Scribbles & Sermons

Dementia

There has been much talk over the election period of care for the elderly, and especially for those suffering from dementia. Most of the discussion has centred around the cost, discussing how we might fund our parent’s or partner’s care – but I think the true cost of dementia lies in the realm of relationships and quality of life, not money.

 

Over the last few months I have often been up to Hull to visit my parents. My father is 95 and suffers from dementia. He is paranoid too, and has spent the last two months in a secure psychiatric unit. The staff are caring – I find it hard to believe that anyone would choose this vocation, and fulfil it so cheerfully. There they are, day after day, always a smile, never discouraged. But all my Dad sees is a prison, a gulag with victims and warders. His paranoia prevents him from having any hope at all, and he is desperately unhappy. My Mum, bless her, has set her heart on bringing him home and caring for him herself. She is frail, 94 and nearly blind, so it seems very unlikely that she could manage this, even with my brother dropping in two or three times a day. Although any attempt will be fraught with problems, and will seriously reduce her quality of life, I think she might never forgive herself if she didn’t try. So what if she tries then realises it just isn’t possible? What then? Dad will be in the gulag again, and she will feel she has failed the man who has given her over 70 years of his love and life. There are no winners. Every outcome is heartbreak.

 

When my sister Esther was dying of cancer, some aspects of her personality were exaggerated, others were repressed, but she was always recognisably, and very clearly herself. I could see the disease, but it didn’t stop me seeing and loving Esther. But with dementia, the disease obscures the person; we wind up dealing with someone whom we don’t recognise, who doesn’t recognise us – the disease has taken over, and we feel as though the person we love has already died. Yet we cannot mourn – they are still there before our very eyes, but in body only. Some quirks of behaviour persist, and their character and personality shine through on odd rare occasions, as if to remind us of what we have already lost, and then are gone again, leaving us the stranger who hurts us unknowingly, as they never had before.

 

Yet I must believe that God can see through the disease, can see past it to recognise the soul that was ever there. If God sees our heart and knows us, then he must still see the tortured soul that is my father, behind the mask of disease, and love him. And this is love that hurts, love that grieves, love that perseveres though all seems lost. And how hard I find it to match that love, when I am always watchful for the next cruel word, the next bout of anger, or even the next expression of indifference. But that is the love we are all called to have, the love we should exercise each and every day. At the same time, that same love that God has for the father I struggle with, that love fills me with hope and encouragement. It shines like a beacon in a dark world.

 

Jon

 

 

 

Advent

Advent is already upon us. This is the beginning of the Church year, a season to share the longing for the promised Messiah, a season to look forward to his second coming.

 

It starts on the Sunday nearest to St Andrew’s Day, always leaving  4 Sundays before Christmas. The Sunday before Advent was often known as “Stir up” Sunday, because the collect in the Book of Common Prayer for that Sunday started with the words “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people;”   It was often jocularly associated with stirring up the mincemeat ready for Christmas.

 

The marking of Advent dates back to the 5th Century, maybe even earlier, when it was a period of fasting, usually for 3 days a week. Fast periods were usually a season of penitence, coming before a special celebration such as Easter or Christmas.

 

Have you started your Advent Calendar? This is a modern invention – well modern compared to the 5th Century, being introduced in Germany in the 19th Century. The days of Advent were marked off, sometimes using a chalk-mark on the door, and a candle was lit each day. In the early 1900s printed calendars became available, with a little door covering a picture or Bible verse for each day. Chocolate was a very recent addition!

 

In churches an Advent Wreath is prominently displayed., with four or five candles. One candle is lit each Sunday in Advent. On the first Sunday – Hope Sunday – the first candle is lit, and the readings are taken from the Old Testament, from the Isaiah or Jeremiah, telling of God’s promises to redeem his people after their suffering.

The second Sunday is called Bethlehem Sunday, and again the readings are drawn from the Old testament, prophesies from Isaiah or Malachi of the Saviour who will be the fulfilment of God’s promises.

The third Sunday is Rose or Gaudete Sunday, and the candle on the wreath is red or pink instead of white.  Gaudete means “Rejoice!”, and this Sunday marks a pause in the fast – a celebration. The readings now concentrate on John the Baptist announcing the start of Christ’s ministry.

On the fourth Sunday, Annunciation or Angel Sunday, we read about the angel appearing to Mary, announcing the miraculous conception and birth of Chris the Saviour.

The last candle, in the centre of the wreath, is usually lit at the Christmas Eve service, and is called the Christ candle – the light of the world. The reading, of course, marks what Advent is all about. The birth of Christ, God on earth. Hope.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas, full of joy and hope.

Jon

 

 

What is Lent?

 What is Lent?

Isaiah 58: 3-9

The word comes form the Anglo-Saxon, LENT, meaning to lengthen – it was the old name for Spring. These references to Spring are probably ancient, but are admirably suited to the Christian preparation for Easter, the celebration of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection – winning NEW LIFE for us.

Lent lasts 40 days (like Jesus in the wilderness), and starts on Ash Wednesday, ends on Easter Saturday, but doesn’t include Sundays. Why not Sundays? Well, every Sunday is a mini celebration of Easter – the cross and resurrection – so it would be inappropriate to fast!

 Shrove Tuesday

Many countries have celebrations on this day – using up foods inappropriate for use during fasting (eg fat – hence Mardi Gras). Pancakes are often included. In many countries there is a carnival period of celebration from Epiphany to Shrove Tuesday, so Mardi Gras is the final day of the celebrations.

The title “Shrove” refers to shriving, which is the absolution conferred after confession, so Shrove Tuesday heralds the start of a penitential period – LENT.

Mothering Sunday

In the UK this is the 4th Sunday of Lent, and marks a return to the mother church (often the Cathedral);. Those in service had a day off, originally to visit their Mother church, but later it became traditional to visit family. Simnel cake was baked for the day. It is different from Mother’s Day, which was started in 1912 in the USA, and which happens to be celebrated on the same day in the UK, though not elsewhere (2nd Sunday in May).

So what is LENT?

Lent is a period of reflection and anticipation – our church year from Christmas to Easter reflects the ministry of Christ leading up to Holy Week. Many churches follow a LENT course of study, perhaps individually, or in small groups, or in Sunday Services. Other choose a book to read, or a set of reflections to read, ponder and pray about. Which is what we have done. Gary has recommended a book to read; but we also have a set of reflections, written by members of the churches in the villages – Staplefield, Slaugham, Handcross, Warninglid, Pease Pottage. There is a reading for each day of Lent, with people telling us about answers to prayer, or about God working in their lives. It’s called “Jesus is Alive” and you can pick up a copy at the back of the church – £2 to cover our printing costs. You can also get it on Kindle.

 What about Isaiah?

Isaiah the prophet brought God’s truth to a generation in Israel who went through the motions, seeming very religious… BUT … who were selfish, greedy and grasping. God was more interested in seeing them treat their fellow-men generously than in seeing them fasting and making a show of it. He wanted to see people with a heart to help others, to feed and clothe them; and for families, no whole communities,  to be reconciled.

And perhaps this is what we should be reflecting on as we go through Lent – let’s have a fast from selfish greed; let’s keep an eye out for each other; let’s go the extra mile.

 

 

 

Our Churches and Services

Whenever I talk to Readers from other churches, they are always surprised at the variety of worship in Slaugham and Staplefield. There is a calendar of services in this magazine each month, but unless you are familiar with the jargon, you may not know just what to expect. So I thought I’d provide a short guide…

St Mark’s, Staplefield is a Victorian church with organ, pews and wonderful frescos. There is a service each Sunday at 9am, always including a 5-10 minute sermon, and lasting about 45 minutes to an hour.

Holy Communion 1662 is a traditional Book of Common Prayer service (thee and thou, Our Father, which art in heaven) without hymns;

Morning Prayer is in modern language with organ and hymns;

Common Worship Holy Communion is in modern language, with hymns and organ;

Choral Matins is a traditional service with organ, choir and hymns.

 

All Saints, Handcross is a Victorian mission hall church with chairs rather than pews. There is no organ, so hymns are accompanied on the piano. There are steep steps to negotiate, although wheelchair access can be arranged – please contact Carl (400221) in advance. Plans are in hand to improve access and facilities here.

Spotlight Service is  a short, less formal service with hymns, prayer, and a short talk, followed by tea and biscuits. Very popular with the more mature!

St Mary’s, Slaugham

St Mary’s is a wonderful building with parts dating back to the 12th and 13th Centuries, with restorations in the 19th and 21st Centuries. It has a beautiful stone floor with underfloor heating, stained glass, comfortable chairs, organ, audio loop for the hard of hearing, with bell-ringing before and tea, coffee and squash after the services. Children are most welcome, and special provision is made for them in all 10:30 services, which last about an hour and a quarter, with a sermon of around 20 minutes.

All Age – a less formal service where families can stay together. Worship songs led by a small band (maybe keyboard, guitar, clarinet), often with actions for children and less inhibited adults!

10:30 Holy Communion is in modern language, and has hymns accompanied by the organ with worship songs from the band as well. Provision for children is made in small groups in the vestry, covert room and The Forge. About an hour and a quarter long.

Café Church – truly café-style, sitting in groups of 8 or so around each table, with tea, coffee and a selection of patisserie! Arrive early and settle in; grab a refill whenever you need. Children’s provision is made for part of the service, the remainder is intended to be child-friendly.

Morning Worship is a slightly more formal service, in modern language with hymns accompanied by the organ and worship songs from the band. Children have a separate programme in the same building.

 

If you are a church-goer, or would like to be, I hope you find some services that you will enjoy, and where you can meet the living God amongst friendly folk and beautiful surroundings.

Yours in Christ

Jon

 

Acts of love

Ash Wednesday 2013

Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 6:1-6; Matthew 6:16-21

Here Isaiah was prophesying to the Israelites after the return from exile. God wasn’t complaining that the Israelites didn’t fast, they most certainly did. No – they fasted, but their lives left much to be desired: Isaiah was describing an empty religiosity – religion for its own sake, or rather as a benefit for those who practised it.

They  sought to manipulate God for their own ends – their religion was selfish and oppressive, rather than being a blessing (as God had promised Abraham).

And in Matthew, Jesus describes those who pray and fast ostentatiously, to impress  their fellow-men. That impression is their whole reward – Christ says so – they have received their reward in full! Jesus describes them as hypocrites – literally “under judgement”, but a word used of play-actors in NT Greek. This is a performance!

Jesus urges his followers to ensure their motives are right – give to the needy, pray, fast by all means; but don’t do it to impress others – do it privately and quietly. Don’t try to build up what you have here – your treasure on earth – which in this case is your reputation among men. Do these things for God – to build up your treasure in heaven.

In both cases, people were doing “religion” as opposed to building a relationship with God and with each other.

I’m going to consider relationship from two angles – first  considering prayer as the central element of our relationship with God, then thinking about how we maintain human relationships.

Jesus and Prayer

On Monday night, at the Following Jesus course, we wondered whether Jesus’s life could be thought of as a prayer. We have examples in the Bible of enacted parables (eg Zaccheus), where the story is lived out rather than told. Now we’re thinking about an enacted prayer, one that is lived out, not merely spoken.

We could see that all the elements of prayer were live out in Jesus’s life, and we realised that what is important is that there are ACTS of love, not just words. And we can use the word ACTS as an acronym reminding us of the essential elements of prayer.

So ACTS:

A is for Adoration – saying “I love you” but not just in words – making it a life of actions, ones that please God. Jesus said that what you did for the least of these you did for me. How would you feel about somebody who treated your children badly? A teacher who picks on your daughter or the playground bully who intimidates your son? They’d find it hard to build a relationship with you. And you will find it hard to build up your relationship with God if you neglect or mistreat his children.

C is for Confession – realising that God is perfect and we are far from it – humbly baring our souls and admitting our faults, desiring to turn away from them.

T is for Thanksgiving – accepting how much we depend upon God – for our daily bread, for all good things.

S is for Supplication – asking God to help others as well as ourselves – but letting our actions speak of our desire for good things for other people.

Human Relationships

The Marriage Course includes a section about the languages of love.  Only one of them is words! The others are all ACTS. Acts of service, giving gifts, spending quality time together, physical touch. They all require us to DO something.

Most of us use one or two of these languages. If we want to please someone, we need to use a language they appreciate – I know my daughter Kate needs quality time, and if I can’t give her my whole attention, she doesn’t really feel loved.

Just as we must take the trouble to find out how to make someone feel loved, so we need to know how to apply this to our relationship with God. If we pray like the hypocrites, our words are for other people – God doesn’t have our attention. We’re not expressing our love.

We can see a common thread in our readings: it is about the heart that lies behind our worship; it is about whether our words are just empty words; it is about whether our lives reflect the desires we speak of when we worship or pray.

So if we are to fast, or read, or study, or make a resolution, then it needs to be building up our relationship with God and his creation. And that includes other people!

Every relationship depends on communication. Whether it is saying “I love you” or reminiscing together about holidays, children, good times. It might be offering to help with the cooking, the dishes, the housework. But saying “I love you” and offering to help, mean nothing if we don’t live it out. Love is action, and attitude, not mere words, and it means an attitude of genuine concern, not an attempt to manipulate someone’s favour.

As we move through Lent, let’s try to make our prayers more than words, our fasting more than self-denial, our love for God and his creation a way of behaving, not a string of words, or an attempt to impress.

Starting Over

I have recently spent a week working in a college in London that offers residential education for women, especially disadvantaged women. It was a real eye-opener, a small institution that placed great value on the whole experience of the people it served, devising tailored programmes for each individual, and cherishing the sense of community it engendered. It has the potential to change lives in ways that can’t be measured by league tables and inspections.

 

The sense of community reminded me of my early days of teaching at the Grammar School in Haywards Heath, where I reckon I had taught and knew every pupil by name before they reached the sixth form. Later the school became a sixth-form college, where students stayed only a year or two, and I taught only a few of the many local youngsters who attended. There was a palpable feeling that the sense of a community had been lost. A place with a real sense of belonging became more of a processing plant where youngsters were prepared for examinations and university.

 

But for some of those youngsters the college offered a new start – they could throw off the reputation they’d acquired at school. For some, especially free-spirited boys, this was a real chance to start again with teachers who had no preconceptions about them, how they might behave, how able they were. They started again with teachers who accepted them as grown, young men and women, with no memory of them as children. They were accepted for what they now were. And they thrived on it.

 

And this thought reminds me of one of my favourite stories in the Bible. Moses had finished his mountain-top experience with God, and descended the mountainside with the Ten Commandments inscribed by the finger of God on two stone tablets. He was confronted not by God’s faithful people eagerly waiting for God’s words, but by the sight of riotous celebration and revelry  around the golden calf. Moses was so angry he threw the tablets to the ground and they smashed into smithereens, gone for ever.

 

Moses pleaded with God to be lenient with his people, and God agreed – he forgave and offered a new start. And God said to Moses – “Make two more stone tablets, and we’ll start again”. I can just imagine God as a gentle father, his anger melting away, sitting down and quietly saying “Let’s start again”.

 

And I’m reminded that life as a Christian gives us this opportunity, not just once but every time we stray from the strait and narrow. We can start again with a clean slate, no recriminations. Just the chance to make the best of what we are. Like the college in London, God values each one of us as an individual and is prepared to sit down with us and say “Let’s start again”.

 

Jonathan Rotheray

Random acts of kindness

Random Acts of Kindness

 Isaiah 58: 1-7  Matthew 5: 17-18;  Matthew 5:43-48

Last night I watched a Daily News Egypt report showing volunteers cleaning the streets of Cairo behind the demonstrators protesting against police brutality under President Mubarak, and other volunteers providing medical care and food for the demonstrators. I saw people wanting to make a difference in a really positive way.

I also visited the Random Acts of Kindness website – encouraging people to do something today – just a small act of kindness – to make a difference to someone else. I can remember my kids doing this for a week with the church youth group that my friends Rick and Sarah used to run. Every day at least one act of kindness to someone they didn’t know.

There’s a story about a man walking the beach with his son, in the early morning after a stormy night. The high tide line was a mass of seaweed and flotsam thrown up by the storm, and everywhere among this seaweed lay thousands of small starfish. The boy picked one up, examined it and said to his father – “its alive!” And he turned and ran to the waters edge and threw the starfish into the waves.  “I’ve got to help”, he shouted to his Dad. “But there’s thousands of them – how could you ever make any difference?” said his Dad.  “I made a difference to that one”, he replied, and picking up another,  he ran down and tossed it into the breakers –  “and that one”.

Both today’s reading are about making a difference.

Isaiah describes God’s reaction to people who fast and pay religious observance, but who ignore the plight of the world around them – and particularly the people around them. God sees the religiosity of these people as hollow and  empty. He wants them to loose the chains of injustice; to feed the hungry; clothe the naked.

Does that ring a bell? “For I was hungry and you fed me; I was naked and you clothed me; “  – These are Christ’s words in  Matthew 25 – “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these my brothers, you did for me.”

Christ echoes the words of God written in Isaiah, so we should not be surprised. He too commented on the hollow emptiness of religious observance – this time his words are directed against the Pharisees.

But then we move on to our reading from Matthew’s gospel. I remember the Authorised Version here, saying not one “jot nor tittle” of the Law shall pass away. Jot or yot is the Greek letter iota – the smallest; or it might be the Hebrew or Aramaic letter yodh – just a little stroke. Tittle is a dot – like the top of the letter i. So not even the dot of an i nor the crossing of a t. All the Law, every last detail. ALL.

What does he mean? Do we have to be like the Pharisees, keeping up every last detail of the Law? Could we even remember it all? I looked it up – Jewish writers suggest there are six hundred and thirteen Mitzvot – rules – in the Torah. Six hundred and thirteen! I struggle to remember the ten that we call the commandments! I bet lots of you can remember them all, but I’m not absolutely sure I’d remember even these ten if I were put on the spot, and certainly not six hundred and thirteen.

If we go to Prayerbook communion services we might hear the ten commandments recited, or quite often we might hear Jesus’s summary of them read from Matthew 22. Here Jesus said the Law could be boiled down to just two things. I like a sermon with just two points – there’s a good chance I might remember at least one of them! Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves – a short list is much more easily remembered!

So what are these two things? Love God. Love your neighbour. And St Paul echoes this again in Galatians “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’”.

What does he mean? When he says love the Lord your God, he clearly doesn’t mean lots of religious stuff – conspicuous fasting; loud self-important prayer; because these things are condemned in Isaiah and in the Gospels as hollow and empty. No, now is the time to remember Matthew 25 – “What you did for the least of these… you did for me” –  Jesus wants us to do things for people.

Do you remember the little ‘Love is…’ cartoons. They were drawn by a New Zealand artist, Kim Casali – they were originally drawn for her husband-to-be in the 1960s, but she continued until she died in 1997. Each day a little drawing depicting how we make a difference to someone we love, and almost always by doing something.

God asks us to consider this for Him and for anyone – not just our beloved! In every situation he asks us to wonder what ‘Love is..’ and act upon it.

Mahatma Ghandi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world”, that is to say – if you want a kinder world – be kinder; a more generous world – be more generous; a more forgiving world – be more forgiving.

So here’s our challenge – every day a Random Act of Kindness.

Wherever we are. To someone God places before us in our daily lives. I’m sure He’ll provide the opportunities!

God asks us to walk along the beach of life, and to care about the people around us – to see the stranded starfish in their lives, and to care enough to put a few starfish back in the sea. We might feel it’s not enough to make a difference – but we can make a difference to this person, and that one… and in doing so, to Christ himself, who really does know what ‘Love is…’.

 

February 2011

Half-empty?

Half-empty or half-full?

Isaiah 58:1-9

I look down at my cup of coffee as I write – it’s about half-full; or should that be half-empty? There are often two opposing ways to look at a situation.

In Exodus 20:9   –  it says “6 days you shall labour”, but we are more likely to remember the opposite part of the verse – “but the seventh is the Sabbath”.

Half-empty, half-full; 6 days of work, one of rest.

And when we think about Lent it is no different

Lent is a time when we remember Christ’s sacrifice; it is a time of prayer and penance, and traditionally of fasting, of self-denial, mirroring His 40 days in the wilderness.

But when we read this passage from Isaiah we can see this again is a two-sided issue. In verse 5  God speaks through Isaiah saying – “Is it a day only to humble yourself?” Is it just about self-denial?

No – just look at verse 7 –  it is a time to “loosen the yoke of injustice, to share with the hungry, the poor, the homeless, the naked.”

God looks at the two sides of this situation – self-denial or generosity to others, and says there is no point in denying yourself unless the fruit of that self-denial flows generously to others! The fasting and sackcloth and ashes bring no pleasure to God on their own. They must be accompanied by a generosity of spirit that finds its outworking in the lives of other people.

And this tells us something about God’s nature. God is a very generous god:

Psalm 145:16 “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” And there are so many wonderful living things…

When we went to Thailand we visited an orchid nursery – fantastic!

Did you know there are over 25,000 species of orchid, and over 200,000 different varieties. That’s just orchids – there are nearly 300,000 species of flowering plants altogether, so probably millions of varieties!

When Jesus fed the 5000, how much was left over?

Matthew 14:20 “They all ate and were satisfied, (so they all had plenty) and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.”  A generous provision.

Or the wedding at Cana – how much wine?

John 2:6 Six stone jars each holding about thirty gallons.

That’s about a thousand bottles of wine, a very generous amount, and the very best vintage!

And Jesus himself commended generosity: in Luke 6:38

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.”

1 Peter 4:10 (NLT) – “God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God’s generosity can flow through you.”

So if you are planning to go through Lent giving yourself a half-empty measure, in penance and fasting; make sure that you are giving others a cup that is better than half-full!

 

 

Mark’s journey to Easter

 

Lent – the story begins (Mark 1:9-15)

 Today’s life is lived at speed – we expect things to happen quickly: next day delivery, quickfire comedy shows, no need for prolonged concentration on anything. The Reduced Shakespeare Company performs all Shakespeare’s 37 plays in just over two and a half hours. That’s less than three minutes per play.

So they might have this as their plot:

The scene is medieval Italy, and our story concerns two families who are sworn enemies. One has a son, the other a daughter, who  meet, fall in love and are married in secret. The Priest hopes this will reconcile the families, but they continue to feud. Her cousin kills his best friend, he kills her cousin, and the long arm of the law exiles him to another town.

Meanwhile, her father doesn’t know she’s married, and arranges a marriage for her. Now she’s desperate, and visits the priest, who promises to fix everything.

On the eve of her second wedding she takes poison and falls down dead. Her disconsolate family have a funeral instead of a wedding. Fortunately the guests are already invited and the food’s all arranged. She is placed at rest in the family vault, but she’s not really dead.

The priest sends the son in exile a message explaining everything. ‘She’ll be right as rain in day or two’. The message goes astray, and when he hears of her death, the young husband arrives in haste, goes to the tomb, takes poison and dies beside her. She wakes and finding him dead, stabs herself. Now they’re both dead.

In their shared grief the families are reconciled.

 

I expect you recognise Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare tells it much better, but he takes two and a half hours. Rushing doesn’t usually improve a story, does it?

As we read Mark’s gospel, he comes across like the Reduced Shakespeare Company – he’s a man in a hurry, inspired and excited by the story he has to tell, and rushing at it at breakneck speed. He knows the ending, he can see the climax of Passion Week ahead and he’s headed towards it like a runaway train. Everything is focused on getting the reader to Easter Sunday as soon as possible.

This, then, is a story reduced to bare essentials, with anything superficial stripped away. Everything we read is important, because everything else is omitted. In this passage, there are just three short episodes: Jesus is baptised, goes into the desert for forty days and is tested, then returns to Galilee to preach the good news.

The first episode is baptism. Nowadays baptism is a rite of passage, joining the church of Christ, turning away from our sin and turning towards Christ, to live a life following him. John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance, a cleansing and a new and godly beginning. We might wonder why Jesus chose to be baptised. He was fully human, yet a man without sin; he was fully divine, and therefore without any need to commit himself to God. It appears to be a pointless act, to repent of sin which has never been committed, to commit to a godly life which could hardly have been in question.

The Greek word for repentance means a change of mind or a change of heart. In the baptism service, we speak of turning (I turn to Christ, I reject the devil), and when we turn it is away from something, and towards something else. Away from sin, towards God. For Jesus too this was a rite of passage, a turning towards his destiny. He was aiming himself, like an arrow, towards the cross, and beyond it to Easter Sunday. This marked the beginning of his mission, and if we doubt this, look who turned up at his baptism.  At the baptism of Jesus, God spoke and the Holy Spirit descended, yet Jesus remained firmly at the centre of proceedings. They’re all in this together – it must be something very important.

So this was the time for Jesus to turn and set out purposefully towards Easter Sunday. Strangely, his first move is not towards Jerusalem, the scene of the Passion, but out into the wilderness, the barren place which Jewish history tells us is the place where we meet God.  First, however, we fall into temptation, so it is no surprise that Jesus meets Satan, the master of temptation, in this wilderness. Jesus’s forty days here mirror Israel’s forty years in the desert – where they constantly fell into temptation and failed, but after a difficult journey still reached the promised land. Unlike them, Jesus sets out to the fulfilment of God’s promises without falling prey to temptation. His aim is the defeat of Satan, and in this preliminary skirmish he brushes him aside.

This time of temptation also mirrors our lives. When we stray into life’s wilderness, falling on barren times and struggling to resist the temptations surrounding us, we know that Christ himself was not without temptation, and can identify with us in our human frailty.

In the third episode, Jesus sets out on that journey to Easter Sunday; John the Baptist’s imprisonment reminds him that suffering lies along the way – the only way to Easter Sunday is via Good Friday. His journey involves preaching the good news, announcing that the Kingdom of God is near. Jesus holds out to humanity the promise of entering the kingdom, of taking part in the everlasting life of the coming age. A promise held out, waiting to be seized; not imposed, but offered, obtained by turning to Christ, and still on offer should we refuse, as many did on that first journey to Easter Sunday.

Now, nearly two thousand years later, we set out on our own journey to Easter Sunday, through the forty days of Lent. Lent, which is taken from the Anglo-Saxon Lengten, which meant Spring, the time of lengthening days and new beginnings. So as we journey through these forty days, let’s do what Mark did, and what Jesus did.  Let us turn and focus upon the goal which lies at the end of Lent, and set our faces towards Easter Sunday, knowing that Good Friday lies along the way.

To help capture that excitement, why not set aside an hour – I think that will be enough – to read through Mark’s gospel and feel his excitement as he looks forward to Easter Sunday, through the gateway of Good Friday.

 

March 2009