Seeker

This last day of Holy Week is Easter Eve or Holy Saturday. It is the day after Good Friday. On Good Friday Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion. Today, Holy Saturday, we remember that Jesus was dead and buried in a borrowed tomb in a garden. Tomorrow the great celebration of Easter begins but if we try to rush into that joy too quickly I think we miss something important. We miss entering into the desolation and grief of Jesus' mother Mary or of his close friends like Peter, John Mary Magdalene and others. We miss sharing with all who this Easter weekend are mourning the death of someone close, whether from Covid-19 or any other cause.  We miss getting in touch with our private fears, griefs and sorrows and finding a way to express them. The deepest joy is that joy that comes after tears. So, this year I have found the words of a new hymn helpful. It is designed to be sung to the well-known tune 'Abide with me'.  Ally Barrett has written this hymn fo...

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is different from the rest of Holy Week. It feels like a day when everything should stop, an in-between time to be still and wait. In practice I've often found this one of the busiest of the year - a day to travel, to shop, to clean, to prepare food for tomorrow's celebrations. There are so many ordinary things to get on with. Churches often feel this tension. There's a contradiction between attempting to enter into the numbness, fear or despair Jesus' friends felt the day after his crucifixion and burial, while also being busy preparing Easter decorations to celebrate resurrection. There's nothing wrong with celebrating Christ's resurrection on any day of the year. But on this day it seems right to pause, imagine what it was like for those first disciples who, in spite of what Jesus had told them, really didn't expect Jesus to rise from the dead. As many feel after a death of someone close, or during...

God of compassion, whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary, shared the life of a home in Nazareth, and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself: strengthen us in our daily living that in joy and in sorrow we may know the power of your presence to bind together and to heal; through Jesus Christ you Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Collect for Mothering Sunday: Common Worship  Image: Eurico Zimbres: Wikimedia Commons