What Now?

4 thoughts on “What Now?”

1. I had a quite emotional Holy Week – especially Good Friday. Easter Sunday was a very happy day. But it is the emotion of Holy Week I am still reeling from. I tried my best to engage with as much worship/prayer that I could – including preparing and leading one of the services at my placement Church. So I attended morning prayers at the local Scottish Episcopal Church most mornings and worship either at the same church or at my placement each evening.

   It felt like I was on retreat at times, as I became so emotionally involved in what was being said. On Friday morning the Stations of the Cross Service left me in tears. The images used were by Sieger Koder and are just so powerful. But the one that got me most was the one of Mary (mother of Jesus) holding her dead son in her arms. Between that and the cross with thorns that had been set up in the sanctuary I sat for an age reflecting, crying, praying.

   I guess what I am left with is a real sense of what happened on that cross – the human side of it, the spiritual power of it, the cost of my relationship with God. Despite the emotion of it all I am glad that I engaged at the emotional level. It has really helped my sense of being loved by God.

   Is that what you meant?

2. But what now?

   I feel the same about Holy Week, although I felt fairly unengaged this year because I was on holiday. It is full of emotion, drama and resonates in a way that few other times do. But how does it change us?

   Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter is LOW Sunday. After the highs and lows of Holy Week then the high of Easter Sunday we are left with… what exactly?

   I’m thinking of Thomas who was missing when Jesus appears. Even though his friends tell him Jesus was there Thomas wants to know for sure. Despite all the emotions he felt of that week he felt like we often do. Low. Spent. Wrung out.

   Where do we go from here?

3. Where do we go from here?

   We remember that it doesn’t stop at the cross. That it starts all over again with the resurrection, this time an all-encompassing promise that is new life for us and all of creation. We step forward, re-energised with the hope of resurrection, committed to bringing about that new life in the ‘now’, not just as a future promise.
   Jesus said that the kingdom of God has come. And we all have a part to play in ensuring that it is enjoyed by everyone.
   This year is the first that I have really felt the promise of Easter. My evangelical past always stopped at the cross, because that’s where ‘it all happened’. That always left me feeling guilty, not freed, but somehow beholden. That it was always presented as God’s ‘plan’ always left me faintly disgusted. Moving past the cross (but not forgetting it) reminded me that God’s ‘plan’ was never to die on a cross, but to defeat death through it. Humanity carried out the most heinous crime of putting God on a cross and yet God still used it for good. It reminds me that however much I might mess up, God can still put me to use. Tears and passion at the cross are good. They remind us of the power in it. But joy and renewal must come afterwards otherwise we are left feeling guilty and hopeless.
   And surely Easter is all about outrageous hope!

4. Indeed where now. In some sense every day has an Easter promise to it. Hope, a living Jesus.

   You mentioned the disciples feeling low, spent, wrung out. 7 of the disciples feeling like this I imagine, went off fishing – their normal day to day routine – what they had done. they caught nothing – THen Jesus says Hey I have cooked you breakfast. It feels llike in the hum drum day to day that the risen Christ comes. He encouraged them, nourished them, reassured them in the ordinary. It was in sharing of food at Emmaus that the disciples recognised Jesus. Maybe it is in the low, ordinary day to day, what now, that Jesus creeps in beside us, makes himself known with the promise that he is with us. He also breathed ‘peace’ and ‘sent’ them.
   Thanks for the posts.

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