A good Good Friday

It is late evening on Good Friday, and I have just got back from a curry at the Vhojon in Mansfield -- this is a Good Friday tradition which I have done for many years -- I go  dog-coloured, and I make a point of eating fish.  I always end up having a chat with my friends at the Vhojon, both those who come with me and those who work there, about the Christian faith, and why Good Friday is so important to me.  This year my curate Caroline and her husband came with Mark and me. 

Earlier in the evening,  I led a Tenebrae service in St Giles Ollerton, which was very moving.  This morning we had our Churches’ Together services and walk of witness, which I managed -- just!  It started off low key for me, but by the time I'd managed to walk and led the prayers on Co-op corner, I was feeling much more like it, and by the time I was drinking coffee and eating hot cross buns in St Paulinus church, I was totally caught up in proceedings just like I used to be.  Yes it has been a good day,

I am often amazed, and this year is no exception, as to why so many of the church family don't come to anything during Holy Week. And it's not just an Ollerton and Boughton thing, it is every parish I have served in.  We like to take the joy and celebration of Easter Day, seemingly without the struggles and reflections of Holy Week.  If the Holy Week , Good Friday and the resurrection experience are to match human life – most definitely our own lives, then we have to have to take the package as a whole.

I love the hymns of the season, and this year one that I sung hundreds of times through the years, which has really hit home -  "when I survey the wondrous Cross" especially those two lines "Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all".   Where I am at the moment, having just come back from Sabbatical, those words mean a great deal to me.  In the three places that I have visited, in my reflections upon the situation I find myself in, and as I look back at my journey in faith, it is those words "demands my soul my life my all" that really touch my heart as I try to respond to God's love, so amazing so divine!  I realise that this response is still needed from me, particularly as I been able to take a step back to see where I'm going.

I am one of those people who had been a Christian for as long as I can remember. Whilst being brought up in a Christian based family, and other than a few Sundays when I was around five when I went to the Methodist Church with my father, I have never been made to go to church. It was only when I joined the Cubs and had to go on church parade, that I began to realise this wonderful God wanted to take me on a journey. And what a journey!

But it is not a half-hearted journey, and those who know me well know that I do get terribly committed to do things -- Sue sometimes says that I can become obsessive.  Even in my teenage years my parents, and especially a great auntie, warned me of being over religious.  Years and years down my ministry, you can never accuse me of that.

Yesterday, Maundy Thursday, was the moving ceremony of foot washing and holy Communion.  This certainly lived up to its reputation for me, and this time even more so.  Caroline led the service, and my prayers couldn't stop me thinking about Auschwitz and some of what I saw and heard there. As Christians we should be ashamed, but worse than that, today similar prejudices and persecutions still happen all around us.

I am very much reminded of that very famous quote by Pastor Niemoller:

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I realise I must speak out much more – “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”.  My response to my recent sabbatical through the eyes of Holy Week and Good Friday.

Each night through holy week we have been sharing a DVD on the BBC production of The Passion, from the year 2008.  I had not seen it before, but it is excellent and I do recommend it to you if you have not seen it.

On Wednesday I had a very good session with the oncologist, and this cheered me up immensely.   I had been feeling a little low, both physically and emotionally, with aches and pains and a uti, but what they said to me was quite encouraging. I have to have a CT scan before the next meeting with them in six weeks’ time, and whilst I'm still not certain things aren't happening inside me, I will at least then know for sure one way or another.  At the end of June Sue and I are planning on going on a cruise again..  I have been able to save up my NatWest pension, so for the second time hopefully there will be a cruise on good old NatWest. But I have to wait for a final clearance from the oncologist.

Tomorrow I have to tidy up my study, and ensure the grass is cut. The excuse that the lawnmower is a way for a service, no longer stands as it is now ready for collection.  I also have to prepare a sermon and a service for Easter Day.  Busy busy!