The Service of Light

Last Sunday, Remembrance Sunday, seemed to me to be the ideal day to hold our annual Service of Light. For those of you unfamiliar with this act of worship, it is a simple service of words and music and which finds its focus in candle-lighting. It is a service aimed at and tailored for those who have lost loved ones in recent months - the newly bereaved if you will. We had scripture that spoke of Christ's triumph over death and music that took them on a journey from grief to hopefulness. It is also the second time this year that, in this church at least, I read the names of the faithful departed (first time being the night of All Souls). It is a service suffused in silence, some gentle chanting from the Taize corpus, the calling of the names, and the short procession to the front for that specific act of remembrance in the lighting of a simple tea-light. Some came, lit and paused. Some came, lit and fled in tears. Some came, lit and helped the next person with their candle. In itself, the lighting of candles was an interesting phenomenon to watch unfold. 

My preparation for the service was simple. I wrote to all the families for whom I conducted funerals, and on the day provided simple tea/pastries refreshments. We are blessed with controllable lighting, so the scene was set for the service to begin. The candles were the focus, not the halogens that normally carry the burden. 

I noticed two things this year. First was that we doubled numbers from the previous year. Second was how many families came along - not just the 'next of kin' individually (as I had expected, and who had received the letter). 

After the service, I took the valuable opportunity to get around as many people as I could. It was clear to me that a good number of those present had travelled long distances, much as they had on the day of the funeral in question. Digging a little deeper, it became clear that these families had (it may seem obvious in hindsight) spent the day together with the Service as their 'excuse'. In one case, I heard from a lady whose family had, on that day, committed to see more of her and they had resolved to gather monthly. 

When we priests/ministers conceive of these special services, it is easy to see them as the end and not the means to a greater end. Yes, the opportunity to light a candle, say a private prayer, to re-member whoever had died from their lives - all important. But not half as important as some of the unexpected behaviours. It, like our beloved Eucharists, was a family event. I grant you that, with one exception, it was a child-free service, and perhaps there is something to be taken from that (as most of these families will have had kids who themselves will have grieved these same deaths). In any instance, it was clear that God's purposes may have been slightly different to mine, and as always, in the very best of ways. 

(Oh, and most of them had, previously, claimed to be 'not really church going people')

God is Gone Up

Courtesy of c28.com

I am fast learning, as a priest, that some of these festival days are hard things to preach at - and to not say the same thing a year later!

Anyway, brothers and sisters, it is the Feast of the Ascension, or as we like to call it in these parts, the Feast of the Ascension. Last year I considered how it must have been for the disciples with their new "Jesus shaped hole", and as I approached my own first incumbency, wondered how it might have been for twelve ordinary folk and their supporters taking on their first incumbency for the whole planet.

This year, I have been thinking about that utterance from the Cross - "it is finished", or "it is accomplished". They are significant words, much pondered and the essence of which is the fluff in so many prayer cushions! I think though, without the Ascension, this statement would have meant the darkest of things, and not the most salvific. 

So much of faith and church life alludes to journeying. Each act of worship has a beginning, a middle and an end (even the most 'spontaneous' acts). Even our meetings are framed by a route of journey. Time passes, and one thing leads to the next thing - and if we forget that in the sparkling moments of our faith's story, we miss a great deal of the point - I believe. 

Imagine Bethlehem and the birth. Great - a baby, new parents, gifts, heavenly creatures and the odd ungulate. Imagine the stable without the Christ's ministry and you simply have a Christmas Card scene, or at least a scene long ago forgotten because it would have fast become the account delivered by perceived beardy-weirdies. Jesus' ministry - full of miracle and teaching. Imagine that ministry without the Passion and death of Jesus. It would have been a notable ministry of an itinerant healer-preacher. No more no less. The crucifixion was a tragedy, a heinous crime - but without the Resurrection it would simply have been the slaying of a local religious hero, an early William Wallace moment. It may have even reached a history book, maybe. The Resurrection turned that murder into the atoning sacrifice, the crime into the most significant gift known to humankind. 

Without the Ascension, the only thing accomplished would have been the darker intentions of jealous pharisees and weak Romans. No more, no less. 

So, this is in many ways the final piece in the Jesus Jigsaw - the last piece that locks all the others into place. All that was done would have remained undone and incomplete had it not been for this super-natural and mysterious moment when the entire process set into place at the point of the Annuniciation was consummated and completed. 

Annunciation to Ascension - the greatest journey in the world, and we make it every year!

And So it Begins

Time to write during the course of this year has been scarce, and even more so as we step closer to the events of the Triduum.

The Lenten journey is epic, if done with any sense of purpose, and brings with it a renewal in the understanding that we have in the stories of our Scripture. Without a good Lent, there is a very real danger that the events we recollect in the days to come will be little more than fancy legends.

Palm Sunday explodes into a Lenten backdrop and having been denuded of our 'Alleluias' of late, find the arrived of our 'Hosannas' to be thrilling. Processing in all the garb and pomp around the church grounds may seem like an eccentricity to a passer-by, but to us who have walked Lent, it truly is a festival day. Barmy we may appear with our floppy palm branches, but joyous we certainly are. Changed too, if the faces on the crowd were anything to go by last Sunday lunchtime.

Today I have wrestled with sermons, devotions, liturgies and paper. Maundy Thursday has arrived, and despite being a feast of celebration, brings with it the roll of clouds on the horizon. We know that we will enter the church in White and Gold, but we try hard not to think about the desecration that will follow. Anyone who experiences the brutality of the Stripping of the Altar in out liturgy will have found it hard not to feel what is happening, as real in our day as in Jesus'. Only for mere moments in a whole year do we find a chance to sit, one-to-one, with Jesus. The perfume of flowers, the semi twilight of candlelight, the near silence of a church in watchful prayer - a sensory treasure if any existed. A pure moment in a faith journey. 

Good Friday is always a funny one. We are left with so little after the robbery of Maundy Thursday, yet we find the most meaning in lots of ways. We are forced, as worshipers, to cope without the beauty and the 'things' of our faith's practice. We are called to look on the agony of one man, almost certainly younger than any of us, as his body is smashed before our eyes. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Father, why have you left me here to die? For those of us who will lay face down on ground, there is a sense that would be better if we were spared having to get up and proceed. The hardest thing, for the onlooker, is the lack of reverence. We are a processional people, a well-behaved gathering - yet we leave in disarray, in chaos - as the church doors are bolted fast and we are left with nowhere to go. 

Darkness gives way to light on Holy Saturday. The darkness of death is conquered by the nullifying light of new life. A tiny spark of light on beeswax announces the Resurrection of our Saviour. The light pours across the church and the lullaby of the Exsultet is sung, pronouncing the arrival, finally, of Easter. Light explodes over the entire gathering and life is restored. The journey to new light is complete, accomplished. Dreams have come true. 

The amount of work that we all put in at this time of year is a fit reminder of the real significance of the events that lay ahead. This isn't just another Triduum, it is the Triduum. It is our Triduum. 

And may the betrayed, crucified and Risen Lord bless us all.

The world without Resurrection

I touched on a thought today in my sermon, which for reasons logistical, meant that the touch remained light - so I am going to unpack my thought just a little more here. Also, a zeal-filled Priest ought to say something meaningful on his Blogette on Easter Day, just in case God is watching and thinks I have signed off early!

I am often mindful that we have a very specific perspective on events 'biblical' because we have the 20-20 vision of hindsight (which is, after all, an exact science). We trot through Lent, Holy Week, the Passion and the first stages of the Triduum as the preparation for Easter Day, and rightly so, for it is the focus of our Christian heart - but what about the hapless ordinary Joes - the Disciples. They hadn't got the New Testament to hand (and if they did, it would  be the NRSV, of course). They didn't have the happy memories of 'last Easter' when fliching from the side of Golgotha, and frankly, they had no inkling that this was all going go anywhere else than right down the toilet. Jesus, the man of snappy parables and handy one-liners was quite dead. Now, without a New Testament to hand, how does a mere mortal contemplate this as anything other that catastrophic failure? I am guessing that they missed their boats (was Zebedee still sitting on that boat, I wonder) - thinking that perhaps this had all been something of a fools errand. I am sure I would have. I am sure that had I been former fisherman Cloake of Galilee 90210, I'd be just a tad dis-chuffed by all of this. 

So, what were they to think when the Aramatheian Cave was discovered to be devoid of its post-crucified inhabitant. That would probably add to my dis-chuffment, as I would also have been denied the chance to bid a final goodbye (and to say sorry for being human and a mite inadequate these last few days). Thankfully we have the rather marvellous Mary of Magdala who 'gets it' - but what a leap of faith! 

I extrapolated this to church life - and painted a church that, in the Resurrection, was without role and rota. Imagine a church where all the job roles have vanished and all the rotas somehow 'defragged'! I asked the good folks to imagine how church life would be on Easter morning in such a circumstance; would they peer into a darkened church, enter, take their usual seats and just wait until ... well, nothing happened. Would there have a been a church full of people all looking at one another thinking, 'what happened to the choir', and 'where's Father this morning?'. That is the world the Disciples were thrown into - a life without order. Does the congregation worship God, or do they go home assuming that the service was cancelled and that they missed the notice last week? Do they work it out for themselves, or do they curse the bones of the ones who normally 'do', and who appear to have vanished?

In broad terms, John's Gospel paints a world that until that moment was without Resurrection (barring Lazarus, but I am fairly confident that a typical pattern of human 'surely not', and 'perhaps I misunderstood - no one comes back from being dead for four days' had balanced that fact out in the minds of the Disciples). With my NRSV in my hand, I can' fully grasp the Resurrection - so how the heck were Mary and her mates going to fathom it?