If a week is a long time in politics it is almost immeasurable in this extraordinary season.
Though it’s only 7 days since Mothering Sunday, when the Dean and I stood at opposite ends of the High Altar in our beloved Cathedral, already that service seems a lifetime away.
Never has Lent seen such stripping away of so much we took for granted.
Never have I longed with more fervour to see the dawn of resurrection hope...but I fear that this year I may need to wait more than the two weeks til Easte
Nonetheless, however we are feeling, today Passiontide begins.
In churches in the catholic tradition, every cross, every statue would normally now be veiled, reminding worshippers that they are entering into a time of deep darkness and pain, as Jesus walks the way of the cross and invites us to walk beside him.
This year, no veiling is necessary for we have to do without the externals altogether.
We are in exile from our buildings, learning to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
And with the mounting tide of fear and grief threatening to engulf us from time to time, it’s easy to imagine ourselves amid the grim landscape of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, its scenery a brutal reminder of the mortality that is all too real among us .
I think we need to pause and look hard, however much we would prefer to distract ourselves.
There’s nothing to console, encourage or please us here.
Just bones, with no stories behind them...a sad reminder that golden lads and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust.
This is the landscape for lament – and in this season, lament may be all the prayer we can manage.
And that’s OK.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging our grief, our anxiety, our fear.
This IS a hard place – the most barren landscape that I have inhabited in all my life – and we are bound to weep with those who weep.
What has gone wrong, that the world is so violently shaken on its axis#?
Where is God in all this?
"Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died..."
Our Gospel reading provides an instant, unmistakeable answer.
Where is God.
Standing beside us, weeping.
Jesus wept
That famous shortest verse in Scripture carries all that we need by way of assurance that the God whose son wept at the grave of Lazarus is here too, sharing our grief for each life lost, each story changed to tragedy from happy
Jesus wept.
And Jesus still weeps.
So, if you don’t know how to pray – weep and let God share in that weeping.
But remember, too, that ours is a God of transformation.
Ezekiel prophecies as God directs....mad though it may seem. Does God really wantvhim to engage with a heap of bones?
and gradually, incredibly, the bones begin to come together.
He speaks again and they put on flesh once more.
And finally the Spirit moves and they return to life.
Living and breathing
A vast multitude...the dead restored…hope rekindled for Israel and for all God’s people.
The raw grief of a burned cathedral subsumed in the wonder of people coming together to build something beautiful, founded on the ways of peace
“I shall put my spirit in you and you shall live”
Not yet, perhaps...there is a time for every purpose under heaven...but God holds all our times in his hands.
And this hope is not just for nations, not simply a promise of collective redemption. It is for individuals, in all the complicated sadness and bewilderment of loss.
God is here too.
Jesus shared in the grief of the bereaved sisters, and his voice rang out in the quiet of the graveyard..”Lazarus, come forth”...calling his friend by name because the power of that voice would otherwise surely raise the dead of all ages, bring them, sleepy, bemused into the daylight…
Where is God? Opening our graves, seeing that we are released from the grafe clothes,, and calling us back to life...
Whatever comes next – no matter how overpowering the coming week may be, God is involved in it.
God weeping beside us, his arms holding us steady even when human hugs are denied.
God at work bringing about resurrection in places where there is no hope of life at all.
God’s passion for humanity meaning that he bears all that we bear, carries the pain and sadness of the present time as just one more weight in the burden bourne on the cross.
But wait.
Imagine yourself back in the Cathedral, sitting in your usual place
Think, if you would, about the great tapestry of Christ under whose gaze we live every second of life there..
Now take a journey from the nave, past the high altar into the Lady Chapel for a different perspective.
Here we can see not glory alone but also pain and suffering, the dreadful loneliness of Jesus hanging on the cross, facing death abandoned by friends and father alike
“My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”
it can be as hard to look him in the eye now as it is to gaze on Ezekiel’s valley of bones.
Our instinct is to turn away – to try and find something easier to dwell on.
Best, perhaps, simply to lift our eyes to see Christ enthroned, sidestepping his suffering.
But the truth is, there is no break between the two scenes.
In reality as on the tapestry, pain and glory are all one.
I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself
God is as fully glorified when darkness shadows the world on Good Friday as in the golden dawn of Easter morning.
There is meaning and hope to be found in both if we have the courage to engage with them.
We cannot hurry through this present crisis, for the whole world is suffering, locked down together, bereft of so much that was loved and lovely – but even as we pause to lament, we can try to lift our gaze and find God at work even here, even now, making all things new.
Let us commit to work beside him, Christs body dispersed but still living and active, ready to be part of the healing of our communities in the days ahead.
Though it’s only 7 days since Mothering Sunday, when the Dean and I stood at opposite ends of the High Altar in our beloved Cathedral, already that service seems a lifetime away.
Never has Lent seen such stripping away of so much we took for granted.
Never have I longed with more fervour to see the dawn of resurrection hope...but I fear that this year I may need to wait more than the two weeks til Easte
Nonetheless, however we are feeling, today Passiontide begins.
In churches in the catholic tradition, every cross, every statue would normally now be veiled, reminding worshippers that they are entering into a time of deep darkness and pain, as Jesus walks the way of the cross and invites us to walk beside him.
This year, no veiling is necessary for we have to do without the externals altogether.
We are in exile from our buildings, learning to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
And with the mounting tide of fear and grief threatening to engulf us from time to time, it’s easy to imagine ourselves amid the grim landscape of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, its scenery a brutal reminder of the mortality that is all too real among us .
I think we need to pause and look hard, however much we would prefer to distract ourselves.
There’s nothing to console, encourage or please us here.
Just bones, with no stories behind them...a sad reminder that golden lads and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust.
This is the landscape for lament – and in this season, lament may be all the prayer we can manage.
And that’s OK.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging our grief, our anxiety, our fear.
This IS a hard place – the most barren landscape that I have inhabited in all my life – and we are bound to weep with those who weep.
What has gone wrong, that the world is so violently shaken on its axis#?
Where is God in all this?
"Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died..."
Our Gospel reading provides an instant, unmistakeable answer.
Where is God.
Standing beside us, weeping.
Jesus wept
That famous shortest verse in Scripture carries all that we need by way of assurance that the God whose son wept at the grave of Lazarus is here too, sharing our grief for each life lost, each story changed to tragedy from happy
Jesus wept.
And Jesus still weeps.
So, if you don’t know how to pray – weep and let God share in that weeping.
But remember, too, that ours is a God of transformation.
Ezekiel prophecies as God directs....mad though it may seem. Does God really wantvhim to engage with a heap of bones?
and gradually, incredibly, the bones begin to come together.
He speaks again and they put on flesh once more.
And finally the Spirit moves and they return to life.
Living and breathing
A vast multitude...the dead restored…hope rekindled for Israel and for all God’s people.
The raw grief of a burned cathedral subsumed in the wonder of people coming together to build something beautiful, founded on the ways of peace
“I shall put my spirit in you and you shall live”
Not yet, perhaps...there is a time for every purpose under heaven...but God holds all our times in his hands.
And this hope is not just for nations, not simply a promise of collective redemption. It is for individuals, in all the complicated sadness and bewilderment of loss.
God is here too.
Jesus shared in the grief of the bereaved sisters, and his voice rang out in the quiet of the graveyard..”Lazarus, come forth”...calling his friend by name because the power of that voice would otherwise surely raise the dead of all ages, bring them, sleepy, bemused into the daylight…
Where is God? Opening our graves, seeing that we are released from the grafe clothes,, and calling us back to life...
Whatever comes next – no matter how overpowering the coming week may be, God is involved in it.
God weeping beside us, his arms holding us steady even when human hugs are denied.
God at work bringing about resurrection in places where there is no hope of life at all.
God’s passion for humanity meaning that he bears all that we bear, carries the pain and sadness of the present time as just one more weight in the burden bourne on the cross.
But wait.
Imagine yourself back in the Cathedral, sitting in your usual place
Think, if you would, about the great tapestry of Christ under whose gaze we live every second of life there..
Now take a journey from the nave, past the high altar into the Lady Chapel for a different perspective.
Here we can see not glory alone but also pain and suffering, the dreadful loneliness of Jesus hanging on the cross, facing death abandoned by friends and father alike
“My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”
it can be as hard to look him in the eye now as it is to gaze on Ezekiel’s valley of bones.
Our instinct is to turn away – to try and find something easier to dwell on.
Best, perhaps, simply to lift our eyes to see Christ enthroned, sidestepping his suffering.
But the truth is, there is no break between the two scenes.
In reality as on the tapestry, pain and glory are all one.
I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself
God is as fully glorified when darkness shadows the world on Good Friday as in the golden dawn of Easter morning.
There is meaning and hope to be found in both if we have the courage to engage with them.
We cannot hurry through this present crisis, for the whole world is suffering, locked down together, bereft of so much that was loved and lovely – but even as we pause to lament, we can try to lift our gaze and find God at work even here, even now, making all things new.
Let us commit to work beside him, Christs body dispersed but still living and active, ready to be part of the healing of our communities in the days ahead.
"Never has Lent seen such stripping away of so much we took for granted."
ReplyDeleteYes. This.