Holy Week 2022 – Stepping out of the boat…

Reality and hope

Are you tempted to rush forward from Good Friday to Easter Sunday? To get all that talk of death out of the way? The Christian calendar seems to facilitate this. Not many traditions linger on what has been described as the long hiatus of Holy Saturday. And yet, to make sense of faith and lifeContinue reading “Reality and hope”

Shalom and Salaam

At 6 am Lion’s Gate, Jerusalem, 15th April 2022. Families, many with young children were leaving the Al Aqsa Mosque. The atmosphere was calm. Children carried their balloons and bubble machines. At 6.30am the atmosphere changed. Everyone had a mobile phone in hand, so they knew at once there had been some kind of trouble.Continue reading “Shalom and Salaam”

Leaders and servants

Leadership style is very much in the news. President Zalensky’s brave, down to earth, chair carrying, among-the-people style contrasts with President Putin’s long table and paranoid detachment. And UK government leaders’ sense of entitlement and privileged rule breaking leaves the rest of us reeling, angry and hurt. Those, especially, who followed the rules during lockdownContinue reading “Leaders and servants”

Friends and enemies

What does it mean to betray someone or something? Judas is often portrayed as betrayer, as almost a pantomime villain. But is this fair? We only have what the gospel writers tell us about Judas, of course, and they paint him in a pretty unsympathetic light. There is a hint of scapegoating or ‘othering’ aboutContinue reading “Friends and enemies”

Of endings and beginnings

Beginnings and endings and beginnings again… No wonder the disciples were confused and found it hard to understand. Human instinct is to preserve life, to keep institutions going, to survive. Jesus recognized the mystery of transformation which produces a head of corn from a single grain, and it spoke to him of his own path:Continue reading “Of endings and beginnings”

Of poverty and riches…

The house was filled with the fragrance. She’d given him her dowry and in an intimate gesture of devotion she wiped his feet with her hair. Those around were scandalized but Jesus accepted it. Mary, whose brother Lazarus was raised from death by Jesus, was now anointing him for his own death. Mary’s gift ofContinue reading “Of poverty and riches…”

Closed fist…open hand

I try to draw a congregation into the drama of Holy Week, recognising that many there on Palm Sunday will not engage until Easter Sunday and Resurrection. This Sunday I adapted a piece I wrote in 2017. In the light of all the woes of the world the choice exemplified by Jesus between closed fistContinue reading “Closed fist…open hand”