Weekly Thoughts

As you will have seen I have been unwell for some time now. It started with a chest infection but then moved on to another infection with distressing symptoms which caused lots of problems for both Anne and me. Fortunately, it has yielded to anti-biotics I am well on the road to recovery. But taking one thing with another, I shall have been out of action for almost a month, the longest time I have been unwell for years. The worst thing about being ill, apart from the actual symptoms is that it throws your life completely out of balance. I’ve lost count of the number of appointments and engagements I have had to cancel, the number of people I have had to let down. As a result, I feel completely cut off from my life as I used to live it and I feel considerably diminished as a human being. I can only hope that once I am better, I shall be able to pick up the threads again.

As I reflected on what being ill has done to me, I realised that you could say much the same thing about the world in which we live today. Our world is sick too. The war following the Russian invasion of Ukraine is now entering its fourth year. The Taliban continue to ruin the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan. The Islamic regime in Iran is oppressing its own people and has now incurred the wrath of the USA and its maverick president Donald Trump who appears to have launched a war there for no obvious reason and without definite aims and an exit strategy. But again, that only seems typical of his chaotic presidency. This is no way to run a banana republic let alone the most powerful nation on the planet. And then there is climate change: the need to tackle the apparently unstoppable rise in global temperatures is more urgent than ever but the nations of the world seem unable to agree any effective means of doing so.  

The distressing symptoms of my infections are being effectively treated by antibiotics. What might be the medicine that will tackle the distressing symptoms of our sick world? Over this coming week we shall walk with the Lord Jesus on his Royal Road of the Holy Cross. We shall recall the distressing symptoms of his arrest torture and finally humiliating death by crucifixion. But we shan’t do that because we want to revel sadistically in the sufferings of an innocent man but because as we look on the suffering of Jesus, as the Israelites looked on the bronze serpent in the wilderness, we know we are looking at the redemption of the world, the healing of the nations. But for that to be effective we have to take the medicine, just as I have to take the antibiotics, and that means modelling our lives on the selfgiving love which the Lord Jesus embodied in his life and which in the end took him to the Cross. For us and for anyone who follows the Way of Jesus there may be a personal Cross but beyond that, if we endure to the end, lies the victory of the Resurrection.  

READINGS AND PRAYERS

29 MARCH – PALM SUNDAY – Matthew 21.1-11 – the triumphal entry - that we may walk the Royal Road of the Holy Cross with the Lord Jesus

30 MARCH – MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK – Hebrews 9.11-15 – the mediator of the new covenant – all who will leading or participating in acts of worship this week 

31 MARCH – TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK – Isaiah 49.1-7 – the suffering servant – that our observance of Holy Week may bear fruit in our lives

1 APRIL – WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK – John 13.31-32 – Judas goes to betray Jesus – for the gift of faith

2 APRIL – MAUNDY THURSDAY – John 1-17, 31b-35 – the last supper – for all in Holy Orders

3 APRIL- GOOD FRIDAY John chapters 18 and 19 – the Passion of the Lord – thanksgiving for the redemption of the world

4 APRIL- HOLY SATURDAY – Lamentations 3.1-9, 19-24 – the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases – that we may pass through death to life eternal