Services

Today we hear the Easter gospel in Mark the short ending. And this the ending or some of the oldest versions of Mark’s Gospel. And the ending: they were afraid.

Have you ever been in a situation where you wish you could just go to sleep and only wake up after or be transported quickly to next week or when the pain and worry would be over?

The ideas and items for today are Bread, Wine, and Foot washing. We will have communion as you see in the bulletin, but the concentration is on the foot washing.

Whenever there is an election of a Bishop there is always thoughts about who will let their name stand. All of us a priests think about it wonder about being Bishop. A colleague captured the essence of the reality of our playing with the idea. That all of us would like to be Bishop for a day, but beyond that, to deal with the problems and stresses of the position day in and day out for years is not what we want. So, who would want to do so?

Interesting, it is Lent and the idea of penitential themes and concepts. And here we have both the New Covenant being expressed in Jeremiah and the priest for ever in the order of Melchizedek. What is going on?

This part of John’s gospel contains perhaps the most famous and best-known verse in the Bible. For God so love the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. Why did he do that? The money changers had set up barriers for people coming to the temple. The money changer aspect is fairly obvious for us today because charging a price for or the exchange rate would be in favour of the money changers making money on the exchange. But why the sheep, cattle, and doves?

“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” And: losing and gaining our lives. Gaining the whole world and forfeiting our lives. I cannot help thinking this relates to control. That we can only have partial control of our lives. We are co-creators with God who thus takes the major role.

The sequence of events may be significant and give us some insight into what is going on and for us to see the value. It begins with Jesus being baptized. An uplifting event, a great day. Then forty days in a row in the wilderness, then the bad news about John the Baptist being arrested.