Easter Sunday

 Glory to you, O Christ:

by your death you have destroyed death

and by your resurrection you have brought life and immortality to light.

Jesus appears to Mary of Magdala in the garden 

The one who loved Jesus most 

Risen Lord, though we are separated from those we love and our hearts are weighed with grief, speak to us by name and let us feel the joy of your presence.

 

Alleluia. Christ is risen He is risen indeed. Alleluia

1 They’ve taken him, 

I know not where,

His battered body

Laid with care.

I came today

His form to ‘noint

To dress the scars-

Cruel nail points.

2 “O Gardner, friend

Where has he gone?

Please tell me now

What you have done

With my dear Lord, 

His sacred form,

That lived to bless

Our lives adorn.”

3 “Mary, my child.”

“Rabboni Lord

How can it be

I saw - you died”

I stretched my hand

To reach his own.

“Not yet my child”

His voice intoned.

4 “Go to my friends,

My bothers tell

What you have seen

And all is well.

I must Ascend,

My father see;

Go now sweet friend

Go now I plea.”

5 With heart ablaze,

And tears now dried 

I ran and ran

So overjoyed.

I told them all

Of the blessed scene.

The Lord is risen

My eyes have seen.

Verse and Artwork by Rev’d Paul Collings

Holy Week

The Saturday of holy week seems such an empty day as we just wait for the resurrection. Like those who kindly placed Jesus in the tomb, we wait with them for something new. With Jesus there is always the hint of something new, and even at the tomb the authorities were afraid that Jesus might rise.

Matthew 27:62-66 “The next day, which followed the preparation day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that while this deceiver was still alive he said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come, steal him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

“You have a guard of soldiers,” Pilate told them. “Go and make it as secure as you know how.” They went and secured the tomb by setting a seal on the stone and placing the guards.

This passage tells us the strange story of how the Chief Priests simply could not dismiss the possibility that Jesus might have known something they didn’t. They went to Pilate and explained that while Jesus was clearly an imposter, His disciples might try to steal His body and fake a resurrection. Pilate’s response was laced with poetic foreshadowing when he said, “Here is a guard of soldiers. Make the tomb as secure as you can.”

My Lord, today all is silent.  You have given your precious life for the salvation of the world.  You died a horrific death, poured out all mercy from your wounded heart, and now you rest in peace in the tomb as the soldiers keep vigil.

 

Lord, may I also keep vigil with you as you sleep.  I know that this day ends with your glorious triumph, your victory over sin and death.  But for now I sit quietly mourning your death.  

 

Help me, dear Lord, to enter into the sorrow and the silence of this Holy Saturday.  Today no Sacraments are celebrated.  Today the world waits in mourning in anticipation of the glory of new life!  

 

As I keep vigil, awaiting the celebration of your Resurrection, fill me with hope.  Help me to look forward to the celebration of your Resurrection, but also to look forward to the hope of my own share in the new life you won for the world.  

 

I entrust my whole being to you, dear Lord, as you lay lifeless and still.  May your rest transform the brokenness of my own soul, my weaknesses, my sin and my frailty.  You are glorious and you bring the greatest good out of your apparent defeat.  I trust in your power to do all things and I entrust my life to you.  Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.

Holy Week

So we arrive at Good Friday. The Oxford English Dictionary states that "good" in this context refers to "a day or season observed as holy by the church", hence the greeting "good tide" at Christmas or on Shrove Tuesday. In addition to Good Friday, there is also a less well-known Good Wednesday, namely the Wednesday before Easter. The earliest known use of "guode friday" is found in The South English Legendary, a text from around 1290.

The origin of the word Good, is closely aligned with the word Holy and in many senses Good Friday is the day when the way was made clear for humankind to share the holiness of Jesus. We read in Philippians 2:6-8 “He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless obedient death— and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

In practice, on that Holy Day people continued to taunt Jesus, “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” Matthew 27:42

This verse contains a pair of challenges made by the Jewish religious leaders to Jesus while he hung on the cross. In the first one they said, “he saved others, but he cannot save himself.” They were referring to saving in the physical sense, and indeed Jesus had restored sight, health, and even life to many.

Their second challenge was that they would believe in him if he were to come down off the cross. I have often wondered what they would have done have he jumped down off the cross for a moment and then climbed back up to complete his mission. Somehow I doubt that it would have changed anything for them. They acknowledged his earlier miracles, and yet did not believe in him.

Dietrich  Bonhoeffer, who faced his own Calvary,  said, “Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.”

Good Friday; the death of Jesus, is our ultimate hope.

Now we know:

all is grace

all is gift.

You give us all good things:

life and love;

daily bread and water that quenches our thirst;

friends and faith.

Most of all, in your Son, Jesus,

you meet us with a love that will never let us go;

you utter words of mercy and forgiveness

that override the hurts,

and heal our brokenness;

you offer new beginnings

where we had expected only dead ends.

We give you thanks and praise

for the mystery of your suffering love

that gives us life.

We give you thanks and praise

that you know our weakness

and hear our prayers.

We give you thanks and praise

that all our dying and living

is held in your good keeping.

Now we know:

all is grace

all is gift.

We give you thanks and praise.

Amen

Holy Week

In the upper room on that Thursday Night, we discover that after praying, Jesus rose to His feet and asked His disciples to stand with Him to sing a doxology over their suspended, unfinished Passover meal. We read, “they sang a hymn together and went out to the Mount of Olives.” Matthew 26:30 It is suggested that Jesus led them in the traditional Passover song, Psalm 118, about how the stone the builders rejected had become the cornerstone, and how the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.

To pause and lead His disciples in a song like this, at this particular moment, shows the strength of Jesus’ resolve to face His impending arrest and crucifixion. The Gospel accounts tell us that He started that Last Supper overwhelmed with sorrow, and that later in Gethsemane His sweat became like drops of blood. In the middle of that tension, Jesus sang of the faithfulness of God.

Sometimes I wonder why the birds sing. I've heard that it's because they're happy to see the sun again. Funny thing is, I was able to witness that the singing starts long before the sun is even visible. And yet they sing anyway. They sing in the darkness, because they know it won't stay dark forever. How do they know this?

We may not face Gethsemane, but in the darkest moments it is the song of the heart in praise of God’s faithfulness that can enliven and sustain us. When people see Joni Eareckson Tada  in her wheelchair and ask about her persistent smile, she always says, “I’ve learned to sing my way through suffering.”

She goes on to say, “Over the years, I have discovered that singing is not an option for Christ-followers; it’s a command.”

Father God, today we remember the agony of Jesus as He wept and prayed in Gethsemane. How He faced betrayal and desertion by those closest to Him. How He was mistreated, falsely accused, and beaten. How He was silent before His accusers and suffered all, to bring us life. We are humbled and full of gratitude. We are awed and full of love. We surrender all to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Holy Week

Though Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of Holy Week were filled with harrowing experiences that seemed to be drawing Him ever nearer to His death, on Wednesday Jesus stayed out of the public eye.

Jesus and His disciples travelled to the home of a man in Bethany known as Simon the leper. In Matthew 26:6 While Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,. I must admit, whilst I knew that Jesus spent time in Bethany, I was unaware that Simon the Leper was his host 

Simon belonged to a growing part of the population known not for their accomplishments, but for what was wrong with them. It was a difficult life being a leper, but it must also have been strangely liberating since the first thing people learned about Simon was his broken past. Simon lived among the few who did not have to pretend to be what they were not. People could choose his company or reject it, but that was who he was.

For me, there is something beautiful about this brief mention of Simon the Leper. It speaks volumes of the kind of Jesus we serve. I have no evidence, but in my minds eye I wonder if Simon was the one Leper, who having been deemed cured returned to thank Jesus.

Clearly he was healed as the law dictated that lepers could not mix with others but yet within society once a leper always a leper.

A leper's life was difficult not just because of the leprosy but maybe more so because leprosy was believed to be a curse from God. It was believed that a leper was a leper because of some heinous sin in their lives and they were under God’s judgment. But when Jesus heals He heals completely…..!

I wonder, are we guilty of the same thing as the society in Bethany? …. Once a drug addict, once an alcoholic, once an unwed mother, once an illegitimate child, once a divorcee…We must receive all those who Jesus receives.

Loving Lord, let me remember that your promise to bring to completion the good work you began in me also applies to each of your children. Burn the conviction, indelibly into my heart: it brings YOU praise when I work hard at accepting others as you accept me. So very Amen, I pray, in your matchless and merciful name. Amen

Holy Week

If Monday’s arrival at the temple was marked by Jesus’ living parable of cleansing God’s house, Tuesday’s entrance was marked by a direct, verbal confrontation from the religious leadership, the Sanhedrin. They demanded to know who gave Jesus the right to behave as He has in their temple.

In Mark 11:27-33 we read, “They came again to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came and asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do these things?”

Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; then answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.  Was John’s baptism from heaven or of human origin? Answer me.”

They discussed it among themselves: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ ”—they were afraid of the crowd, because everyone thought that John was truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Jesus was challenging the authority of the religious leadership, and they felt threatened, so they decided to confront him. By what authority are you doing these things? Perhaps we should allow Jesus and his way of acting and speaking to challenge us, or have we grown too used to them? Do we feel he has authority over me and do we resist him?

Brennan Manning in his book ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out’ writes, “Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of KNOWING Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.”

Jesus knew his detractors were not really interested in his answer, so he answered their challenge by challenging them himself. Unfortunately, they were not after the truth but after holding on to their own power. Perhaps we could notice the same mechanism in ourselves, as we seek to justify and rationalise our choices to ourselves.

God of silence and God of all sound,
help me to listen.
Help me to do the deep listening 

to the sounds of my soul,
waiting to hear your soft voice 

calling me deeper into you.
Give me attentive ears
that begin to separate the noise 

from the sounds that are you;
you who have been speaking to me
and through me my whole life,
for so long that you can seem like background noise.
Today help me hear you anew. Amen

Holy Week

Jesus went straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants. He quoted this text: My house was designated a house of prayer; You have made it a hangout for thieves. Now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus and he healed them. Matthew 21:12-14 (The Message)

Perhaps, in this incident, there is a lesson for the church to be aware that we can fall into the trap of employing dubious methods in promoting our existence. Is it a question of motives? So often, in reading this passage our minds go straight to the issue of Jesus Righteous Indignation. But what motivated the temple trades folk to see up shop; indeed, should we ask, what motivates us?

Pastor Glen Davidson, of Dalkena Community Church, felt God's call to the ministry while working as a successful businessman. He began taking Bible courses at night, and eventually obtained his theology degree. 

Prior to graduation, he informed his boss that he'd be leaving shortly to work as a pastor in a rural church. Neither the owner of the company or the boss believed it, and they neglected to obtain a replacement for Glen. Eventually Glen told the boss that he really was leaving and they needed to locate a replacement as soon as possible. The owner of the company still doubting Glen's sincerity, instructed Glen's boss, "Offer him a $500.00 raise, and if he takes it, fire him on the spot!" Others often see what truly motivates us.

Another example can be found in the life of Albert Orsborn of the Salvation Army who  was in charge of a very successful “division” (similar to District or Diocese) comprising of many corps (churches) and social service centres. 

The administration decided that this large area should be halved, and Orsborn felt disheartened that some of his responsibility would be removed. He even considered resigning! Soon afterward, he became ill, and also fell and broke his foot. While recovering, he heard a group nearby singing the words: “Nothing from His altar I would keep.” The thought touched his heart and inspired him to write the  song below and resume his duties for the Lord. In this hymn he questioned what motivated him?

Have I worked for hireling wages,
Or as one with vows to keep,
With a heart whose love engages
Life or death, to save the sheep?
All is known to Thee, my Master,
All is known, and that is why
I can work and wait the verdict
Of Thy kind but searching eye.

Prayer

Truth be told, Jesus,

There are lots of tables that need overturning in our lives; Beneath the veneer of respectability the tidy rows and neat regulations hide dark addictions and angry judgements hungry greeds and heartless rejections

We know the pain—and so do those around us—of keeping up the facade; What a relief it would be to have it all upset, smashed, scattered, destroyed

So, perhaps, Jesus, today you could pay us a visit and help us to radically rearrange the furniture of our lives. Amen.