Tuesday of Holy Week 2020

Short meditation from last night's service of prayers for wholeness and healing.

On Ash Wednesday we entered the wilderness; we started a journey that began with the words “remember you are dust and to dust you will return” on a day set aside for us to remember the fact that one day we will die.

 

How could we have known, less than 6 weeks ago, what Holy Week would look like this year, just how deeply we would be in the wilderness place and how starkly we would be confronting death.

 

That’s a journey not one of us would want to begin, buts it’s the journey we’ve had no choice but to be led on.

 

In our Holy Week readings Jesus has now entered the last week of his life, and he knows it. But he still takes time to provide comfort for those around him:

 

Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.

 

What light can we find in the midst of all this darkness? What do those glimpses of light point us towards?

 

Maybe it’s our faith, our family, the kindness of people we didn’t know before this or the gratitude of someone we’ve helped.

 

I’ve seen God in so many people through these last few weeks; in acts of random kindness, in the coming together of communities, in the finding of new ways to be together; as friends, families and churches. In the slower pace of life, in the enforced sabbath rest. God is here in it all.

 

Those glimpses of light are glimpses of God, and therefore glimpses of love. The morning canticle from the Northumbria Community helps us to pray each day to be directed by the light:

Christ, as a light illumine and guide me.

Christ, as a shield overshadow me.

Christ under me; Christ over me;

Christ beside me; on my left and my right.

This year when Easter day dawns and we meet the risen Christ we’ll still be in the wilderness. Again, I look to the Northumbria Community for comfort with words from their evening prayer: Lord you have always lightened this darkness of mine; and though the night is here, today I believe.

I believe God is holding us in this darkness, I believe Jesus meets us in the wilderness and walks beside us. We believe in the light to carry us through the dark. We believe in the light, so that we may become children of light.

Amen.