Good Friday 2nd April – 2.00pm – 3.00pmJoin us for an hour of devotional meditation and music for Good Friday streamed on Zoom. Here is the link –
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84564061695? pwd=dzBzbVYxb2dvc2tqMmtiVFR5TFVlUT09
Meeting ID: 845 6406 1695 – Passcode: 146048
For a copy of the simple service booklet, please click here.
The Donkey and the Palm LeavesThis Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday and remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. This image is rich in symbolism and meaning, exactly as Jesus intended. Jesus knew he was fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah, ‘Lo your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey’. The donkey is an animal of peace, as opposed to a horse which was ridden in warfare, and in fulfilling this prophecy Jesus announces that his Kingship is one of peace. The meaning of the palm leaves comes from Leviticus when the Jewish people were told to celebrate their Exodus from Egypt by making booths from palm leaves.
We do not know what the crowds around Jesus on that day thought. The Gospels tell us that for much of his ministry Jesus kept his identity as the Son of God hidden and that even his close companions the disciples did not understand who he was until after his death and resurrection.
We know that we now can stand at the gates of Jerusalem holding our palm crosses ready to lay them in Jesus’ path as he rides before us. We can acknowledge him as the Prince of Peace, leading a new Exodus and bringing about our salvation as the people of God.
Jenny Hosker
The author of this Sunday’s psalm (Psalm 51) was probably writing about 600 years before Jesus was born and 1000 years before the season of Lent was fully established within the Church. Nevertheless the writer fully understood the Lenten theme of repentance in the presence of God. He seems to be laying open his guilt rather dramatically: “I have been wicked even from my birth”. Tradition portrays King David as the author of this psalm, giving his meditation after he had acquired another man’s wife and then murdered that man. This would certainly explain an expression of profound guilt . Here is reassurance that all and every sin can be repented of, if we truly have a change of heart and outlook as a result. Our own sins may appear more understandable and forgivable in God’s sight, than the sins that other people commit. But all sin requires repentance, and Jesus points out our tendency to see our brother’s or sister’s speck in their eye, past the log of sin in our own. We take stock of our lives especially during Lent so we can ultimately achieve what the ancient psalmist wished to: Restoration and Joy. We pray for “again the joy of your salvation” through a return to God’s presence. We yearn for a time when our combined tongues more fully “will declare your praise”.
John Hosker
This year we will all reflect on how the pandemic has made us realise how much we each depend on those who love and care for us.
We have all seen significant changes to women’s working patterns and child rearing in recent years. Now we expect a much more equal partnership role with both parents involved in caring for children and the home and women typically combining paid work with mothering. This completely accords with how the Bible understands love, relationships, and parenting. The Bible understands how deeply God loves all of humankind and this reaches its culmination in Jesus tell- ing us talk to God as a parent. In 1 John 1 we are told, “God is love and those who live in love live in God, and he in them”. Despite all the dysfunctional relationships in the Old Testament, the role of mothers is honoured: Sarah the mother who waited for her son Isaac, Naomi the mother who shared her faith with Obed, Hannah the mother who kept her promise to God and brought up Samuel to be a priest. In the New Testament, Elizabeth believed in miracles and brought up John the Baptist. Our beloved Mary is “blessed amongst women”.
Let us rejoice in mothering and all the many ways that mothers change the world through the way they bring up their children.
Jenny Hosker
The Covid-19 Exit Roadmap is helping St Mary’s church plan its reopening.
After timeless weeks of lockdown, green shoots finally appear, the first step on our journey to open the doors and welcome you for public worship. Providing ‘Step 2’ of the Covid-19 Roadmap is favourably met on 12th April, reopening will then commence on Sunday, 18th April with a service of Holy Communion at 10.30*. Please make this a date for your diary.
Precautionary ‘Hands, Face, Space’ measures will be in place for your safety and up to date information is always available on our website at www.stmaryschurchtickhill.com or by calling the PCC Secretary on 751396.
* The church capacity during Covid-19 restrictions is for 60 people.
Jeremiah 38: the Mud-Tank, the Pandemic and God’s faithfulness.What could the longest and most depressing book in the Bible possibly have to say to us today?
Given the times we are living through (and starting to emerge from), it is hardly surprising that this story in Jeremiah 38 (from this Sunday’s Morning Prayer readings) is able to speak to us across 26 centuries. Jerusalem is under threat by the Babylonians, is about to fall and its people taken into exile. Jeremiah’s unwelcome advice to the failing leaders of Jerusalem results in him being put in a cistern full of mud so he would starve to death.
This is a story of Jeremiah’s world & country falling apart around him. It is a story of Jeremiah having to contemplate his own death in a dark and entirely isolated setting. It is also the story of the current pandemic and our own feelings of abandonment by God. However, Jeremiah is rescued from his gloomy isolation in the cistern by someone filled with God’s compassion, and the country ultimately returns out of exile in Babylon to restore the city and the nation.
This is a story of hope-in-adversity for ourselves, our closest ones and our world, based on God’s great faithfulness. Praise the Lord!
John Hosker
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