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

Art and Imagination: the apocalyptic vision

Rev 12.7-12   Michael Defeats the Dragon   And war broke out in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb    and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Reflection 2015

‘He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him’. Corporately and individually humans persistently and consistently reject God. We are pretty good at choosing what is bad for us- being tempted by any number of false desires. We can become addicted to all sorts of bad behaviours, like alcohol, social media, pornography or self-hatred. The simple ways that we choose to spend our time every day determine the sort of people that we become; the minor details of our lives matter to God – he has given us each moment of every day. As a modern poet, Malcolm Guite puts it: O king of our desire whom we despise, King of the nations never on the throne, Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone, Rejected joiner, making many one Take the Biblical tale of the rich man at his gate. He ignores the daily pleas of the poor and sickly man, Lazarus, and after a life of selfi...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Things Fall Apart – the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’

 Holy Week Reflection   The Jewish people had a framework for understanding the world and most importantly their relationship with God and with one another. They had the Law and the Prophets and yet at various points in their history they were radically challenged by the events that occurred in their communal history. The deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians became a foundational narrative for them about God’s ability to save. They were not a people unused to suffering, unused to war, unused to persecution and these experiences led them as a people to expect from their God – compassion, mercy and most importantly deliverance. They could understand their sufferings in various ways, they could attribute them to their own sin and waywardness, but at the centre of their faith was a belief that God had established a covenant with them and that he would be faithful even if they were faithless. Jesus came into this history as a possible Messiah, as the Anointed One w...
Post a Comment
Read more