Skip to main content

Easter Letter

Holy Week is a mysterious week of both dreadful and glorious imaginings; as we walk the way to Jerusalem with Jesus and his disciples, we find ourselves drawn into an extraordinary narrative where anything could happen. Rev’d David Houghton spoke on Maundy Thursday of the unexpected quality of Christian discipleship; the parts we end up playing are likely to be a surprise to us. Was Judas surprised that he was the one to betray Jesus? Was Mary Magdalene surprised to find herself the first to see the Risen Lord? Undoubtedly all who encountered Jesus were deeply surprised to experience themselves in a new way. In encountering God we are given our real selves, and that is both dreadful and awesome: God gives us insight into our own sinfulness; at the same time God kneels down and washes our feet.

Together as we learn from one another in the journey of faith we are encouraged to take steps of trust, where what we had previously known dissolves into a broader and altogether more mysterious focus. We may be surprised by who we are standing next to in the journey of faith. We may be surprised to find that God asks something of us we didn't even know we had to give. God in Jesus reveals to us our deepest fears as well as our deepest longings, yet what we see when we look at the face of the suffering Christ is one who reaches out to us, drawing us into the life of God.

It is as always an extraordinary privilege to participate in the ministry which belongs to Jesus Christ. I do not presume to take on this task alone; more and more I am aware of my inadequacy to complete the work that has been given to me. My prayer for us all is that in drawing more deeply on the love of God that we will be transformed; that wounds will heal; that problems will be solved and that we will learn anew what it means to sit and eat with the God who serves at table and washes our feet. For it is only in participation that we will grow together in the love of God; if we do not let God in Jesus wash us, then we cannot share in his life (John 13.8). If we do not get involved in the work of Christian discipleship we cannot share in its glories. May each of us hear and answer the call that God makes to us and play the part that has been allotted to us, before the beginning of the world, the vocation of eternal life lived at the heart of God: to Him be the glory for ever and ever AMEN.

Pax Christi

The Year of our Lord 2015

Comments

Post a Comment

Please be respectful when posting comments

Popular posts from this blog

Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain   The Flight into Egypt  File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderful radical
2 comments
Read more

Rest in Christ

Girl in Hammock, Winslow Homer, 1873, from Wikipedia  This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional,  public domain  work of art. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. I am not normally someone who finds it easy to rest or relax; I have a sense that that is true for many people! However, my son received a hammock for his 6 th birthday and it’s been enjoyed by the whole family. We are blessed by having some of the most fantastically beautiful trees in our garden, huge glorious trees, which at the moment, in their varying versions of green and burnt amber are an absolute delight to view from the hammock. Looking upwards from a horizontal position really enables you to breathe in their grandeur and awesomeness in an overwhelming way. Together with the gentle rocking, it really is an experience of paradise. I
Post a Comment
Read more

Silence

Lent Study Group One of my top 10 books of the last 10 years has to be: 'A Book of Silence' by Sara Maitland. I first heard Sara talk at Greenbelt many years ago and I was fascinated then by who she was - an eccentric woman, speaking with intensity and insight, offering an alternative and captivating viewpoint on the human experience. In this book she explores silence in all sorts of ways: by living on her own; by visiting the desert; through analysing the desert traditions within early Christianity; and through attending to what happens to the body and the mind in and through extended silence and isolation. Her book begins: I am sitting on the front doorstep of my little house with a cup of coffee, looking down the valley at my extraordinary view of nothing. It is wonderful. Virginia Woolf famously taught us that every woman writer needs a room of her own. She didn't know the half of it, in my opinion. I need a moor of my own. Or, as an exasperated but obvious
1 comment
Read more