’All we need to know’

IN Dornoch, we are used to walking through Lent, Holy Week and Easter Sunday.

In Lent we meet once a week for a reflective moment which can include crafts or food, dramatic readings, music, all of which goes on to feed into the daily evening pauses in Holy Week from Monday until Friday, with nothing at all on the Saturday – then a glorious dawn (and it has been glorious to watch the sunrise over the last 20 years) followed by breakfast, then the main morning service and an evening communion Emmaus-style at night.

The rhythm is exhausting and emotionally draining, but it is also so deeply meaningful. It forms a central part of the year in the life of the congregation and those who make the commitment, rarely regret it. One older member of the congregation said she had never quite ‘got’ the Easter story until she began walking through it, step by step. Another says it’s a time of year she has come to love and to dread! Our Good Friday service ends in utter darkness and silence with the dramatic slamming of a door to mark Jesus’ body sealed in the tomb. The silence that follows is so emotionally charged.

As is the Easter Sunday evening communion when people are invited to leave their pews to stand around a table set for dinner for three, as it was in Emmaus and to share bread broken.

There is something about not just hearing a story, but seeing it unfold and then finding yourself a part of it. Why not keep this column and come back to it, each day of Holy Week?

On Monday, find a stone to hold and think of Jesus in the Temple.

Consider Mark 11:15-18 where Jesus turns over the tables of the money lenders. Think of the coins bouncing on the stones and the noise of the frantic beating of pigeon wings and the bleat of sheep as well as the shouting from the stall holders. What injustices these days, do you think make Jesus angry?

As you hold your stone tight, pray for those who feel exploited and on the receiving end of others’ unjustified vitriol….

Pray too for decision makers: for those in authority. Ask that they may find the courage to do what is right.

On Tuesday, pick up that stone again and read Mark 12:1-12. Think of the stone the builders rejected. Why was Jesus given such a hard time? What was it about him that so infuriated the religious leaders?

Now think of Jesus as the cornerstone of a new creation. What shape might that new creation be? I don’t want to add any more words.

But I would like you to watch a wee film about stones – and as you do, I want you to reflect on what it might mean to let Jesus find points and ways of getting us, as his followers and as the human race, to fit together…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC8cBP2dL8A

On Wednesday, pick up the stone again – and find Jesus at the home of good friends. It’s a place he knows and enjoys and can be himself in. Read John 12:1-8 The fly in the ointment is one of the 12. Judas was outraged at the waste of perfume. It could have fed the hungry, he said – a potentially principled point – but not from the lips of Judas. From Judas it was an excuse. The deal had already been struck.

As you hold onto your stone, feel its hardness and spend some time reflecting on where the hardness in you… What is it you put first…

Who is it you can’t forgive… what is it you can’t forget… or let go of?

On Thursday, Jesus modelled his new commandment. Before they sat down to eat together, Jesus washed his friends’ feet, all 12, telling them they needed to do what he had done. Then they shared the Passover meal until there was only the last piece of unleavened bread and the last glass of wine left. Knowing what Judas would do… and Peter too – and every last one of his friends, Jesus took the bread in his hands and when he had blessed it and given thanks for it,

broke it, gave it to his friends and said…. (Mark 14)

“Take it,” he said, “this is my body.”

Then he took a cup, gave thanks to God, and handed it to them; and they all drank from it. Jesus said, “This is my blood which is poured out for many, my blood which seals God’s covenant. I tell you, I will never again drink this wine until the day I drink the new wine in the Kingdom of God.”

Within a very short time…. Jesus was arrested.

The stone in your hand tonight, is a stone ready to be thrown… hurled… with the intention of harm.

How does that make you feel?

Listen if you can to Michael Card’s song ‘Why’ – use your browser!

On Friday, Yesterday we left Jesus and his friends outside in the garden. They had gone there after supper.

Can I ask you to take your stone in your hand and to imagine…

Your stone is one that’s been picked up from the rocky dirt of Gethsemane – Perhaps it’s one the disciples spread their cloaks on

To make sleep less uncomfortable…

Perhaps it’s one that caught Jesus’ tears as they spilled over as he prayed…

Perhaps your stone was one kicked by the marching feet of the army that suddenly arrived…

Jesus had been praying in the garden – his friends had slept.

Then Judas arrived…

In the dead of night…

A carefully chosen moment – read Mark14:43-50

Now turn to Luke 22:54-62 to hear what happens next…

The stone in your hand…

Is now warm from the fire in the courtyard of the High Priest –

Holding on to it, think of times when you have denied Jesus…

When people have made fun of the church perhaps…

There is something about not just hearing a story, but seeing it unfold and then finding yourself a part of it.

When they’ve rubbished religion When they’ve asked – how can anyone

be daft enough to believe…

And you have said nothing….

and hear the cock crow…

Long story short….. Pilate sat on the Judge’s seat…

In the place called the stone pavement…

A hard place… And he handed Jesus over

To be crucified…

He was crucified along with two others. People watching,

spat insults at Jesus –

Going to rebuild the Temple in three days were you?

You can’t even get yourself down off a cross!

The soldiers played dice for his clothes… Blood stained though they were Purple fabric was worth something… Feel again the stone in your hand… Could it roll like the dice?

Do we ever let our own needs make us turn a blind eye to the suff ering of others?

Read Matthew 27:45-54 There is no night so bleak as this. There is no quick answer to its horror, All we can do is wait…

Wait to see what a stone might lead to.

A stone…

Rolled away.

Revealing….

All we need to know.