Peace

You may remember that I told you of how the Lord gave me peace about a funeral that I was to conduct, and how that peace came from the prayer from Lectio 365, which suggested that we think of our place of fear and ask Jesus to bring His peace into that place, just as He had brought peace to the fearful disciples behind locked doors.  I feel that it is important for me to add something to that.

In my prayer journal, after giving thanks to God, I wrote, "This is a peace that the world can neither give nor take away".   I am telling you this in case I should contract Covid 19 at any point; Jesus promised me peace, not protection but peace.  The peace that Jesus gives is not necessarily an absence from trouble but rather a deep peace in times of trouble.  The disciples, who were fearful for their lives before Jesus brought His peace, did go on to eventually lose their lives for His sake, but they did so with God given peace.

I only write this because, should I succumb to this awful virus - and anybody can - I would not want that to be the cause of anyone's faith being shaken.  I would not want anyone to begin to doubt the goodness of God.  God made me a promise and He will keep that promise.   I will have peace, come what may.

Out of His love for us, God gave us free will, He didn't want us to be like robots who only do His will because we cannot possibly do anything else.  He want's us to love and obey Him of our own free will.  Like anybody else, I often fall down on that score. both in terms of love and obedience.  We live in a fallen world where there is sorrow, sin, sickness and all manner of problems, but God is not, and never will be, a fallen God, He does not break His promises and His love never fails.

God suffers when His children suffer.  He feels their pain and longs to comfort them.  I did another funeral recently, that of Josie's daughter, Janet.  I saw Josie's pain and I longed to put my arms around her, but instead, I had to stand six feet away.  It was awful.  God must feel such pain when he sees one of His children hurting another, but He has given us free will and does not take that away.  He has to stand six feet away (not literally, but I'm sure you know what I mean).

I don't have all the answers about why God allows something like a virus to enter our world and cause such devastation; maybe one day we will find that it's down to something that we have done, in the same way that we have discovered the connection between pollution and climate changes, but, despite my current lack of answers, I will continue to trust my God, who loved me so much that He wanted me to not only enjoy the beauty of this world (see Christine's blog post on Monday) but He has given me the opportunity to be at peace with Him, in this world and the next, where pain, sorrow, sickness and sin will be no more.  Whether He welcomes me home next week or in forty years from now, I will be at peace.

Peace be with you.

God bless

The peace of forgiveness

I shared with you on Tuesday, my experience of hearing, for the second time in a week, the reading from the app Lectio 365, the Lord's message of peace in the room where the fearful disciples were hiding.  Guess what the reading is for today's Communion service - Luke's version of that same passage.  Luke 24:35-48.

Let us think today of Jesus' greeting of peace and the fear of the disciples.  Why were the disciples afraid?  Luke tells us that they thought they were seeing a ghost.  Even if it was but the ghost of Jesus that they saw, why would they be afraid?  Surely He would not harm them.  Perhaps they were afraid because they knew that in His hour of need, they had forsaken Him, run away and left Him to be mocked, flogged and crucified.  One of them had even denied knowing Him, not once but three times. They might well have been afraid of reprisals from what they thought to be the unrested soul of the master whom they let down so badly.

Instead of reprisals, Jesus greets them with the offer of peace.  Let this be a reminder to us that God forgives our shortcomings, our sin.  We may often be aware that we have let the Lord down but we should never let that make us afraid to approach Him and ask for His forgiveness.  This passage teaches us that God's forgiveness is immense, it extends beyond those who try to serve Him well and fail.  Why do I say this?  Because at the end of the passage, Jesus says that the message of repentance and forgiveness is to be preached to all nations - beginning at Jerusalem.  Jerusalem, the very place where people had been baying for His blood!  The place where crowds had shouted "Crucify" when they had the opportunity to have Him released; the place where His Father's house had been "turned into a den of thieves";   the place where His strongest critics were, those who falsely accused Him out of a sense of jealousy and assumed superiority.  Yet this is where the message of forgiveness is first to be proclaimed.

Let us never assume that anything that we have thought, said or done, or anything that others have thought, said or done, will put us beyond the reach of God's forgiveness.  Amen.


I'm sorry that I haven't been able to put this week's reflections onto a video, but there is a problem with my mobile phone, which keeps cutting out.  Dave says that I need to have a long session of deleting photographs and videos because my phone is too full.  As soon as I get chance I will do that but at the moment much of my time is taken up with funerals and funeral preparations due to the pandemic, so for the time being, it will be written reflections.  (Come to think of it, that might be preferable to having to see my face every day!)

On the subject of "every day", if, as suspected, I get even busier with funerals, I will put something on the blog on Wednesdays and Sundays, when we would normally have services.  I will also think about something family friendly for Thursdays.  The Lectio 365 app has some good reflections every day and David Green has put a link to this on the website.  Give it a try.  God bless, Lyn

Prayer experiment with Dave

As mentioned before, the Friday reflection will be shared between Dave and Myself, with us taking turns to prepare something for our day off.  As I did Good Friday, it is Dave's turn today and he has produced an exercise of engaging the body in prayer. 

Spring Harvest Home

Some of you may have heard of Spring Harvest - a large Christian festival that normally happens around this time of year. Due to social distancing, they have not been able to meet this year but have made huge amounts of really good content available online including teaching, worship, children's work and lots more. It's called Spring Harvest at home and can be found here:

Spring Harvest Home

Emmaus meditation

Today's gospel passage is from Luke's gospel, chapter 24, verses 13 -35 - The journey to and subsequent meal at Emmaus.

This famous painting by Caravaggio of the Supper at Emmaus, which hangs in the National Gallery in London, captures the moment when the disciples recognised the companion who had accompanied them to Emmaus. Jesus is depicted as beardless – unusual in the iconography of the era – which may have been an attempt to explain why they had not recognised him on the road. Caravagio paints a fourth person, no doubt a servant, he also paints the two disciples as men, when in all probability, one of them was a woman.  Check the passage, once Jesus appears on the scene, only one of the travellers speaks.  In that culture, a woman who was speaking with a male companion, would suddenly become silent if a stranger approached and struck up a conversation.   Caravagio was first and foremost an artist rather than a biblical scholar and this is his interpretation of the scene but it can still lead us into a meditation on the passage.  Like Rublev’s icon of the Trinity, the composition of the painting enables the viewer to draw close to the table – to join the group – to experience, and not merely observe – in this case, the drama of the moment when the reality of the resurrection bursts into the disciples’ lives.

Why not try to see if your prayer life can be enhanced by meditating on art. Sit with the picture and imagine yourself drawn into the scene.  What would your feelings be?  What would you like to say, or ask?  Let God use your imagination and trust Him to be with you. In this scene, as in the biblical account, although Jesus is the guest, He takes the role of the host, taking, breaking and blessing the bread; think of how it reflects the last supper.  Sit with this painting and let Jesus feed you today.

Jesus brings peace

Instead of looking at the Bible passage for Wednesday 15th, I would like to share with you how the Lord brought peace into a somewhat fearful situation that I experienced recently.  I also believe that it relates well to my previous post about Mary not being able to see the Lord because she was staring so hard at the cause of her sorrow. 

With the rise in numbers of corona virus related deaths, clergy are being kept very busy.  They are also at risk of infection from relatives who are unaware that they have the virus.  I was particularly worried about one funeral, where I strongly suspected that a family member would be present, despite the fact that they should still have been in isolation, having been in direct contact with the deceased at the hour of death.  To conduct funerals is part of my calling and I will not shirk my responsibilities but naturally, I pray that family and friends act responsibly, however painful that may be.  My heart goes out to those who have been with relatives prior to death and because of this, are unable to be at their funeral, to say goodbye and have that sense of letting go which is so important in the grieving process, but this virus is so virulent that extreme precautions are necessary to avoid it’s spread.

So how did the Lord step in and address my concerns?  Each morning, Dave and I listen to the Lectio 365 app (to which there is a link on our website). The reading one day was about Jesus appearing in the room where the fearful disciples were locked away, and how He said to them, “peace be with you”.  During the prayers after the reading, we were encouraged to see Jesus entering our personal place of fear and bringing His peace.  I immediately thought of my concerns about the forthcoming funeral and felt an overwhelming sense of peace. This allowed me to turn away from my fears and concentrate on the rest of my work.  It meant that I wasn’t worrying for a week before the funeral took place.  The strange thing was that on the day of the funeral, I heard the very same reading and prayer; it felt as if the Lord was reminding me of His promise of peace before I left to conduct the funeral. I was so puzzled about hearing it for a second time that I had to check the app to find out why it had been repeated.  It seems that in fact, it had not been repeated.  I can only assume that I must have previously clicked on the wrong day’s reading. How?  I really don’t know, but I truly believe that the Lord’s hand was in it.  It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord speaks directly into our situations, just when we need it. 

If you are fearful for any reason, please can I encourage you to see Jesus entering your place of fear and bringing His peace.  Amen

Looking elsewhere for comfort

The gospel passage for today is the latter half of Sunday’s gospel passage, John 20:11-18.  We see from these verses that the fears and sorrows of believers can sometimes be quite needless.  Mary is busy sorrowfully staring into the tomb, when all the time, Jesus is standing right behind her. She has to turn around in order to realise just how close He is. How often are we staring so hard at the cause of our sorrow that we are unable to see Jesus?  How often are we unaware of His presence when He is so very near? 

When Mary turns, and eventually recognises Jesus, Jesus says to her “Do not hold onto me… instead go to my brothers and sisters and tell them…..  This can mean that rather than spending time comforting herself by embracing Jesus, Mary needs to comfort the others by spreading the news of His resurrection.  But “Do not hold onto me” could mean that Mary needs to get used to the idea that it is not His bodily presence that is important, it is His Spiritual presence with His disciples that will sustain them in the coming days, weeks and months, not His bodily presence.

Many of us are used to receiving communion once or twice a week, and as I, or Sally, put the communion wafer into your hands, we say, “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ”.  Just as Mary had to learn to go without the bodily presence of Jesus, we must go without our Communion wafers, that very real reception of the body of Christ, and even for those churches that rarely receive  communion, the body of Christ is also the church, the people of God, something else we are having to do without in physical form because we can’t gather together.  But we can still connect by telephone, by email, by FaceBook, Face Time or Skype.  So as we continue to learn to worship in different ways, let us not spend time staring at the cause of our sorrow, instead let us look in a different direction and let us pray that the Lord will help us to recognise His presence with us.

May God bless us all in this season of Easter