joyous celebratory hymns that talk of the wonderful news that “he is risen”. We know that Jesus had to suffer for our transgressions! But we also know that he rose from the dead; he said that he will never leave us again. What a comforting statement that is.
It is right and proper to go through this time of reflection but we should also look forward to the expectation of Easter. What a celebration we will have.
I always try to remember that after Good Friday, Sunday will soon be here. After St Peters pie (I hear my family groan as I have been making this for the last 30 years!) the symbolic lamb is eaten reminding us of new life and rebirth. After Jesus is crucified the Lamb of God is raised and we can believe that he will never leave us and will be with us to the end of time…
But for now, we can reflect and pray and know that there is happiness and joy to come.
Whatever path your Lent journey takes you on, I hope that you keep safe and well and feel that much brighter in the hope that we haven’t got long before we can all be together again.
Julie
Thought For the Week 28th February 2021 – Persistence.
Reading Luke 18: 1-14
This is a parable told by Jesus to show his followers how they should pray and what they should expect. It is about a judge who did not fear God or care about men and a widow who was persistent in her prayer. She was asking for justice against her adversary, the judge refused constantly to help but the widow did not give up, it mattered so much to her. She was so persistent that the judge finally gave her the justice she deserved, because she was wearing him out. The judge did not fear God or care about men but because her persistence was wearing him out he gave her her wish.
Are we so persistent in our prayers or do we give up too quickly? Do we need to be persistent? God is our judge, he wishes to give us justice. If we cry out to God day and night He will see we get justice, God wishes to give us justice. The prayer ‘Lord have mercy’ if constantly repeated may seem to be a cry from the heart of a man who knows how sinful and needy he is and not just vain repetition. Or it may come from someone who is desperate, despondent, physically frail or pressed by repeated demands.
Sometimes I lack energy to form my own prayer, I lack the purity to be sure my prayers are not ego demands and I lack the wisdom to know how to sort out the competing demands. Then I give up trying to be in charge and I carry on doing whatever I have to do while praying the Jesus prayer in my weakness. Isn’t that all that God requires of any of us ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner’.
Joan.
Teach us good Lord
To serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To labour and not to ask for any reward
Except that of knowing that we do your will
AMEN.
Ignatius Loyola
