Saint Michael’s Church
Serving God and Bishop’s Stortford since 673
Clergy Letter For March 2008
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CLERGY LETTER FOR MARCH 2008 |
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The Vicar writes....
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Easter Victory Well it’s certainly an early Easter this year. Did you know that Easter Sunday is fixed by the lunar calendar? It’s set to be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (which can take place on either March 20th or 21st ). This year the full moon falls on March 21st itself, which is also Good Friday, so Easter really is as early as it can be. In the first thirty years of the 21st Century there are only seven years when Easter falls in March, and of those March 23rd , which is this year’s Easter Day, is the earliest. It will be earlier than the turning on of the clocks; indeed there will be a whole eight days after Easter before we even reach April. The timing may be different but the message remains the same. As the month of March begins, with its celebration of Holy Week and Easter half way through it, let’s look again at a central mystery of our faith: that the cross is somehow a victory. Of all the titles we could give to Jesus on Good Friday the most unlikely one is surely The Victor. How could the horrible events of that ghastly afternoon be anything other than a defeat? The cross is a terminus. It marks the end of human hopes and longings. It scuppers the myth of progress. It is the end of plans for the future. It marks the end of the glitz and glamour of this world. It also marks in a real way the end of formal religion - the human attempt to win salvation, to achieve holiness The Curtain of the Temple we are told was torn in two….the Temple, the focus of man’s desire to reach God is shaken. On the cross Jesus cried “It is finished!”. That could mean that it is over…like the end of a race, of a journey, of a day, of a life. Or it could mean that it is completed, fulfilled. It is surely that second sense that we look to on Good Friday. Jesus has lived in total obedience to his Father. We think of obedience as “doing what you are told”, but the root of that word is in the Latin Ob--Audire which means “ to listen to intently” or perhaps “to be so attentive to the other that we know what needs to be done without being told.” Jesus was totally attentive to God. He let go of himself. He died to himself in order to listen to God. Not because he was told to and not because he was trying to be religious but because his mind and heart were totally set on God and His purpose for the world. God’s concern is set on goodness, on the world, on life. Nowhere is Jesus more totally set on God’s purpose than here, on the Cross. The Cross is not an accident, it is not even that it was allowed to happen. It is the fulfillment of God’s plan for us. The cry “It is finished!” is a victory cry, not a despairing cry. Today we claim that victory on the streets of our big cities, in the slums, in schools, in hospitals, in supermarkets, in the countryside, in the parks, in our homes. We celebrate it wherever people are weighed down by the burden of life. It says “We are accepted and loved by God!” The tearing of the Temple curtain in to two is not opening for us the way to God so much as God’s way of coming through to us. He alone makes the way through. We could not tear that curtain ourselves. You can’t kill love. You can crucify it, but it will always rise again. A friend of mine who is an Anglican priest and a brother in the Anglican Francisan Order spent several of the past few years as Vicar of St Benet’s in Cambridge. In the side chapel of that church there is a small Calvary scene by an Italian sculptor. It depicts the three crosses with the three bodies on them. But the hands and arms of the central figure are out of proportion, held up high above his head. The whole thing is bleak and stark. The robber on the right is looking up, the robber on the left looks down. Jesus’ head is sunk on his chest: “It is finished.” But the hands and the arms, almost out of proportion, are raised high in victory. Three days after the crucifixion the tomb is empty and Christ is raised to new life. The cross has proved to be a victory after all. So here is an ancient prayer for Good Friday which I hope will help you to enter once more in to the mystery of Christ, and enrich your life this Easter. May the Cross of the Son of God Which is mightier than all the hosts of Satan And more glorious than all the hosts of heaven Abide with you In your going out and your coming in By day and by night At morning and at evening At all times and in all places May it protect and defend you From the wrath of evildoers From the assaults of evil spirits From the visible and the invisible From the snares of the devil From the passions that beguile the soul and body, May it guard, protect and deliver you and bring you To eternal life. Amen.
I wish you all a joyful and fruitful Easter, Toby Marchand. |
Office Address:
Saint Michael’s Church
Windhill
Bishops Stortford
Hertfordshire
CM23 2ND