A leap from Palm Sunday to Low Sunday bypassing Holy Week - that will be the case for most of my congregation this year - less than half are coming on Maundy Thursday, maybe half a dozen on Good Friday and only four on Easter Sunday (I know this I had to sumbit numbers to the host churches!).  Yesterday as I offered words of blessing and 'sent them out' it was with knowledge that I wouldn't see most of them for a fortnight.  I am, as I have already posted, very saddened by this, but how can I deny tired, busy people their holidays just because I feel they are missing out by missing Easter?  Let's face it, most people missed Holy Week the first time around and most who were there didn't 'get it.'  What's actually changed?

Last night tired after a long day I had a phone call that broke through my depsond.  A 'shut in' couple who look to us for some kind of pastoral support in crisis, rang to ask if I could take communion to them 'as close to Sunday as possible.'  Although I have managed to fill Sunday morning - I am leading intercessions for the Methodists at 8 a.m. and overseeing little girlies at 10:30, it will be good to actually lead a short act of worship for people who really want to mark Easter.

On Low Sunday I am using the Emmaus Road story (much as I love Thomas, I've done him rather a lot) and linking it to some vision stuff from Isaiah and Revelation under a loose (and well worn) title of 'Easter People in a Good Friday World.'  Flicking through my very tatty BPW, I fund a song that seems to fit with all of this - I have never sung it and it is of a meter that means I can't readily pick an alternative tune - somewhere in the Low Sunday service it will fit in: -

God is hope, and God is now!

Hope, despite distress and darkness

War and famine, woe and fear;

Hope though hearts are sick with sorrow,

Hope afar, yet richly near:

Heart rise! Your faith avow,

God is hope, and God is now,

God is hope, and God is now!

 

God is hope, and God is now!

Hope not only for tomorrow –

Death defeated, heaven won –

But for present needs and graces,

Ours today through Christ the Son.

Spirit-wrought, we know not how,

God is hope, and God is now,

God is hope, and God is now!

 

God is hope, and God is now,

Hope for earth, and hope for heaven,

Hope not meant for us alone:

Then to all God’s human children

We must make the gospel known.

Up, my soul, make good your vow –

Take God’s hope, and share it now!

Take God’s hope and share it now.

 

Margaret Clarkson (b. 1915) (c) Hope Publishing USA