Information

Anneke Kaai- van Wijngaarden, born in 1951 in Naarden, Holland, studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam after a classical education at the Gooise Academy for Visual Art.  Her paintings are inspired by the Bible and faith.  Studying in the late sixties and early seventies was a time in which many traditions and values, rightly or wrongly, were overthrown. Anneka notes “the Church also got it in the neck and God was declared dead! The latter affected me deeply, because despite my doubts and questions, I experienced God as very close. This poignant accusation gave rise to my wish that, as soon as I graduated, I would be inspired by this God, who was ‘alive and kicking’ to me…I find my Inspiration in the Bible and related themes and I hope that the viewer experiences something of this ‘Inspiration’ when seeing my work. As a painter I experience that my faith feeds my work and that my work strengthens my faith.”  Anneka paints a series of works in a theme, the theme for today’s work is the Apostle’s Creed.

Matthew 28.1-8
 
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.
 
Reflection 

Anneke’s depiction of resurrection and ascension does not include figures and is not narrative. As such it can be very helpful for anyone struggling with a literal interpretation of those gospel events. Rob B, an artist in our congregation, talks of 3 traditional elements within a painting “foreground, background, and a connecting object – bringing about the unity of the image”. He notes that “if you stare at the black in isolation it looks infinite. If you look at the brownish/whitish part the black disappears and ceases to exist. These extremes appear irreconcilable suggesting the painting is binary in meaning.  If so you could argue the painting breaks traditional rules by presenting dis-unity. But then that is contradicted because the lighting streak connects the two separate parts making it tripartite”. 
 
And that’s one thing Jesus’ resurrection does.  It breaks the rules and it makes connections which defy reason.  In contrast to the two static darker elements of the painting, the lightening streak is dynamic and sizzling with energy and creates another dimension to reality.  This is a breaking through of electrifying proportions, an unimaginable violation of the norm of life and death. 
 
‘But that I can’t believe’ was written by Bishop John Robinson in 1967 – around the time Anneke was studying.  Whilst questioning traditional beliefs about resurrection, for him ‘the empty tomb is not the Resurrection any more than the shell of the cocoon is the butterfly. And the real interest of the New Testament is in the butterfly, not the cocoon’.  The reality, the concrete truth of the resurrection, is in the continuing experience of believers to this day, experience which like Anneke’s painting knows of the drab and the dark but is shot through with the utterly captivating, ever moving shaft of light and power which is God among us.  And in so doing it transforms and it redeems taking  human life and lifting it above and beyond itself into the very heart of God.
 
Prayer
 
God in every mystery
holding us in the between places
thin enough for heaven and earth
to get tangled.
God in every light,
darkness and glory
who crosses the lines of our theology
with a story.
May we meet here
in the borderlines
where all that is rational
gets mixed up in all that is imaginative,
and where systems get redrawn with new colours,
and let you grow a little more …
(Rev Roddy Hamilton – Church of Scotland)

 

Matthias Grünewald section of Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512–1516, photo by Gleb Simonov, public domain

Information

The altarpiece was painted for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Issenheim near Colmar, which specialized in hospital work. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France and is Grünewald’s largest work and is regarded as his masterpiece. The Antonine monks of the monastery were noted for their care of plague sufferers as well as for their treatment of skin diseases. The image of the crucified Christ is pitted with plague-type sores, showing patients that Jesus understood and shared their afflictions. The veracity of the work’s depictions of medical conditions was unusual in the history of European art. Grünewald’s Crucifixion stands as one of the most poignant representations of this scene in Western art, due to the artist’s masterful depiction of horrific agony, with Christ’s emaciated body writhing under the pain of the nails driven through his hands and feet. This body covered with sores and riddled with thorns must have terrified the sick, but it also left no doubt about Christ’s suffering, thus comforting them in their communion with the Saviour, whose pain they shared.  However, the altar piece has sections which can be opened or closed and, when open the resurrection/ascension section can be viewed. 

Reading: Matthew 27: 62 – 28: 4

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”, and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone. After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

Reflection

The power of Grünewald’s altarpiece is painting to freeze a moment.  What we see in this resurrection is in deliberately stark contrast to the crucifixion dominating the altarpiece when it is closed. I suspect it impossible for us to regain the impact of that emaciated and destroyed body on the cross which the sick and dying saw in the monastery’s chapel. Equally hard for us to imagine their feelings as the huge wooden wings were opened up; the broken Christ replaced by this explosion of energy, power, light and colour.

Grünewald depicts events at night. Christ is literally rising from the tomb, its heavy stone lid heaved aside as the earthquake topples the guarding soldiers. We see human power confronted by divine power, and humanity sent reeling. Death and suffering are still present though. Jesus’ shroud trails behind him, anchored in the tomb in its stark whiteness like a flowing pillar of marble. Jesus’ hands and feet carry the fresh scars of nails. Look really closely, and these scars are shining with rays of golden light. Indeed, it is light that signals the resurrection as much as the movement of Christ. The cloth transforms into rich reds and oranges as it seems to enfold, support and flow around him. His skin is dazzling and his face is a source of such brightness that the features become indistinct. Around him, like a sun vivid in the dark sky, a vast halo of light and colour glows, pulsing like a rainbow from yellow all the way to blues as it merges into sky. Flecks of white, like stars or sparks, fly outwards.

We witness what no one recorded seeing; the actual moment of resurrection. We are shown power, glory, and grandeur; a world literally being made new in a new creation’s dawn. And Jesus looks directly out at us, as we watch him. He’s smiling. His abused hands are raised in blessing. “I did this for you,” he makes me feel.  

Prayer

Jesus, I find it easier to think of your humanity:
those words of wisdom, 
those acts of healing mercy,
the table shared with friends,
the silent prayers,
the dusty road.
Thank you for Grünewald’s gift to us:
earth shattering into resurrection
and light set free again to shine into deepest darkness.
Help us to believe,
and so to live.
Amen.

Information

The artist Sieger Köder was born in January 1925 in Wasseralfingen, Germany. During the Second World War he was sent to France as a front line soldier where he was made a prisoner of war. Once back from captivity, Sieger Köder attended the Academy School of Art in Stuttgart until 1951. After 12 years of teaching art in a secondary school and working as an artist, Köder undertook theological studies for the priesthood and, in 1971, he was ordained a Catholic priest. From 1975 to 1995, Fr. Köder exercised his ministry as a parish priest in Hohenberg and Rosenberg and also producing wonderful art. He retired to Ellwangen, not far from Stuttgart, where he continued to paint until his death in 2015 at the age of 90.  In an interview before his death he said “People come to Ellwangen asking to see the painter. If they’re that interested in the painter they haven’t understood my paintings.”

Reading: John 20 v 1

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
 
Reflection

Before it was light, before running to get the disciples, before the appearance of the risen Lord who looks like a gardener…before all those things Mary Magdalene finds the empty grave. Sieger Kode captures this moment of wonder and strangeness.

Pause to look at the picture.

You can’t help noticing Mary first – in red. The same red is a sign of hope – the roses blooming amidst the tombstones, the sky’s promise of dawn. Mary’s red might be the red of new life, given by the presence of Christ.

There is nothing to see in the grave itself – the dark space suggests a complete emptiness. Mary is kneeling –she has been looking into the grave, or she is lost in wonder. She isn’t even looking in the grave anymore – she’s looking up, shielding her eyes. Her left hand rests on the gravestone, her right hand is raised to heaven.
 
For the first in a series on ‘The risen one in art” – the risen one is not actually depicted here. But what we see is the impact of Christ’s rising on Mary, beginning with astonishment, and later growing to joy.
 
All around Mary we see other signs of what Christ’s rising means.

The writing in the bottom right hand corner “Jesus Nazarenus” looks like a Roman memorial: the Roman’s gravestone, marking the death of the one they had crucified, is thrown to one side.

The Hebrew script, cracked and broken in two, reads “science”. The former understanding of logic and science is totally re-written by the rising of Jesus Christ.

Two crosses stand to the right of the picture, still as strong as they were when they held their victims, but the third cross, to the left, now bears a garland, and looks more like a piece of art then a functional instrument of torture – it has been transformed.

Your eye might quickly see the gap in the wall, suggesting an easy escape-route from the place of death to the joy of dawn. Look again and you’ll see that the ominous skull shape in the wall has been torn in two. Death itself is dead.
 
Prayer

Christ, the risen one,
dawn on our understanding, we pray.
Show us how your living power
breaks through our barriers of understanding and explanation,
bringing the rising dawn of joy.
Life eternal, be born anew in us.
Amen.

Wednesday 23rd April Easter Wednesday 

St Luke 24: 36 – 49

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’  And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’  They gave him a piece of broiled fish,  and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,  and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’

Reflection

When times are tough, emotions can fly from one extreme to another, as events unfold and our expectations are changed – perhaps as here – from grief to joy, or vice versa.

Years ago, a colleague was critically ill.  My journey to work seemed to take ages – I was scared about what I might hear.  Happily, news was good, and eventually the colleague returned to health. The rest of the day was easier.

The two journeys taken by Cleopas and his companion must have contrasted greatly – the sad trudge home, transformed by an encounter with the risen Jesus, and then flying back to Jerusalem, tiredness forgotten, to share their news with the other disciples.  Can you imagine the chatter as everyone shared their experiences?

Then, suddenly, Jesus is there! Even as evidence grew that Jesus was alive, it had still seemed impossible, and the disciples were scared.  Jesus moves to comfort them, offering peace, proving he was him.  Doubt turns to belief, sadness to joy. He can talk! He can eat! Definitely Jesus – look at the wounds on his hand and feet!

Now at last, the disciples are ready to understand what Jesus has been trying to teach them all this time – he explains the scriptures again: how this was the way it was always going to be, and how now they would be the ones to spread the news – once they had received the Holy Spirit.
As modern-day disciples, we can find it difficult to share our faith in Jesus. This tale can still seem impossible to believe. Surely people will laugh at us, or be nasty to us, and what if we get muddled up?  Jesus promised the disciples the power of the Holy Spirit – to those first disciples at Pentecost, and thereafter to all who believe, including us.  In that power, we are supported to spread the good news – Jesus is alive, living in our hearts, and loves you too!

Prayer

Lord, when our faith is challenged by events, and we fear the future, help us to remember those disciples whose doubt turned to faith, and whose tears turned to joy when they encountered you again, showing them that you are alive – then and now, living in our hearts.
Excite us with your good news, helping us to share it with others.
Amen

On The Death of His Holiness, Pope Francis

Dear Friends,

The URC has prepared the following reflection following the death of Pope Francis.  It is hoped you find it useful in public and private prayer and reflection.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

The United Reformed Church, with Christians everywhere, mourns the death of His Holiness Pope Frances, and extends its sympathy to Catholics who will grieve this loss most keenly. 

  

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope in March 2013 taking office after the abdication of Benedict XVI. It is rumoured Bergoglio was the runner up when Benedict was elected and was the first Pope ever to have his predecessor living in such proximity throughout much of his papal ministry.  

All who are called to offices of leadership and oversight in the Church realise how demanding these roles can be; none is more demanding than that of Bishop of Rome. The complexity of the task tired Benedict to the point of exhaustion and the toll of the office was heavy for Francis.   

  

Within the limitations and expectations of the Papal office Francis was an agent of change who sat lightly on inherited traditions and pomp. Rejecting an ermine lined red cape before being presented to the crowds in St Peter’s, Francis said to an aide “no thank you Monsignor … the carnival is over!”.  

Living a simple lifestyle meant, for Francis, rejecting a move into the Papal apartments (which he said had room for more than 300 people) and remaining in a small suite in the Vatican guesthouse, taking his meals with other guests.   

  

Francis saw his ministry, primarily, as being one who called the Church to be missionary. He wanted every element of the Church’s life to reflect missionary discipleship and the building of the Kingdom.  

He oversaw the updating of the constitution for the Roman Curia (the Vatican civil service) so that it was orientated towards service and mission; it is supposed to be a template for every diocesan curia. Francis railed against bishops who viewed themselves as managers of a corporation seeing them, instead, as men who had to “smell of their sheep.”  

In a speech before his election Francis stated: “when the Church does not come out of herself to evangelise, she becomes self-referential and sick”. A maxim all denominations should take to heart.  

He also spoke of Jesus knocking on the door, from within the Church, seeking to be let out into the world. Yet Francis was no liberal. He would speak of the reality of the Devil – no doubt the behaviour of some of his bishops led him to become ever more convinced of the reality of evil.  He remained traditional over some of the hot button topics of the age – gender and sexuality.   

  

Francis also saw his call to involve a return to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. After that Council, which changed so much within Catholicism, Paul VI established a Synod of Bishops to keep alive the spirit of conciliar government which reasserted itself at the Council.  The Synod had been undervalued by Popes John Paul II and Benedict and was reduced to little more than a talking shop called to rubber stamp whatever Pope or Curia wanted. Francis embarked on a bold programme of reform, convening the Synod more regularly and asking it to deal with tough questions: family life, young people, mission in the Amazon, and, more broadly the nature of the Church’s mission as well as attempting to recover Synodality in Catholicism.  

Francis’ vision would be familiar to Reformed Christians with an emphasis on the Holy Spirit working within synodical process. He yearned for a shared discernment process which included laity (both men and women).  

However, the dilemma for any reformer is to let the process happen and not try to influence its outcome. Francis’ calls for local dioceses to follow this Synodical way has led to some difficult issues in Germany where calls to bless same sex unions and ordain women to the diaconate proved uncomfortable for the Roman Curia, and Francis himself, to manage. 

  

Francis was, in many ways, a radical when it came to the status quo. He created cardinals from far flung places that would not normally expect to have a man in the College.  

When asked about gay priests he, famously, shrugged his shoulders and said: “Who am I to judge?” which begged the response – “if not you, then who?”. Admittedly at a tiny pace, Francis appointed more women to the higher rungs of the Roman Curia but not anything like the speed needed to ensure balance between the sexes. He did, however, include more women than ever before in Synods and ensured they had prominent positions within them. 

  

Francis was determined to see the strong relational bonds between religious traditions and between humanity itself. He referred to Muslims as “our siblings” and went to great lengths to improve Christian-Muslim relations visiting the United Arab Emirates in 2019 and Iraq in 2021.  

His pilgrimage to South Sudan with the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Archbishop of Canterbury was groundbreaking in its ecumenical nature and in its efforts to bring warring factions together.  

He visited Lutheran churches in Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. This was a pope who understood, and embodied, the interconnected nature of all humanity and the strong familial bonds between Christians.   

The global significance of Francis’ ministry was seen most clearly in his two environmental encyclicals. In these he repurposed the centuries-long sidelined heritage of Christianity as a faith seeking profound and nourishing interaction with fellow creatures.  

Many readers of Laudato si have tried, and failed, to evade its radicalism summed up in its opening quote from St Francis: “our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us.”  

In Francis, liberation theology became not only mainstream, but intellectually accessible. The divorce of faith and created reality is set aside, liberating the value of a creative and resilient spiritual tradition for justice, and for joy. Laudato si is informed by both activism and science.  

The idolatry of control, and the “common sense” of Mammon are once more castigated in the righteous impatience of Laudate Deum [2023], an easier and more refreshing read at 7,000 words than Laudato Si’s dense 40,000.  

With Francis, big broad-stroke arguments for environmental justice belong with the simple appreciation of accessible beauty: encouraging grace at meals, and wildflowers in churches that “those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.” 

Following the election of Messers Trump and Vance as President and Vice President of the United States of America, Pope Francis became more and more alarmed at the rhetoric and actions against migrants.  

In February 2025 he wrote to the US Catholic Bishops reminding them of the migration of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt in search of a better future, the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt to escape terror, and condemning the mass deportations from America “…the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defencelessness.”   

Criticising Mr Vance’s notion that Christian love ripples out in concentric circles, Francis noted Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan where love is demanded for all without exception. Edgily commending migrants to Our Lady of Guadalupe left the American bishops in no doubt as to where they must stand in opposition to the actions of President Trump.  

  

Above all, Francis was a pastoral pope emphasising the mercy of God and the need to change our ways to save the planet. The selfless love embodied in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, however, sometimes led to some key mistakes in Francis’ pontificate.  He was, sometimes, too slow to see the reality of abuse allegations against some of his friends. His desire to unify worship in the Catholic Church led him to rescind Benedict’s tolerance of the celebration of the older Latin Mass meaning many traditionalists found him intolerant.  

Francis came to an agreement with the Chinese government to regularise the situation of Catholic bishops not recognised, nor controlled, by the Chinese state. Many feel the agreement gave too much to the Chinese government and not enough to the Church. Time will tell.   

  

Francis’ ministry as Pope was remarkable. From his simple “good evening” to the crowds on the evening of his election to the warmth that radiated from him, he caught the imagination of the world. Not since John XXIII has the non-Catholic world felt such warmth towards a Pope.  

May he rest in peace and rise in glory. 

  

Prayers 

Eternal Majesty, 

we commend to You our brother Francis, 

give him the rest he so sorely needs. 

  

Faithful Shepherd, 

help us to model in our lives and ministry, 

the mercy, radicalness, and missionary zeal of Your servant Francis, 

that Your kingdom will come. 

  

Abiding Spirit, 

guide the College of Cardinals as they pray, discern, and elect a new pope, 

that that the ministry of oversight and leadership embodied in Pope Francis 

may bear good fruit. Amen 

 

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Ruth Whitehead

 
Welcome

Welcome to this act of worship. I’m Ruth Whitehead, and I’m the minister of the Landsker Pastorate of the URC – five chapels around Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire. This Easter Morning the five congregations will come together in a joint service of celebration, just yards away from the Irish Sea. It is as beautiful as it sounds.

Call to Worship

Christ is risen    He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Hymn     Christ the Lord is Risen Today
Charles Wesley (1739) Public Domain, Worldwide Easter Choir United Methodist Voices

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia
Where’s thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia
 
Prayer of Adoration, Confession, and Assurance of Pardon

God of all life, all joy, all hope.
We come to worship you, with hearts full of praise 
that your love is stronger than death and that Jesus is alive.
We know that Jesus gave his life to set us free, 
and that you raised him from death 
so that we can know peace beyond measure – life in all its fullness.
We praise you that we may know the love of God our Father, 
the healing of God the Son and the power of God the Holy Spirit: 
love, healing, and power made real for us today.

We confess to you that we stand in constant need 
of your love, healing and power each and every day: 
to forgive us when we fail you; 
to strengthen us when we are weak; 
to help us begin again when all seems lost.

Thank you, loving God, 
that the good news of Easter is that the worst that sin can do 
is no match for the depth of your loving mercy.
As you raised Jesus, so raise us up, 
so that we may walk your ways as your forgiven children.
Here us as we pray the words Jesus himself taught his disciples:

Our Father…

Hymn     Now the Green Blade Rises
John Macleod Campbell Crum Public Domain Sung by the Choir of St Anne’s Copp  

Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain,
thinking that He never would awake again,
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain;
quick from the dead the risen One is seen:
Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
then Your touch can call us back to life again,
fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
love is come again like wheat that springs up green.
 
Reading     Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24 
The Psalmist rejoices in God’s amazing work

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever!

Let Israel say, ‘His steadfast love endures for ever.’

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
‘The right hand of the Lord does valiantly;
the right hand of the Lord is exalted;
the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.’
I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Reading     St Luke 24: 1-12    
One version of the Easter story

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,  but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,  that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’  Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Hymn     Come Ye Faithful Raise the Strain
St. John of Damascus; Translator: J. M. Neale (1859) Public Domain.  Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission.

Come, you faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness!
God has brought his Israel into joy from sadness,
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke Jacob’s sons and daughters,
led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

‘tis the spring of souls today; Christ has burst his prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death as a sun hath risen;
all the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying
from his light, to whom we give laud and praise undying.
 
Now the queen of seasons, bright with the day of splendour,
with the royal feast of feasts, comes its joy to render;
comes to gladden faithful hearts who with true affection
welcome in unwearied strains Jesus’ resurrection!

Sermon

I wonder how you feel about the response with which we began our worship: “Christ is risen”, “He is risen indeed, alleluia”?

There’s a mum I know who says to her children, when she doesn’t quite believe what they’re saying ‘really?’.  It can be “we’re going on a school trip to the moon!” (“Really?”) or something as simple as “I’ve finished tidying my bedroom”. “Really?”. Sometimes I feel like making that my response to the statement ‘Christ is risen”… “Really?”

If you’re not quite sure about the whole resurrection thing this morning you’re in good company.  The women went to the disciples with the story of everything they had seen and heard… the stone had been rolled away, they’d seen the empty tomb, then there were two men in dazzling clothes, who reminded them of what Jesus had said  – that he would rise again – and these two angelic creatures had said ‘why look for the living among dead ? he is not here, he has risen’.  The women arrived, on what we would call Easter Sunday morning, with their breathless and amazing and wonderful story.

And the disciples’ reaction?      “pfft”. 

They thought it was idle tales. In fact, the Greek word used there in the gospel, ‘leros’ gives us our word delirious. They thought the women were delirious. That they were talking rubbish, babble, nonsense. Maybe it’s an ordinary human reaction to this extraordinary Easter story. Christ is risen. Really?

But the evidence mounts, others see the empty tomb, and even meet an angel. Mary sees Jesus in the garden; the disciples meet him in the upper room; Thomas sees and believes; they all see Jesus on the beach and he cooks them breakfast, talks to them and forgives Peter.  Christ is risen.

And so 2000 years on when we start our worship with the words “Christ is risen” we manage to say ‘ he is risen indeed, alleluia’ and not “really?”. But this gradual dawning of reality into the hearts and minds of Jesus’ disciples means 3 things;

Firstly, if we find it hard to believe.. It’s ok. We’re not expected to get it all in one go.  We’re only human, we may need to hear this extraordinary story many times and in different ways before the truth starts to dawn on us.  We may need our own proof, a realisation of where the risen Jesus can be seen and heard in our own lives. It may take time for us to move from ‘Really?’ to ‘he is risen indeed.’

And secondly, this story tells us that if we believe and tell others, but no-one believes us, that’s ok too.  The very first eye-witnesses to the resurrection, their hearts still pounding with the excitement of it, failed to ignite immediately the interest of the remainder of Jesus’ friends. Babble, nonsense – leros – was their first reaction. This truth of resurrection is hard to grasp. It isn’t obviously true on first hearing. It’s not our fault if it sounds a bit too good to be true because that’s just what it is – amazingly, eye-poppingly, strange – but true. Christ is risen.

And thirdly, if this whole story doesn’t disturb us a bit , maybe we’ve become too used to the story and we’re not listening.  There is something rather disturbing about this story of an empty tomb and a man raised from death.

I will admit right now that I cannot watch zombie movies. I just don’t like the whole idea of dead people walking around attacking other people. In real life, the dead stay dead and I can’t cope with a story-line of a film where the natural order of things is messed about with. The Easter story has an element of that level of disturbance. Jesus, who was dead, has risen. That seems at first like it cannot be true. The dead stay dead.  But the women’s story – eventually accepted and experienced by all Jesus’ disciples – tells us that death is no longer the end.  In God’s new kingdom all the rules have changed and the Good news is that now it is death itself that is dead. In God’s new kingdom we learn that we need to treat death in a new way – death itself is dead – but we also need to treat life in a new way, too. 

The witness of the women – what seemed like ‘idle tales’, babble, delirium, is actually profound truth.  If we are to look for God’s action in the world around us, bringing life from death; if we are to meet the risen Jesus this Easter; if the Spirit is to move among us – we might need to look in unexpected places and learn to listen to those whose witness we have previously dismissed. Jesus is alive, bringing the promise of new life to all people.  Really.   Alleluia.    Amen.

Statement of Faith 

If it is for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. Alleluia – Christ is risen

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. Alleluia – we shall be raised

But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. Alleluia – God’s love will reign forever

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Alleluia – death is dead

Offertory 

This Easter Day we celebrate that God has given us the gift of victory over death.  In response to all God’s gifts, we bring our gifts and ourselves…

Hymn     Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
From the Liturgy of St James paraphrased by Gerard Moultrie (1864) Public Domain recorded at St Francis of Assis Parish, Frisco, Texas for the Catholic Music Initiative.
 
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded, for, with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture, in the body and the blood.
He will give to all the faithful His own self for heav’nly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth from the realms of endless day,
that the pow’rs of hell may vanish as the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph, cherubim with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the Presence, as with ceaseless voice they cry,
“Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, Lord Most High!”

Holy Communion

Invitation 

Jesus was often a guest. He shared many meals with his friends, and they long remembered his words at the table.  Though some disapproved of the company he kept,  Jesus ate and drank with all kinds of people and showed everyone the love of God. Wherever people met together Jesus was glad to be welcomed and to be fed. Today, we are the guests of Jesus. He welcomes us, whoever we are and whatever we bring, and he will feed us at his table. Old or young, rich or poor, joyful or in sorrow, Jesus invites us to share bread and wine with him, to remember the story of his life and death, and resurrection and to celebrate his presence with us today.

Alleluia. The risen Christ is with us.  Alleluia! Alleluia!

Lift up your hearts.  We lift them to the Lord. 

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  
It is right to give our thanks and praise. 

We give thanks to you, O God,
Because this day we learn that death is dead and Christ’s love is eternal.
We praise you for your work of creation – in all its beauty and diversity, 
for your teaching through the law and the prophets – 
through which you reach out to humankind – 
for your coming to us in Jesus Christ – 
the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth;
for his rising from the grave to live with us now and forever;
for your moving among us in the Holy Spirit, 
growing faith where there was doubt.

Therefore we join with all your people in heaven and earth 
to raise the hymn of your glory

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

We praise you that Jesus preached good news that the kingdom has come so that we may know the truth of your love with us forever.
The life and death and rising of Jesus Christ all show us the astonishing extent of your mercy to us. We remember, and we praise you with our lives and with these gifts of bread and wine, proclaiming with one voice the mystery of faith:

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Come upon these gifts, Holy Spirit, 
make them for us Christ’s body, Christ’s blood.
Come upon us, Holy Spirit,
make us one body in Christ, enlivened by his gift of life.
Come among us Holy Spirit,
take our prayers and transform our world,
as we pray for all those in need this day.
Come and fill this feast, Holy Spirit,
this day, and every day until that day
when we eat it in the beauty of heaven 
and our Easter Alleluias will know no end.
All blessing, honour, glory and power be yours, Holy Triune God,
now and forever. Amen

Breaking and sharing

This is the body of Christ broken for you, Eat and be very thankful.
This is the blood of Christ given for you, Drink and be very thankful.
Amen.

Music for Holy Communion     At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing 
Robert Campbell (1814-1868) Public Domain, sung by North Stoneham and Bassett Parish Church choir.

Prayer after Communion 

Loving God, you have fed us generously at this table, 
as we have remembered Jesus and rejoiced that he is with us today. 
We are ready now to follow him, and to be your people in the world. 
May your Holy Spirit shine on us to  show us the way, 
make us holy and fill us with love.  Amen.

Hymn     Thine Be the Glory
Richard Birch Hoyle; Author: Edmond Budry (1904)  Courtesy of St Andrew’s Cathedral & Choir,  Sydney, Australia
 
Thine be the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry Thou o’er death hast won.
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept the folded grave-clothes where Thy body lay.

Thine be the glory,  risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry  Thou o’er death hast won.

Lo! Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb.
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
let the Church with gladness hymns of triumph sing,
for the Lord now liveth; death hath lost its sting.
 
Thine be the glory,  risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry  Thou o’er death hast won.

No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life!!
Life is nought without Thee; aid us in our strife;
make us more than conqu’rors, through Thy deathless love;
bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.

Thine be the glory,  risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry  Thou o’er death hast won.

Blessing 

May God bless you and keep you;
May God make eternal life dawn upon you and be gracious to you;
May God fill you with abundant love that nothing on earth can conquer
and give you peace, now and always. Amen.

St Luke 23: 50 – 56

Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council,  had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid.  It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid.  Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Reflection

“One day a company of people will make their way to a churchyard, and lay a coffin in the ground, and then all go home again. Except that one of them will not come back, and that will be me.” Those words were written by a famous Christian thinker of a few decades ago, Karl Barth. Death waits for us all. It is a natural part of being human, the full stop at the end of the story.

Holy Saturday, the day he lay buried, is part of the natural story of Jesus. He entered fully into our human experience, right up to the ebbing away of life. The word became flesh, and flesh is perishable, not permanent.

Yet our human flesh is made to carry the image of God. It deserves to be treated with respect, even in death. Joseph, a man of rank and sympathetic to Jesus’ cause, decides to offer this. A shroud and a new tomb bring some decency and dignity. Joseph’s is a discipleship of grief, but of generosity too.

As it is for the women who walked with Jesus from Galilee. In sorrow and love they follow the little cortege, watch the burial, prepare gifts to tend and scent Jesus’ body, and wait in quiet readiness until it is time to bring these to the grave.

These disciples, doing the last things they can, speak to me of seasons when change, loss or disappointment assail us, when the best we can achieve and offer to God is far less than we would once have hoped. Yet the best we can give is always worthwhile. As so often with God, even if the full stop seems to be all that is left to write, this is not the end of the story.

Prayer

God of Holy Saturday, 
thank you for entering our weakness, 
for sharing our flesh and our frailty, 
our days and our dying. 
Thank you that when we step through the door of death, 
we shall walk a path that already carries the footprints of Jesus. 
Whom we name as risen Lord, 
and in whose name we pray. Amen.

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston

 
Welcome and Introduction

Hello and welcome to worship on this, the saddest day of the Church’s year.  We follow Jesus from the garden to the tomb, ponder things through the eyes of Peter, Pilate, and Mary and wonder how we might have reacted if we’d been there.  Through song, reading, silence, reflection and prayer we join Jesus at the cross, marvel at the love which held him there and the evil that always fights against good, sometimes seeming to win, but always ultimately defeated.  We start our service with a hymn by British Baptist hymn writer Martin Leckebusch with his hymn, Come Wounded Healer.

Hymn     Come Wounded Healer
Martin Leckebusch  © 1999, Kevin Mayhew Ltd OneLicence # A-734713. Performed by Ruth and Joy Everingham and used with their kind permission.

Come, wounded healer, Your sufferings reveal –
the scars You accepted, our anguish to heal.
Your wounds bring such comfort in body and soul
to all who bear torment and yearn to be whole.

Come, hated Lover, and gather us near,
Your welcome, Your teaching, Your challenge to hear:
where scorn and abuse cause rejection and pain,
Your loving acceptance makes hope live again!
 
Come, broken Victor, condemned to a cross –
how great are the treasures we gain from Your loss!
Your willing agreement to share in our strife
transforms our despair into fullness of life.

Opening Prayers

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Eternal Majesty,
wondering at humanity’s wickedness, 
at how injustice, torture, degradation, and death remain with us;
at how evil, banal and dreadful, continues to stalk the earth,
and at how we collude with it.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Lord Jesus,  following You to the Cross, 
watching You bear unimaginable pain, 
sharing in the grief of Your mother and friends, 
seeing you punished for truth-telling, hated for love-sharing,
killed for disturbing the powers of Your age, 
and bringing judgement to unjust power everywhere.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One,  have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Most Holy Spirit, 
with all our interpretations of Jesus’ death, 
mixed with our dis-ease at the pain, injustice, and suffering of it all. 
We long for Easter but must endure today’s pain and tomorrow’s waiting.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

So, we come to worship, Eternal Trinity, 
with our pain and our prayers,  our patience and our protest, 
our stumbling questions and partial answers, 

and stand at the Cross, beholding mystery, love, and eternity. 

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We hear again the account of Jesus’ passion in John’s Gospel.

Gospel Reading     John 18:1-27

Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron valley where there was a garden into which he went with his disciples. Judas the traitor knew the place also, since Jesus had often met his disciples there, so Judas brought the cohort to this place together with guards sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees, all with lanterns and torches and weapons. Knowing everything that was to happen to him, Jesus came forward and said, ‘Who are you looking for?’  They answered, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said, ‘I am he.’ Now Judas the traitor was standing among them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they moved back and fell on the ground. He asked them a second time, ‘Who are you looking for?’ They said, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’  Jesus replied, ‘I have told you that I am he. If I am the one you are looking for, let these others go.’  This was to fulfil the words he had spoken, ‘Not one of those you gave me have I lost.’   Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.  Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back in its scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’  The cohort and its tribune and the Jewish guards seized Jesus and bound him.   They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.  It was Caiaphas who had counselled the Jews, ‘It is better for one man to die for the people.’  Simon Peter, with another disciple, followed Jesus. This disciple, who was known to the high priest, went with Jesus into the high priest’s palace, but Peter stayed outside the door. So, the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the door-keeper and brought Peter in.   The girl on duty at the door said to Peter, ‘Aren’t you another of that man’s disciples?’ He answered, ‘I am not.’  Now it was cold, and the servants and guards had lit a charcoal fire and were standing there warming themselves; so Peter stood there too, warming himself with the others. The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.  Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly for all the world to hear; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the Temple where all the Jews meet together; I have said nothing in secret.  Why ask me? Ask my hearers what I taught; they know what I said.’  At these words, one of the guards standing by gave Jesus a slap in the face, saying, ‘Is that the way you answer the high priest?’  Jesus replied, ‘If there is some offence in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike me?’  Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.  As Simon Peter stood there warming himself, someone said to him, ‘Aren’t you another of his disciples?’ He denied it saying, ‘I am not.’  One of the high priest’s servants, a relation of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, ‘Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?’  Again Peter denied it; and at once a cock crowed.  

Reflection     Peter

I always feel rather sorry for Peter; a big character who jumps in, sometimes literally, with both feet but doesn’t always think things through.  He hurtles in the water to meet Jesus but then sinks.  A few hours before this episode he promised never to deny Jesus and now he’s denied him thrice.  Full of bluster but crumpling under pressure; supposedly the leader of the apostles but he has, almost, the greatest failures.  It’s easy to judge.  How often have been in situations afraid to speak up?  I went for a meal a year or so with a group of people who are socially liberal and assertive in their politics who didn’t intervene, myself included, when one of our number was borderline racist with the waitress.  How often are we men drawn into sexist comments or we white people assumed to open to be drawn into racist conversations?  Do we, like Peter, collude or speak up?  How easy is it to tell the truth when ruin is a real consequence?  Commentators marvel at how American Republican politicians know that Mr Trump is wrong on so many issues but won’t speak against him.  Peter found speaking the truth when he was in danger impossible.  It’s part of the tragedy of Good Friday – in his most desolate hour Jesus’ friends deserted him.  Let’s pray

Forsaken God, help us to speak Your truth,
truth to power, truth when it’s inconvenient
truth even when it is uncomfortable, edgy or dangerous,
that Your truth may set us, and the world, free. Amen.

We sing Brian Wren’s Good Friday hymn, Here Hangs A Man Discarded.

Hymn     Here Hangs a Man Discarded
Brian Wren© 1975, rev. 1995 Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713. Sung by Lance Culnane

Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,
a nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.
Can such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word
when faith & hope seem phantoms and every hope absurd?

Yet here is help and comfort for lives by comfort bound,
when drums of dazzling progress give strangely hollow sound:
Life, emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,
can share in broken silence our deepest emptiness;

And love that freely entered the pit of life’s despair,
can name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.
Christ, in our darkness risen, help all who long for light
to hold the hand of promise, till faith receives its sight.

Gospel Reading     John 18:28 – 19:16

They then led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It was now morning. They did not go into the Praetorium themselves to avoid becoming defiled and unable to eat the Passover.  So Pilate came outside to them and said, ‘What charge do you bring against this man?’ They replied,  ‘If he were not a criminal, we should not have handed him over to you.’  Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves, and try him by your own Law.’ The Jews answered, ‘We are not allowed to put anyone to death.’  This was to fulfil the words Jesus had spoken indicating the way he was going to die.  So Pilate went back into the Praetorium and called Jesus to him and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’  Jesus replied, ‘Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others said it to you about me?’  Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?’  Jesus replied, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here.’  Pilate said, ‘So, then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is you who say that I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’  ‘Truth?’ said Pilate. ‘What is that?’  And so saying he went out again to the Jews and said, ‘I find no case against him.  But according to a custom of yours I should release one prisoner at the Passover; would you like me, then, to release for you the king of the Jews?’  At this they shouted, ‘Not this man,’ they said, ‘but Barabbas.’ Barabbas was a bandit.” “Pilate then had Jesus taken away and scourged; and after this, the soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on his head and dressed him in a purple robe.  They kept coming up to him and saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ and slapping him in the face. Pilate came outside again and said to them, ‘Look, I am going to bring him out to you to let you see that I find no case against him.’  Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, ‘Here is the man.’  When they saw him, the chief priests and the guards shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him: I find no case against him.’ The people replied, ‘We have a Law, and according to that Law he ought to be put to death, because he has claimed to be Son of God.’  When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased.  Re-entering the Praetorium, he said to Jesus, ‘Where do you come from?’ But Jesus made no answer.  Pilate then said to him, ‘Are you refusing to speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?’  Jesus replied, ‘You would have no power over me at all if it had not been given you from above; that is why the man who handed me over to you has the greater guilt.’  From that moment Pilate was anxious to set him free, but the people shouted, ‘If you set him free you are no friend of Caesar’s; anyone who makes himself king is defying Caesar.’  Hearing these words, Pilate had Jesus brought out, and seated him on the chair of judgement at a place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha.  It was the Day of Preparation, about the sixth hour. ‘Here is your king,’ said Pilate to the Jews.  But they shouted, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him.’ Pilate said, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king except Caesar.’  So at that Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

Reflection     Pilate

I wonder if Pilate gave any thought to Jesus after this episode.  Imperial administrators wouldn’t normally have bothered with a tiresome spat but he’d have been aware of the heightened atmosphere in Jerusalem with it being Passover; he knew custom dictated the release of a prisoner and he was shrewd enough to know the established hated Jesus.  But would he have given any lasting thought to this poor unfortunate preacher?  Well maybe…Jesus was very curt with Pilate.  Those at risk of losing their lives tend to be very polite!  They debate truth but Pilate has no truck with that; truth is whatever is expedient.  They debate power and Jesus reminds Pilate his power comes from above, not from Rome.  Heaven only knows what Pilate would have made of that; the elite, then and now, don’t like being reminded of their limitations.  Then Jesus simply refuses to deign to speak to Pilate again.  He’d have not been used to that level of rudeness, assertiveness, and dignity.   How are we when people insist on telling us the truth?  How are we when another’s assertiveness and dignity puts us in our place?  How good are we at remembering the important incidents in our lives rather than the ones we prefer to remember?  Let’s pray

Sorely pressed Lord, no one turned to help You,
yet You held Your dignity, spoke Your truth, and kept Your silence;
help us to act with dignity in the face of wrath, love in the face of hate, 
and to know when to keep our silence.  Amen.

We sing some words by German pastor, theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer We Turn to God When We are Sorely Pressed.

Hymn     We Turn to God When We are Sorely Pressed
After Dietrich Bonhoeffer Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713 
sung by Marcas MacLeòid
 
We turn to God when we are sorely pressed;
we pray for help and ask for peace and bread;
we seek release from illness, guilt, and death; 
all people do, in faith or unbelief.  

We turn to God when he is sorely pressed,
and find him poor, scorned, without roof and bread;
bowed under weight of weakness, sin and death
faith stands by God in his dark hour of grief.
 
God turns to us when we are sorely pressed,
and feeds our souls and bodies with his bread;
for one and all Christ gives himself in death;
through his forgiveness sin will find relief.

Gospel Reading     John 19:17-42

They then took charge of Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him with two others, one on either side, Jesus being in the middle.  Pilate wrote out a notice and had it fixed to the cross; it ran: ‘Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews’.  This notice was read by many of the people, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the writing was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.  So the Jewish chief priests said to Pilate, ‘You should not write “King of the Jews”, but that the man said, “I am King of the Jews”. ‘ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’  When the soldiers had finished crucifying Jesus they took his clothing and divided it into four shares, one for each soldier. His undergarment was seamless, woven in one piece from neck to hem; so they said to one another, ‘Instead of tearing it, let’s throw dice to decide who is to have it.’ In this way the words of scripture were fulfilled: They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothes. That is what the soldiers did.  Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son.’  Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.  After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed and, so that the scripture should be completely fulfilled, he said: I am thirsty.  A jar full of sour wine stood there; so, putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had taken the wine he said, ‘It is fulfilled’; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit.   It was the Day of Preparation, and to avoid the bodies’ remaining on the cross during the Sabbath — since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity — the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away.  Consequently, the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the other.  When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water. This is the evidence of one who saw it — true evidence, and he knows that what he says is true — and he gives it so that you may believe as well.  Because all this happened to fulfil the words of scripture: Not one bone of his will be broken;  and again, in another place scripture says: They will look to the one whom they have pierced.  After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus – though a secret one because he was afraid of the people – asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away.  Nicodemus came as well – the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time – and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.  They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried.  Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Reflection     Mary

Mary’s presence at the Cross makes our hearts ache.  We can’t imagine how a mother would feel watching the slow, painful, execution of her son.  Helpless to do anything other than just be present, she must have had so many emotions swirling around her.  Jesus, even here at the end, seeks to provide for her and a new family is made for her with his friend John.  We think of Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her own heart even as we wait for the spear to pierce Jesus.  Her own prophetic song of revolt must have sounded hollow as she watches her son, helpless, suffer torture and shameful death.  Here, in this moment, our theologies stand silent.  Here, in this moment – made present to us every time we celebrate Communion – we see both the boundless love of Jesus and the hopeless love of Mary.  Both are present in our own discipleship as we take up our crosses and stumble after Him.  

Sometimes we tap into the boundless love of Jesus and do wonderful things, show amazing care and service to those outside our walls, and point to the coming Kingdom where all wrongs will be righted and justice finally made manifest in our world.  But at other times we stand with little we can say, nothing we can do, and where all we have is our presence.  When we keep vigil with the bereaved, wait with the terminally ill, and stand powerless against the horrors of the world we, like Mary, have nothing but our love and presence.  Mary must have felt powerless and useless; Jesus must have felt profoundly grateful that His mother was there at the end as she was at the start.  

Sometimes, for us, our powerlessness and uselessness blind us to the comfort that we can bring by simply being present.  Let’s pray:

Comforted God,
help us to know when simply to be present,
to understand that words are not always necessary,
and that love has many ways of bringing comfort.  Amen

We sing Samuel Crossman’s great lament, My Song is Love Unknown.

Hymn     My Song is Love Unknown
Samuel Crossman (1664) Public domain courtesy of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney
 
My song is love unknown, my Saviour’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh, and die?

He came from his blest throne, salvation to bestow:
but people scorned, and none the longed-for Christ would know.
But O my Friend, my Friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend!

Sometimes they strew his way, and his strong praises sing;
resounding all the day hosannas to their King.
Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath, and for his death they thirst and cry.

They rise, and needs will have my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful he to suffering goes, that he his foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heaven was his home: but mine the tomb wherein he lay.

Here might I stay and sing: no story so divine;
never was love, dear King, never was grief like thine!
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.

The Reproaches

The Reproaches are a liturgical text from the 9th Century Church used on Good Friday, or in some Eastern Churches on Holy Saturday.  The version we use today have been adapted for use in the Presbyterian Church of the USA. If you feel comfortable please join in with the responses in bold.

O my people, O my Church, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? Answer me.

I led you forth from the land of Egypt and delivered you by the waters of baptism, but you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I led you through the desert forty years, and fed you with manna: I brought you through tribulation and penitence, and gave you my body, the bread of heaven, but you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

What more could I have done for you that I have not done? I planted you, my chosen and fairest vineyard, I made you the branches of my vine; but when I was thirsty, you gave me vinegar to drink and pierced with a spear the side of your Saviour, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I went before you in a pillar of cloud, and you have led me to the judgment hall of Pilate. I scourged your enemies and brought you to a land of freedom, but you have scourged, mocked, and beaten me. I gave you the water of salvation from the rock, but you have given me gall and left me to thirst, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I gave you a royal sceptre, and bestowed the keys to the kingdom, but you have given me a crown of thorns. I raised you on high with great power, but you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

My peace I gave, which the world cannot give, and washed your feet as a sign of my love, but you draw the sword to strike in my name and seek high places in my kingdom. I offered you my body and blood, but you scatter and deny and abandon me, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I sent the Spirit of truth to guide you, and you close your hearts to the Counsellor. I pray that all may be one in the Father and me, but you continue to quarrel and divide. I call you to go and bring forth fruit, but you cast lots for my clothing, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I grafted you into the tree of my chosen Israel, and you turned on them with persecution and mass murder. I made you joint heirs with them of my covenants but you made them scapegoats for your own guilt, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

Holy God, holy and mighty, Holy immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I came to you as the least of your brothers and sisters; I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me, and you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

O my people, O my Church, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? Answer me.

Hymn     Tree of Life and Awesome Mystery
Marty Haugen © 1986 GIA Publications OneLicence. Sung by members of Upper Clyde Parish Church

Tree of life and awesome mystery, 
in your death we are reborn,
though you die in all of history, 
still you rise with every morn, still you rise with every morn.

Seed that dies to rise in glory,
may we see ourselves in you,
if we learn to live your story,
we may die to rise anew, we may die to rise anew.

We remember truth one spoken,
love passed on through act and word,
every person, lost and broken
wears the body of our Lord, wears the body of our Lord.

Gentle Jesus, mighty Spirit,
come inflame our hearts anew,
we may all your joy inherit,
if we bear the cross with you, if we bear the cross with you.
 
Christ you lead and we shall follow, 
stumbling though our steps may be,
one with you in joy and sorrow, 
we the river, you the sea, we the river, you the sea.

Intercessions

We bring our prayers to the Eternal One, Everlasting Majesty, Crucified Word, and Abiding Spirit.  

Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, 
that they may continue to grow in the love of God’s most holy Name 
and in faithfulness to God’s everlasting covenant. 

(silence)

Almighty and eternal God, 
long ago you gave your promise to Abraham, Sarah, and their posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own
may arrive at the fullness of redemption. Amen
Let us pray for the Church throughout the world,
that God will grant us peace, and, 
as we stand before the Cross, we may work for unity.
As we remember the torture and death of Jesus,
we remember all who suffer persecution and oppression.

(silence)

Almighty and Eternal God,
You pour out Your Spirit on the Church,
and call all people to find their fulfilment within it.
Listen to us as we remember the love that drove Jesus to the Cross,
help us to work to end oppression in our world,
especially hatred fuelled by religious fervour.
We pray for the Church, that it might, 
through sensitive evangelism, nurturing worship, 
loving service and credible witness,
be a sign of your coming kingdom.  Amen.

Let us pray for those who don’t believe in God,
that by searching for truth and beauty, for justice and freedom,
they find God at work in their lives.

(silence) 

Almighty and Eternal God,
we confess our failures 
in bearing true loving witness to You; forgive us.
We ask that those who seek You, will find You,
that Your loving kindness will seek out those who yearn for You,
and that we may not be stumbling blocks to belief.  Amen.
Let us pray for all who serve in public office,
that God may inspire them to offer loving service, 
and concern for the common good.

(silence) 

Almighty and Eternal God,
as this day we remember the weakness of Pilate,
we pray for all who hold elected or appointed office in our world,
that they may always seek the common good,
strive for right, administer true justice, and lift up the poor.
We pray, in particular for the leaders of our nations,
that they may work for sustainable prosperity,
better health, peaceful policies and true freedom. Amen.

Let us pray for those in need this day,
those known to us and those known only to God,
that our hearts may be stirred by compassion,
and we may seek to change the world.

(silence)

Almighty and Eternal God,
we pray today for those in agony,
mothers watching their children die,
the earth itself pillaged and polluted yearning to be clean,
those who die this day and those who mourn them,
those who languish in prison this day 
and those who work to rehabilitate them, those on our hearts this day.

Give us the grace, Eternal One, to both love this world,
and to seek to change it.  Amen.
We join our prayers together as we pray as our Crucified God taught us…

Our Father…

Hymn     When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Isaac Watts (1707) Public Domain BBC Songs of Praise

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
save in the death of Christ, my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them through his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, 
his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
 
Closing Prayer & Dismissal

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

Do not hurry away from the Cross.
Linger near 
to survey, to stand, and to ponder Jesus’ suffering and death.

Consider carefully and well,
how evil fights good, how defeat becomes victory, and
how weakness becomes strength.  

Then depart from Golgotha confidently,
knowing that the Holy Spirit helps you
as you take up your cross and follow Christ.  Amen.
 

St Luke 23:  26 – 43

As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.”  For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’  And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ 

And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’  There was also an inscription over him,  ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’  Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’  He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Reflection

Maundy means command or mandate and relates to what Jesus told his disciples to do in his memory, to share bread and wine, to serve and love one another. In the midst of all the injustice, brutality and pain, so harmful and damaging that he was unable to carry the crossbeam to the site of the crucifixion, Jesus was focused on love.

Today’s reading isn’t about commandments, instead it’s about condemnation. Jesus has been condemned and talks about a time when Jerusalem itself will be condemned. This is no sermon on the mount, the only blessed people here are the barren, the childless, those whose future has been taken away. A truly hollow blessing. One day, not too far into the future, this city will lie in ruins.

Can we snatch some comfort here for ourselves in amidst all this injustice and death? Can we glimpse paradise as Jesus appears to be able to and look forward to a time beyond suffering? Here he hangs, an innocent man with two guilty men, one on each side of them, punished by a barbaric and ruthless torture. The Roman cross was both efficient and cruel. A very public example of what happens to those who challenge the Empire. He was mocked because he couldn’t save himself. Couldn’t or wouldn’t?

This was a body being broken, this was blood being poured out. For them, for the disciples, for us. This wasn’t primarily the death of someone who was a thorn in the side of authority. This was redemption and salvation, a rescue in the only way that God could deliver liberation to God’s people. This wasn’t death as the end.

Scattered throughout this account, although in unbearable pain, the words Jesus speaks are words of pity, forgiveness and love. Even here, where there is no respite, seemingly no hope as the doubters and the mockers are forsaking someone who only a few days earlier was heralded as the Messiah, even now Jesus offers love.

Prayer

We see the weight of the cross
The pain of the nails
Your arms stretched out
Your innocence absorbing and absolving our guilt
Forgive us
Hold us in your love
Amen