Nice to hear a couple of curlews today – an evocative sound. Now I’m back there’s some blue sky between the little showers. Someone saw roe deer on a hillside: I don’t usually see them unless they cross the Trail in front of me, which doesn’t usually happen unless I’m out before the first dog.
In the Lectionary, Psalm 133 no doubt refers to a serious ceremony of anointing – but with the oil getting everywhere it reads like abundance and fun and the abandonment of restraint.
Some questions about Sunday’s Lectionary. I have questions in my head about these verses from John’s gospel… ‘20:22 When [the risen Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”‘ One for the scholars – is there ambiguity about the translation of ‘sins’ is it possibly ‘debts’ as in other gospels? It seems as if they are being authorised to forgive on behalf of God – is this so, in which case who is authorised, all who receive the Holy Spirit (or claim to??), those specific people, or who? Or are they to forgive on their own behalf, in which case it’s the Biblical equivalent of ‘nothing you can say that can’t be said’. If all this implies that when A sins against B, C is authorised to forgive A, that seems fundamentally unjust … even if C claims that they have received the Holy Spirit (and anyone could say they have received the Holy Spirit even when they haven’t). In my experience, one’s relationship with the Holy Spirit waxes and wanes and isn’t necessarily accompanied by spectacular stuff.
There’s nothing I can do to make it alright that some other person has abused a child or bombed someone’s mother.
God who loves me, bless this day, all its pain and joy; with the companionship of Christ in suffering and hope, with the encouragement of your Spirit, with your faithful presence.
God I thank you because I can trust you like I can trust the created world. God I thank you because I can know you in the living Jesus Christ. God I thank you because you know me and still you love me.
After a few tiny snow showers first thing, the ground soon went back to its usual colours, the tiny bits of snow evaporating rather than melting in most places. It was the kind of day when you take off your fleece indoors and it tries to pull all the hair off your arm.
Later a lovely walk with relations, including photogenic lambs.
And for next Sunday’s Lectionary, believing Thomas. He demands to see evidence, as all of us post-enlightenment souls would – it is no longer good enough to believe because somebody in power tells you to believe. But when he does get the evidence, he believes properly. God isn’t abstract anymore. It’s personal. He calls the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Next Sunday is ‘Low Sunday’. Here’s a segment from something I made up thirty years ago…
“…And this is all we have now; the rain; the wooden floor; the few people of hard faith; a church unseasonably cold;… … and Jesus risen.
God, help us see that today is where resurrection counts; not in Easter churches crowded with praises and flowers, but resurrection day by day. Help us to see and live and celebrate and love Jesus risen, in the words of saints and students, on the wet streets, amongst the drab clothes, in the cold place, in daily dreariness: Help us see the unmentioned vision, and give the shapes of daily life an edging of fire.”
A misty morning first thing, a little drizzle from time to time and no sign of the sun until later. As I walked on the quiet Trail I realised I missed the little Easter Dawn services we used to have on a hill overlooking Halifax. I doubt that the tiny, freezing cold, congregation who used to come would share my feelings. On reflection, I suspect they mostly came out of loyalty. Or entirely.
A harsh wind this morning, but a pleasant enough walk nevertheless. I did not go far enough to see or smell the devastation on the moorland caused by somebody’s barbecue.
Meanwhile, Jesus shares a last meal with his friends. He also washes their feet. We follow a leader who washes people’s feet!
In today’s Lectionary, Judas goes out and betrays Jesus. We don’t really know what went on in his head. It seems that afterwards he was ashamed of what he had done. In our lives, betrayal it seems to me is almost always more complicated than we imagine. But we love to hate the traitor. In America there’s this historical figure called Benedict Arnold, and they all love to hate him, because (I assume) it makes them feel good about who they are, gives them a sense of national cohesion. And who decides who is the traitor? The press like to bandy that word about (with minimal justification sometimes). Maybe that’s also one of the privileges of writing history – you get to decide who the traitors were.
However… just remember those last days of Jesus – the swords were sharpened all around him.
