It is Saturday, welcome to Day 6 of Holy Week Tears
If you are journeying with us this week, you will know that today is Day 6 of our Holy Week Tears reflections and that we are creating a visual focal point as we move through this Holy Week. Take your tear drop shape and place it next to Monday’s Palm Cross, Tuesday’s Bread, Wednesday’s Silver Coins, Maundy Thursday’s soap and towel, Good Friday’s prickly and purple things and on it place some herbs or spices or perfume.
A quiet thought:
Reflect on your Herbs. Spices or Perfume. What do you use them for and why?
Read about what happened to Jesus after he died, Mark 16:1-8
We, as Christians, normally spend the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Day preparing for the Easter Day celebrations in church and home. Maybe buying last minute Easter Eggs, planning an Easter Egg hunt for the youngsters drawing Easter bunnies and spring chicks with the children, “dressing” the church, filling it with flowers and getting ready a cross to decorate on Easter morning. All about preparation.
For the first disciples of Jesus it must have been a long day, not knowing what to do, where to go, how they were going to manage, suddenly their whole life had changed (I guess in many ways people who have been made redundant, or ever furloughed, have a bit of that feeling). Their “jobs” had relied on Jesus. Now he had been crucified and buried in the tomb. So, they had lost their leader, their jobs and they grieved for their friend. All human emotions we can relate to. They felt alone and bereft, again, especially in these days, we can empathise with them. The women had the task of gathering herbs and spices to anoint the body and that was what they would do on Sunday morning, they couldn’t do it on Saturday, that was Jewish Passover. Preparation then for what was to come. BUT…what was to come was not what they expected…but for now, on this Holy Saturday, they waited, they prepared. Our herbs, spices, perfume, remind us of their waiting, waiting to perform what they thought was the last act of kindness and respect for their friend. Time must have seemed to stand still, must have weighed heavily on their shoulders; their minds filled with “what ifs”, “maybe”, filled with waiting and wondering, longing and hoping.
A reflection on our Lenten journey:
Together
and alone we set out on our lenten journey.
We set out as One
set out as one.
We have travelled, still will travel, to places we are not happy with
to places we are not comfortable with
to places that hurt us
to places that challenge us.
We have travelled, still will travel, to places that settle and sustain us
to places that cocoon us
to places that release us.
We have travelled, still will travel, alone and apart
together and at one.
We have travelled, still will travel, happy
and sad.
We have travelled, still will travel, willingly
and reluctantly.
But travel we will.
And after travel is journey’s end.
If we have travelled Lent
If we have travelled Holy Week
then we will find Easter.
Find ourselves somewhere different to where we started with different tears.
Find ourselves somewhere different to where we started.
Find ourselves different to when we started.
Find ourselves different.
Find ourselves.
Find.
Find GOD
This hymn encompasses so much of what we have been reflecting on: My song is love unknown (StF 277)
Chris Tomlin ‘I stand amazed’
A closing prayer:
Immortal God, these days of waiting are tinged with a myriad of emotions, like a kaleidoscope, each time we look and think, different images pass in front of us, different memories, pictures, smells, experiences. Hold us tight, hold us securely in your presence and bring us from the death of Good Friday to the glories of Resurrection Day.
Amen
