I need to preface this by saying that one of my greatest pleasures in ministry is "creating" an Easter Sunday experience for others, even though it is lots of work, and even if delegating might be a wise idea... I just kind of want everyone else to have a lovely time and not feel the need to be making it so for others.

So, on the landing outside my flat are two big buckets of flowers.

I have taken lots of craft materials to church, and have a few last minute bits still to purchase.

I have some prototypes and preparations to make during the course of the day.

I have already made a few tweaks to my PowerPoint and may make the odd one to the service detail

This is not "proper" Holy Saturday reflection... or is it?  Is it possible that in the preparing, in the yearning to give the best I can, to help others find meaning and hope is actually very proper indeed?

I will have fun today - I have lovely things to prepare.

I will have fun tomorrow - because there will be good things to share.

That limbo time, between a death and a funeral, when you don't quite know what to do or say or be... I guess in some senses that's what Holy Saturday is about.  Perhaps because my Dad died on the Wednesday after Easter, I remember his death around this time rather than at its true date.  In some sense I re-enter the bizarre blend of routine and restlessness, getting on with it and not knowing what to do... I try hard not to pre-empt what I know tomorrow brings, because actually no-one knows what tomorrow brings.  Like countless ministers and Sunday School leaders, today will be spent on final preps for tomorrow.  For now though, these words...

Holy Saturday:

The

Long

Aching

Empty

Waiting

And

Not

Knowing

If

God's

(seeming?)

Absence

Will

Ever

End...

Being woken up in the (relatively) small hours by the sound of my work mobile phone was guaranteed to set my heart thumping... it turned out to be something easily resolved, of no pastoral and very little practical significance, but it did mean I was up, dressed and out of the house before 5 a.m., which felt a rather strange start to Good Friday.

If the Biblical narrative is anything to go by, the early hours of Good Friday saw people being awoken by people hammering on their doors, demanding action, a trial, an execution... Blearly-eyed, adrenalin-driven repectable people dragged from slumber to act, and act now.  And Jesus, kept up all night, his heart broken, his body weary, his end now self-evident ,dragged from pillar to post and back again, all before anyone gets to Golgotha, and mostly whilst the majority of folk are sleeping.

Good Friday is a strange day, we never quite know how to mark it - in some places Walks of Witness continue, in others Messy Church, in others vigils; in some ecumenical, in others single traditions... and so on.  We centre on the cross, and rightly so, but today I am reminded of those who were dragged from slumber and thrust into a fast-paced, bewildering, unstoppable chain of events that would end in ways they'd never have imagined the night before.

Up-all-night God,

There in the garden

In the courtyard

On the road

At the trials

Hearing the voices

Alert to the ridicule

Seeing the beating...

You are always present with us in our own night-times

Whether we slumber peacefully

Sleep fitfully

Or toss and turn anxiously

You know and understand

How adrenalin affects us

Fight or flight or freeze

Pumped up or pulled down

And you are with us

Today help me be aware

Of those who find themselves

Propelled or compelled

Into situations

Or conversations

Or decisions

That trigger these instincts

Help me to be aware of my own responses,

Of their potential for good or ill.

And, as we look to the cross

As we wonder and worry

As we marvel

As we are disgusted

As we struggle

Stay close in the deep darkness of broad daylight

And give us your peace.

Last night the focus was on Bonhoeffer, and four strands in his thinking: Discipline, Action, Suffering and Death.  These are good words to carry on into today as we focus on

Foot washing

Bread breaking

Wine pouring

Kiss betraying

Curse denying

Not a lot of words today, just a prayer:

Foot-washing God, kneeling in front of me and gently wiping the dust of another year's journey, how tender is your touch

Bread-breaking God, offering me nutrition for my body's ongoing life, symbolising your own death

Wine-pouring God, blessing me for my journey onwards, your love splashing in the cup of my heart

Kiss-betrayed God, meeting my gaze and weeping over my failure to understand

Curse-betrayed God, hearing the course crow of the cock as once more I fail to acknowledge you

On this day of mystery

In the symbols

In the remembering

Meet me afresh, cleanse, forgive, strengthen, delight...

Then lead me into the darkness to wait patiently with you, for you...

Amen.

By default, this seems to be turning into reflections on the service the night before!

Yesterday evening's service was rooted in Romans 3: 21 - 26 which, evidently, according to Martin Luther, is the heart of the New Testament, and indeed the heart of the Bible.  In a careful, line by line exegesis/exposition the preacher reminded us that Easter is all about atonement, about putting humanity right with God.  He didn't press any one understanding of atonement, though the choice of music reflected a strong PSA (penal substitutionary atonement) model.

If I'm honest, I always take it as read that Easter is about atonement - in all its assorted understandings and interpretations.  Perhaps that means that when I hear or respond to the stories of Holy Week or the passion I listen through a different ear trumpet (or whatever the audio parallel to a lense might be!) that is more concerned with the 'what' than the 'why'.  Perhaps it is important for me to shaken out of my own complacency.

I know "why", God.

I was taught in school and Sunday School and Brigade and, and...

I know that this is a story about atonement

About cancelling debt

Or restoring relationship

About blood shed to appease righteous indignation

(Even if I find that a toughie)

I know that through the centuries

Clever, faithful people

Have wrestled in order to wrest meaning and purpose to the story, or stories

I know the "why"

And instead focus on the "what" or perhaps the "how"

Perhaps this Holy Week

In the middle of the story

It is good to stop

Not deeming Romans 3: 21 - 26 the heart of the Bible

Not elevating a paragraph of Paul above everything else

But instead marvelling

That this atonement,

This making right

Transcended any racial, religious or other humanly defined categories

To include all...

All.

That's why.

So that all may drawn into the promise.

Those who think like me and those who don't

How ironic that universal embrace is part of this text:

"There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus"

As the global new reports spread stories of terror and sorrow

Remind me, remind us, that the sacrifice of Christ is made with no exceptions for all.