Rev's Reasonings - Eastertide (Vicar's Blog)

So we have had Holy Week where we have reflected on the story of Jesus Christ and his last week on Earth. It is drama that even the best screenwriters could not have fully dreamt up! Jesus is hailed by his public in the capital and a week later his put out to a ‘Big Brother’ style public vote to a terrorist freedom fighter that he loses. A political system that is expedient all round abusing power and putting up the mirror to what individuals and systems are capable of and why we as humanity across the spectrum needs saving and a reboot. We learn about the ultimate capital punishment that is done by the superpower of the time who is good at what it did to preserve power. 

We see powerful words through agony and a lingering death and words people needed to hear beneath that Cross and place of execution. The mockey, cynicism, indifference and ultimate isolation and deaths process through violence. We see the most vulnerable, scattered fearful and bereft the day after encountering the hollowness of the absence of a loved one and the sound of silence. And yet…

Everything changes and things are happening that start with the unseen. The human experience and its worst is done to Jesus and the unexpected twist comes. The equivalent of a cemetery garden visit with a difference, echoing the first Garden of beginnings and God’s relationship with our world where things went awry. The unfamiliar person who can only be recognized by voice not just face or touch. A women’s witness whose name is borne by our Church who tells the male followers something different has happened and tears are temporary. Men who need to identify and reassess their lives in the light of what happening and what is happening and where to go from their own absence and complicity to being transformed by the now Risen Christ in mind, body and soul and moving on in a new way and having time with Jesus in places accessible and inaccessible.

And so it can be for you and I. We can choose to stay in the roller coaster and desolation of the Holy Week experience stopping at Friday and living in Saturday or engage an Easter Day/Resurrection Sunday experience where everything changes and hope comes alive in mind, body and spirit. 

Walking with the Risen Christ can and still is an adventure of the unknown and things can be different even transformative. The drama of 2000 years plus is still relevant and playing out and I encourage you to explore what this community at St Mary’s who choose to follow the Risen Christ, might be saying to you and I in this season to follow and experience Living Hope that transforms lives not just here but across the world. Come and find out more how this works out with everyday people across our representation of humanity here in Peckham and Nunhead. Let’s continue this conversation.

The peace of the Risen Christ be with you!

Rev Dean

Eastertide