Holy Week reflections by Ray Anglesea
The great Easter getaway has started. Press reports have already indicated that holidaymakers leaving for an extended Easter break can expect heavy traffic on the main roads and congested departure lounges as motorways and airports face their busiest week of the year so far. The travel chaos had begun.
For Christians the holiday getaway takes us in heart and mind to Jerusalem to remember and re-enact the events that are at the centre of our faith, the last days of Jesus life, his death and resurrection. Our travelling to that city may take us via various routes – each day of this Holy Week we might imagine one route which might take us there as we start out on this year’s spiritual journey and pilgrimage.
It is perhaps in the wilderness that the real choices are made. It is one thing to go with the crowds into the city chanting Hosanna it is another to go into the city on our own. There are too many pros and cons to weigh up, advantages and disadvantages, positives and negatives, to make that decision. Indeed it may not be easy to decide anything. When we come to make that decision there are dependents and partners to think about. And if we add to our turmoil and perplexity of journeying into the city a prayer and spiritual life that is dry and barren, the possible dilemma that we are not quite sure where we are and where we belong and where God is, then decisions may be virtually impossible to make. It is so much easier to stay where we are. It might be safer to stay with the crowds in Galilee than to risk going to Jerusalem, to stay with predictable certainty rather than setting out into unknown territories and unchartered waters.
One thing for sure you are never far away from the wilderness when you approach Jerusalem; when you are in Jerusalem the wilderness is just over the next hill. The wilderness comes in many shapes and sizes, just as the desert of Judaea and Sinai are by no means uniform the wilderness that surrounds Jerusalem comes in many forms; huge crags like Masada, there are gullies and crevasses, great rocky outcrops and hidden valleys. And it is perhaps in that place of wilderness that the decision about the journey into the city has to be made; for at the start of this Holy Week we may find ourselves in that place. Sometimes in that wilderness place we may hear many voices; being in the wilderness can be a frightening and a risky experience. Life may appear to be like a trudging journey across a lunar landscape of desert and rocky slopes, an environment that resembles more the ruins of some prehistoric catastrophe, a place of struggle and conflict, a place of loneliness and emptiness, banishment and thirst.
Moses the great law giver, prophet and enduring friend of God, the leader of the Hebrew people had been wandering around the Sinai wilderness for many years, following the call of his God, travelling like the patriarchs before him on an ambiguous and uncertain journey with his irksome, quarrelsome and difficult community. But now Moses hears the call to go to a land promised by God to his descendants, a land of milk and honey. A decision has to be made. The pillar of cloud stands outside the entrance to the tent of meeting. Moses prays.
The problem was that Moses does not want the land of promise without God, and the land of promise is nothing to the people without that same presence. God must go with them. Moses anguished prayers are answered. God will accompany him and his people and the rest of Canaan will be given to them. But Moses requests more. He is convinced that God’s favour does not rest upon him. He prays for a sight of God’s glory. He yearns for a special disclosure of God, not physical sight for he knows that no man can see God and live, but for a spiritual perception of who God is and what he will do for him and his people. God reveals himself by his name. Moses nestles in a rock to see the afterglow of God’s glory, he is to hear old truths in a new splendour, a veil is momentarily drawn back and God passes by, the strangeness of his friend remains with him.
Out there in our lives we may stand on the edge of Jerusalem in some mini wilderness of darkness, uncertainty even banishment as we struggle to move on, to take that step, to make that decision to go to Jerusalem. For Moses it was in a similar place that God met him and gave him directions that would change the face of religion for all time. In the wilderness God for Moses was his heartbeat. Closer than close. In the refuge of that rock Moses felt safe, protected, covered by the hand of his God, his friend.
It is difficult to know sometimes that God is with us, that God is for us, that God cares about our decision making, that God was even with his Son, Jesus, as he turns his face to Jerusalem and all that lies ahead of him. But the paradox is that even though we don’t know it, even though sometimes we don’t feel it – out there - God is with us. Ahead of us, before us, before we get there, he is waiting for us, hands open, to hold us as he did with Moses.
Moses the man who met God in the wilderness is often my inspiration. God met him in a new way and gave him direction and purpose, a blue print of his future plans for Moses and the people who were following him. He holds us as he held Moses. We know it will be all right, at that moment, later or at any time. We are in God’s hands; we may even feel something of that strange glory.
God is with us. Forward then to Jerusalem and may God have mercy on us.
Psalm 91; Exodus 33 v 15-23; Luke 4 v10-13
The great Easter getaway has started. Press reports have already indicated that holidaymakers leaving for an extended Easter break can expect heavy traffic on the main roads and congested departure lounges as motorways and airports face their busiest week of the year so far. The travel chaos had begun.
For Christians the holiday getaway takes us in heart and mind to Jerusalem to remember and re-enact the events that are at the centre of our faith, the last days of Jesus life, his death and resurrection. Our travelling to that city may take us via various routes – each day of this Holy Week we might imagine one route which might take us there as we start out on this year’s spiritual journey and pilgrimage.
It is perhaps in the wilderness that the real choices are made. It is one thing to go with the crowds into the city chanting Hosanna it is another to go into the city on our own. There are too many pros and cons to weigh up, advantages and disadvantages, positives and negatives, to make that decision. Indeed it may not be easy to decide anything. When we come to make that decision there are dependents and partners to think about. And if we add to our turmoil and perplexity of journeying into the city a prayer and spiritual life that is dry and barren, the possible dilemma that we are not quite sure where we are and where we belong and where God is, then decisions may be virtually impossible to make. It is so much easier to stay where we are. It might be safer to stay with the crowds in Galilee than to risk going to Jerusalem, to stay with predictable certainty rather than setting out into unknown territories and unchartered waters.
One thing for sure you are never far away from the wilderness when you approach Jerusalem; when you are in Jerusalem the wilderness is just over the next hill. The wilderness comes in many shapes and sizes, just as the desert of Judaea and Sinai are by no means uniform the wilderness that surrounds Jerusalem comes in many forms; huge crags like Masada, there are gullies and crevasses, great rocky outcrops and hidden valleys. And it is perhaps in that place of wilderness that the decision about the journey into the city has to be made; for at the start of this Holy Week we may find ourselves in that place. Sometimes in that wilderness place we may hear many voices; being in the wilderness can be a frightening and a risky experience. Life may appear to be like a trudging journey across a lunar landscape of desert and rocky slopes, an environment that resembles more the ruins of some prehistoric catastrophe, a place of struggle and conflict, a place of loneliness and emptiness, banishment and thirst.
Moses the great law giver, prophet and enduring friend of God, the leader of the Hebrew people had been wandering around the Sinai wilderness for many years, following the call of his God, travelling like the patriarchs before him on an ambiguous and uncertain journey with his irksome, quarrelsome and difficult community. But now Moses hears the call to go to a land promised by God to his descendants, a land of milk and honey. A decision has to be made. The pillar of cloud stands outside the entrance to the tent of meeting. Moses prays.
The problem was that Moses does not want the land of promise without God, and the land of promise is nothing to the people without that same presence. God must go with them. Moses anguished prayers are answered. God will accompany him and his people and the rest of Canaan will be given to them. But Moses requests more. He is convinced that God’s favour does not rest upon him. He prays for a sight of God’s glory. He yearns for a special disclosure of God, not physical sight for he knows that no man can see God and live, but for a spiritual perception of who God is and what he will do for him and his people. God reveals himself by his name. Moses nestles in a rock to see the afterglow of God’s glory, he is to hear old truths in a new splendour, a veil is momentarily drawn back and God passes by, the strangeness of his friend remains with him.
Out there in our lives we may stand on the edge of Jerusalem in some mini wilderness of darkness, uncertainty even banishment as we struggle to move on, to take that step, to make that decision to go to Jerusalem. For Moses it was in a similar place that God met him and gave him directions that would change the face of religion for all time. In the wilderness God for Moses was his heartbeat. Closer than close. In the refuge of that rock Moses felt safe, protected, covered by the hand of his God, his friend.
It is difficult to know sometimes that God is with us, that God is for us, that God cares about our decision making, that God was even with his Son, Jesus, as he turns his face to Jerusalem and all that lies ahead of him. But the paradox is that even though we don’t know it, even though sometimes we don’t feel it – out there - God is with us. Ahead of us, before us, before we get there, he is waiting for us, hands open, to hold us as he did with Moses.
Moses the man who met God in the wilderness is often my inspiration. God met him in a new way and gave him direction and purpose, a blue print of his future plans for Moses and the people who were following him. He holds us as he held Moses. We know it will be all right, at that moment, later or at any time. We are in God’s hands; we may even feel something of that strange glory.
God is with us. Forward then to Jerusalem and may God have mercy on us.
Psalm 91; Exodus 33 v 15-23; Luke 4 v10-13
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