As we enter the triduum (the three dyas) of Easter, the momentum increases.  Yesterday, Maundy Thursday, was a busy, busy day with meetings we had hoped to avoid holding in Holy Week and a service to set up and lead.  Today it'll be the three hour vigil, which wil mean a lot of sitting in what is usually a freezing cold church. This is not very thought out, it's just a few thoguhts dumped onto a computer!

The object for yesterday was the alarm clock (a link to the cock that crew) and the crucifix - something that most protestants actually don't have in their homes.

As Lent draws to its end (and arguably already has ended, it all depends how you choose to count) it is the pace of the story that carries us through the last few days.  It's entirely feaible that, in reality, what we comemtorate as happening in one long, sleepless night, took significantly longer, but what matters is not the timescale but the meaning of it all.

Today, it's good if we can find just a few minutes to ponder the cross, a hinge point in human history, a moment when the gaps bewteen heaven and hell and earth (however we understand any of those) was closed (or opened, or maybe both).  A moment where time and eternity merged, where the timebound power of evil was destroyed by the eternal power of love, even if within time we have yet to see its full outworking.

If I was to choose a hymn for today - and I'm not choosing any of the ones we'll sing in the vigil - it would probably be this one, I hope you enjoy it.

My song is love unknown,
my Saviour's love to me,
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
O who am I,
that for my sake
my Lord should take
frail flesh, and die?

He came from his blest throne,
salvation to bestow;
but men made strange, and none
the longed-for Christ would know.
But O, my Friend,
my Friend indeed,
who at my need
his life did spend.

Sometimes they strew his way,
and his sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then 'Crucify!'
is all their breath,
and for his death
they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries!
yet they at these
themselves displease,
and 'gainst him rise.

They rise, and needs will have
my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save,
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful he
to suffering goes,
that he his foes
from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heaven was his home;
but mine the tomb
wherein he lay.

Here might I stay and sing:
no story so divine;
never was love, dear King,
never was grief like thine!
This is my Friend,
in whose sweet praise
I all my days
could gladly spend.

Samuel Crossman (1624-1684NS)