Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

We have an exciting series of events coming up between now and Christmas.  On the 21st of October, celebrated Christian singer-songwriter Rob Halligan is coming to Windsor Methodist Church for a 7pm concert.  On the 18th of November at 2:30 at Burnham, Vicci, Mark and a cast drawn from Windsor, Burnham, Cookham Rise and High Street are performing an Old Time Music Hall and on the 2nd of December at 2:30 at Windsor, Vicci and Paul Leddington-Wright are putting on a concert of mainly classical singing and organ music entitled “Through Advent to Christmas.”  It is planned to repeat the Old Time Music Hall show at Cookham Rise on a Friday in November, but that date is still to be confirmed.  Then we have the round of Messy Churches, Live Nativities, Christingles, Carol Services, Christmas lunches and so on to fill December to the brim. 

It is so easy to find entertainment today through our televisions and computers, but in the time of Jesus and until only about a hundred years ago there were only the events put on by the community to keep people amused.  The first public radio broadcast in the UK took place on the 15th of June 1920 – not long ago at all in the grand scheme of things.  As we have developed increasingly cheap technology, it has become more than possible for each of us to enjoy the kind of entertainment we want, without leaving our houses and with no need to share it even with our nearest and dearest.  It is rare indeed now for the entire family to gather together around the radio or television.

As we worry about the mental health and wellbeing of a fractured society, riven with loneliness, these simple concerts and events that run through the church calendar between now and Christmas become important times to gather together friends and relatives and spend time in each other’s company.  As it says in Hebrews 10:25 we should be “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  As we move through these social events towards Christmas, we shall once more start to think about the future coming of our Lord.  What does “the Day approaching” mean?  What will it look like!  Are we ready?  Although Paul was speaking about gathering together for worship when he wrote these words, the opportunity to gather together at all, and to invite non-Church-going friends, is one worth taking.  Hope to see you there!

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

As we all return from leave, I have been reflecting on the need for rest, the God-given opportunity for rest, and the way in which we struggle to take it in our stressful times.

My nana prepared the Sunday lunch on Saturday afternoon.

Carefully she peeled the potatoes,

Scrubbed the carrots, shelled the peas,

Prepared the chicken, removing the giblets

Filling it with stuffing, rubbing the flesh with lemon and butter

Covering it loosely with tin-foil and placing everything in the fridge

The potatoes in their own bowl of water to prevent discolouration

The pudding prepared,

The whole meal needing only the application of heat.

In the morning, the chicken in the oven on a time

And the whole family off to church

With anxious glances at watches

If an over-enthusiastic preacher strayed too far

Beyond the glorious, golden hour of worship.

Such days, such preparation brought a rhythm to the week

That we perhaps lack in these busy, pre-packed, pre-packaged days,

But still if we listen, we may yet hear the voice of God wondering

Will they trust me to provide

For one day of rest in these times of travel and of travail? 

God bless,

Vicci

Summer Holidays

I hope everyone is enjoying a well earned break and making the most of the long summer days?

There are lots of exciting services and activities coming up at Windsor Methodist Church during the next few months, keep and eye on the website diary for the latest information. We’ll look forward to seeing you there!

Blessings,

Sue

A reflection by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

As I write my final reflection of the church year, and the various newsletter editors take a well-earned break for the month of August, I am reminded of the extraordinary gift we were given when God created rest.  Genesis 2:2-3 tells us: “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” 

In the ancient Hebrew understanding, this was the only time that God rested – just the once and not every week – as he is constantly at work upholding, sustaining and supporting his Creation.  Indeed, it would make a mockery of all we try to do on a Sunday if God was resting!  God surely does not need to rest, but we do.  In his infinite wisdom, God created rest and the idea of a day off a week which was un-known among the tribes of the Ancient Near East and unique to the Hebrew experience. 

After the creation of the Church at Pentecost, there were many martyrs and initially, each of them were given a day to be remembered upon.  For example, St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, has his saint’s day on Boxing Day.  Christians would have these days as holidays (holy days) to reflect and pray, but eventually there became too many of them and they were all encapsulated in All Saints’ Day on the 1st of November.  But the idea of Holy Days as days off for rest, recuperation and reflection held – to say nothing of the Mediaeval fairs -  and so we have our annual “holidays” now.  It is a sad thing that increasingly this is referred to not as “holiday” but as “leave” – short for “leave of absence”.  What were days to reflect on the power and impact of the Gospel story and those who were prepared to die for it, have become days on which we have permission not to be at work.  The result is still the same – days off for the work force – but it helps us to forget that all of this has come from an understanding that God, who created the earth and the heavens and all that was in them and saw that they were good recognised that we too needed time to reflect on the goodness of creation.   As the poet WH Davies said, “What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

Have a great summer holiday.

God bless

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Isaiah 40:28b – 31 tells us: The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and grow weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

I was reminded of these verses on Monday when I had my day off; which is rather ironic if you come to think of it.  I look after my grand-daughter on Mondays and I am trying to get as much quality “granny-time” in as I can because in September, she will be going to school.  We went to Jungle-mania, which is a soft play centre out in Bourne End, and then we did some cooking and baking together and played various games.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted.  However, I have offered to go into Wexham Park hospital two evenings a month, one Monday and one Saturday, to support young people who have been or are being admitted for self-harming, eating disorders and suicidal ideation or attempt.  It is really important work and Monday was my third time of shadowing. 

By 7:30 which is when I have to leave for the hospital, I was almost (but not quite) at the point of praying for a reason not to go.  However, this is not how adults behave and so at the appointed time I drove to the hospital and started my session.  I didn’t at the time think of these verses from Isaiah, but even so, I knew that I would be given the necessary energy to do the work,  and I was.  As we walked through the hospital corridors to our first ward, praying for the hospital around us and for the people we would meet, I felt my energy come back and was sustained through the two and a half hours we were there.  God doesn’t often mess around with my diary (although it has been known to happen that I have suddenly had an unexpected bit of free time when I needed it) but he always gives us the strength and the grace that we need for the day. 

Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing today, my prayer is that you will know his support as you do it. 

God bless

Vicci

Rev'd Vicci's thought for the week

Friends

I don’t know about you, but over and over at the moment, I am presented with evidence of the lasting impact of the previous few years on our mental health.  It is no secret that our young people are struggling, or that the single biggest killer of people between the ages of 12 and 35 in this country is suicide.  Nor is it a secret that things have been done and decisions made by those in power that we have a right to be angry about. 

Martin Luther King says, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”   Jesus told Peter, when asked how many times he should forgive: seventy times seven.  These powerful statements are important, although they don’t require of us that we put ourselves in the position where the person can do the same thing again. 

It has been said that “To err is human, to forgive, divine” and perhaps that is the ultimate answer.  We struggle to forgive and keep on forgiving, God does not.  We are told in Lamentations 23:22-24 that “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’”

As we continue to reap the bitter fruits of Brexit and Covid, it is right that where we have been lied to, those lies are exposed.  It is right that truth is told and that anger is allowed to be expressed.  Then I would suggest, we need to dig deep and forgive: our leaders for not having the plans, or perhaps the integrity, we had hoped for; ourselves for not being able to somehow do it better (as if somehow we could have!); and all the various scapegoats that will be presented to us, fairly or unfairly, as the days go by.  These three things: truth, anger and forgiveness may need to be told, believed, experienced, expressed, offered and received before we can move on to address the terrible impact that the last three years, and possibly the last seven, have had upon our psyche as individuals, as communities and as a nation.  We praise God that we have a pattern to follow that shows us how to do truth, anger and forgiveness and that God’s love for us is new every morning, whether we deserve it or not. 

God bless

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I wonder if, like me, you have a chore that you don’t particularly enjoy until you remember what it replaced?  My last job of the evening is usually to unload the dishwasher and re-load it with the dinner things before setting it going and my first job in the morning is to unload it and put in the breakfast things.  With six of us in the manse, and eight on alternate weekends, we are usually a two-loads a day family.  This morning as I emptied it, I was grumbling to myself that I didn’t enjoy doing it and I suddenly remembered those early married years when we did all the washing-up by hand.  The excitement of our first dishwasher has disappeared in the daily rhythms of life and now, loading and unloading it are just one more chore.  I feel exactly the same about the laundry, even though as a child we lived without electricity for nearly ten years and had to hand-wash everything.  Times change, and so does our perception. 

This morning however, having caught myself in my negative thinking, I realised that I have fallen out of that old habit that my mother, and I expect many of our parents, taught us.  That of “counting our blessings.”  The old hymn that some of you may remember singing has gone out of fashion and perhaps so has counting the wonderful gifts in our lives. 

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost

Count your many blessings, name them one by one

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Count your blessings, name them one by one

Count your many blessings, see what God has done.

1 Thessalonions 5:16-18 tell us: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” and who can forget the beautiful lyricism of Irving Berlin’s song from White Christmas:

When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep, counting my blessings.

In this day and age of entitlement and knowing our rights, I wonder if it’s time to revive this spiritual habit?

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Sunday the 2nd of July is the UK’s third annual Thank You Day.  According to the Thank You Day website, over the past two years, 15 million people have taken part in this opportunity to say thank you for everyone and everything that make our communities great places to live in and to get connected with the people they live alongside all the year round. 

The idea is simply to remember and give thanks for people who have helped us, recognising that there are many people out there that we want to thank and that we don’t often take the time to do it.

Christians have always understood the importance of thanksgiving and the pages of the Bible are full of songs of thanksgiving.  However, we may also have grown up with the verses from Matthew 6 that begin: Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

The problem with this is that we can take it further as if it means “Don’t say thank you to me because then God won’t reward me.”  As a child, I knew certain adults who if you said, “Thank you” for something would say “Hush, you’re taking away my crowns in heaven.”   Purposefully or accidentally, this has come to mean that we don’t always remember to say thank you to people for things done in church.   The rationale is that they are done for God and therefore it is not for us to thank them, but we all benefit from the time and talent given in our worship and church life.  So I would like to say “Thank you”.  Thank you to the stewards and those who deal with the finance, property, safeguarding, GDPR and other administrative tasks.  Thank you to those who lead Junior Church, toddlers, ShoutAloud!, Geese and all those groups that work with children.  Thank you to those who organise coffee mornings, Thursday Circle.  Thank you to those who pray, formally or informally, to the musicians and Bible Study leaders, to the AV teams and those who take part in acts of worship, pastoral work, outreach online and in person and things that I may have forgotten, but without which nothing that we do would be as good as it currently is.  Thank you to those of you who offer lifts, pick up shopping and drop newsletters into letter boxes.  You will undoubtedly have your reward in heaven, but in the meantime, on behalf of all of us, thank you! 

God bless,

Vicci.  

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I was talking to a friend of mine last week who was passing through on her way from another part of the country.  She was speaking of the palpable sense of the Holy Spirit that she had felt when visiting a particular church which she has since joined, and I came face to face once more with that particular thing that I have found which is that for many of us, the moments when we truly feel the Spirit moving are when we are really singing praise to God in a community of people who are also singing praise.  I have often worried about this, because I usually associate that with really great church musicians, and we are not overly blessed with those at the moment.  However, it came to me last Sunday, that although the musicians help, it is the whole-hearted singing that gives the real sense of God’s presence.  Can we, I wonder, still achieve that without a top-flight organist or a talented band?  Is it a requirement for us to have those in order to sing, or are we able ourselves to sing with such joy to the Lord that the accompaniment doesn’t matter? 

I think of moments when the style of accompaniment has seemed irrelevant and we have really rocked them in the aisles.  Of course, it helps if the songs are known, I do recognise that, and sometimes I think you will know a hymn because I know it and after all, you don’t.  However, I wonder also if there is something about our natural reticence that stops us really singing out.  Miriam in her time and David in his leading the people in a processional dance of praise feels a little awkward to many of us.  Yet we are the people of God whose desire is to praise him.  I wonder, even backed by the hymnal as many of us are nowadays, whether we can’t find that place where the praising of God seems to flow through us and join with the rest of the congregation in something that is greater than the sum of its parts?

Walter Brueggeman, the great contemporary theologian, suggests that worship is after all performance, but it is not the performance of the minister, readers or choir to the congregation, rather the whole of the worship is a great oratorio performance to and for God, with the minister as both conductor and soloist, the worship leaders and readers as principals and the whole of the congregation as the choir.  I wonder what difference thinking in those terms might mean to our worship?

God bless
Vicci

Thought for this week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

The weather really has changed and as we get out our sandals, we also start to experience something of the dirt and the dust on our feet that would have been the daily experience of Jesus and his contemporaries.  That dust, in a world where walking was the usual way around, was inevitably uncomfortable, and so the rules of hospitality involved bringing a bowl of water and a towel to wash your guests’ feet.  When Jesus visits the home of Simon where his feet are washed and anointed by a woman who dries them with her hair Jesus points out that she has only done in an exaggerated way, what Simon should have done as a matter of course.

By and large, our feet remain quite clean.  The roads of 21st century Britain are not as dusty as 1st century Palestine and we walk far less than our far-off ancestors.  I wonder what our equivalency might be?  That regular gesture of hospitality which, when offered in kindness and care shows regard for the needs of those who visit us at home or at church.  Perhaps it is the regular coffee, tea and biscuits that are our equivalency, or perhaps in such weather as this, we could offer fruit juice as a refreshing alternative after church as an extra touch of hospitable thinking. 

More than anything however, I would suggest that when Mary Magdalene, noticing that an act of hospitality had been omitted, made up for it with shameless generosity, she was modelling something very important.  The jar of nard was often worn around a woman’s neck, added to whenever possible, developing a pension pot for future need.  This was not a premeditated action perhaps, but instead a wiping out of the rudeness by treating the slighted Jesus with extra love and extra care, using what was to hand. 

How wonderful to spot that something has been left out, someone has been hurt or treated with disrespect, and without saying anything to anyone else, to make up for it a thousand-fold.  Next time we realise our feet are particularly grubby after a day in sandals, we might use it as a chance to reflect on how best we make sure that no-one in our church feels left out, hurt or treated with disrespect.  To notice and repair the hurt is surely part of our calling as the followers of he who washed his disciples’ feet two thousand years ago.

God bless

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I have recently returned from Superintendents’ Conference where a preacher suggested that one of the jobs of the Church is to be “a guardian of beauty.”  I was interested when discussing this sermon with others, that the part that they latched on to was not that part, and they almost hadn’t heard it, whilst engaging with other bits that I don’t remember being said – the perennial problem or perhaps gift of the sermon-writer.  But the phrase has stuck with me.

I remember being told many years ago that in the period when we were as a nation building huge and beautiful churches, part of the reason was so that people who were living in squalid and difficult environments with poor pay earned at risk to life and limb, could come somewhere on a Sunday, or even drop in at the end of the working day, and see something of the promise of heaven.  The beauty of the wood and stone carvings, the tapestries, the silver and gold, the artwork was there to offer us something to hold on to, as many of our great buildings still do.

Methodists have always been scathing about an approach that offers “pie in the sky when you die” and rightly so.  When Jesus came as a human and offered “life in all its fullness” he was talking about a hope for today, not for something in the far-off future – or rather, not just something in the far off future, for we Methodists do believe in Heaven.  Nevertheless, there is something about the church building and its grounds offering beauty, a calm space and a place of meditation and prayer as well as praise and worship; the ability to dig deep into the well of peace as well as times of fun and fellowship.  This summer, having tackled the challenges of the cold and its impact on our aging heating systems over the winter, we might want to look at our buildings from an aesthetic point of view.  Do we still hold to that vision that wanted our buildings to look like a little piece of heaven?   We can see it in some of the old Central Halls, in Wesley’s Chapel and in some of the churches around our circuit, but is there more?

I wrote a few weeks ago about whether our churches looked welcoming to those passing by and perhaps just getting a glimpse through our windows.  Now I am asking the question that goes further than that: are we not just welcoming?  Are we beautiful?

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

On the night of May 24th, 1738, John Wesley accepted an invitation to a religious meeting at Aldersgate Street in London where the key event was to be the reading of Martin Luther’s preface to the Romans.  He was feeling tired and mentally low and writes in his journal that he went “very unwillingly” and yet something happened.  At about 8:45pm, whilst listening to the reading, he went from a theoretical understanding of theology, to a personal experience of the living God and describes it as feeling his heart “strangely warmed.” 

He wrote: “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” 

He wasn’t the first Wesley to feel this heart-warming experience: three days earlier on the 21st of May, Charles had also experienced a unique and extraordinary sense of the presence of God. 

Methodism didn’t catch fire and burn in 18th century Britain because Charles wrote good hymns or because John was an organiser par excellence (although both are true) but because of their personal, lived experiences of the living God, an experience that they found hard to articulate but which was best expressed by John’s “heart strangely warmed.”

We need our hearts to be strangely warmed today.  If we are to grow as disciples and as churches and come to know God afresh, then the sharing of these moments and the seeking to encounter God are the only way that we can hope to do so.  It is not enough to think that the idea is rather lovely, or even that it helps us make sense of the world.  Like John and Charles, we need to feel it, to experience it for ourselves.  For Charles it was this: “That I, a child of wrath and hell, I should be called a child of God, should know, should feel my sins forgiven, blest with this antepast of heaven.” 

“Antepast” is a strange word to us today, but it means a foretaste, specifically a first course to whet the appetite.  In Church terms, “a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.”  As we reflect on Aldersgate Sunday today, it is perhaps a day to recall our own conversion, and to pray that we too should continue to feel our hearts strangely warmed, or if they have yet to warm at all, should come to know fully the God we profess, Sunday by Sunday.

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Have you ever had one of those days when you suddenly notice something that has probably been there for ages but you just haven’t seen it?  I had one of those days today when I looked out of the office window and realised that the little dots of dirt on the glass that I had thought were on the outside were actually on the inside.  My desk is underneath the window and the combination of my breath, the bookshelf on the windowsill not allowing enough air to circulate and condensation has produced a visible mark.   Now before you start to worry, let me reassure you that this is a minimal problem, rapidly removed with a damp cloth and a spritz of Windowlene.  It did however set me thinking about the breath of our spirit and the breath of the Spirit in our lives.  After all, if my normal breathing while sitting at my desk for some hours every day can leave a mark, what of these other breaths we speak of?

We sing the hymn “Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love as thou dost love, and do what thou dost do.”  There are times when we are more aware of the raging storms about us than the life-giving breath of God, but it is always there, and if we let the Spirit breathe through us through our reading of God’s word and prayer, then we also feel calmed and cleansed by that breath.  We are very familiar with the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel, and God’s promise, through the prophet, to breathe new life into the Children of Israel, but we may be less familiar with similar imagery in the book of Job.  In chapter 32:8 we read: “But it is a spirit in human-beings.  And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”  In 33:4 we read: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

As we come towards Pentecost when the Church celebrates once more the coming of the Holy Spirit in power on those first Christian people, I wonder how aware we are of “The Spirit of God, unseen as the wind” blowing through us, and how aware we are of what passing through us, comes out in the way we breathe on the world through our words and our actions.  I hope that the marks we leave are both more permanent and more helpful than the marks on the inside of my office window this morning. 

God bless

Vicci

The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla

As we look forward to this historic event please remember Tea Time for the Soul on Sunday 7th May, enjoy a short and simple service led by Rev’d Vicci Davidson where you can enjoy some classic hymns and fellowship, followed by tea and cakes. This time in celebration of the coronation.

This service is dementia friendly and all are welcome.

Also coming up is Christian Aid Week……

Christian Aid Week 14-20 May

All are welcome to join us for all or some of the following:

13 May: Volunteers Coffee Morning at URC, William Street & Christian Aid Stall, Peascod Street.

19 May: Ceilidh, United Reformed Church (URC) William Street (Purchase Tickets in ADVANCE)

20 May: Plant Sale, St Andrews’ Vicarage, Parsonage Lane (in the morning)

20 May: Brunch here at Windsor Methodist Church

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson and links to photographs taken at the Stations of the Cross event on Holy Saturday

Friends

In my teens I became increasingly short-sighted and, as is often the case, was unaware of it for quite a while. Eventually, I had my eyes tested and was given glasses. It was an extraordinary experience to have 20/20 vision for the first time in years. Spooky looking trees and corners turned out to be perfectly ordinary, and the fellow teen who I had fancied from afar for ages turned out not to be as utterly gorgeous as I had imagined (albeit with very good bone structure!) It was both wonderful and slightly disappointing to see the world as it really is.

When we read the Easter story, particularly those of us who have stayed with it throughout the Christian year and starting with Advent have prepared ourselves for the coming of God as a baby, been witnesses of Simeon’s response in the temple, rushed back to Jerusalem in fear when Jesus was lost at 13, observed the first miracles, heard the teaching and journeyed to the foot of the cross, we see how obvious it is that Jesus would rise. We may even feel rather frustrated with those first disciples, who didn’t get it, or certainly not until they saw it. If those are our feelings, we should perhaps be kinder. We all have 20/20 vision in hindsight, and only by resurrection hindsight do we behold Christ’s glory.

As we look back over the long sweep since Christmas, and as we look forward to Pentecost and Ordinary Time, we can see clearly that the only possible outcome of the death of the Son of God was resurrection. Faced with this truth, what then do we do with it? Soldier on, believe in “pie in the sky when you die” and don’t make a fuss, because it will all be better when we get to glory, was once the answer. But it isn’t a good enough answer for most people now. Instead, there is something about allowing the story to change us and in so doing to encourage us to move our little bit of the world closer to Heaven. To behave more like Christ, to notice and respond to need, to try to hear his word over the noisiness of twenty-first century life is our call. We are told in the Gospel of John 1:12 “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” A frustration of motherhood is that we carry our child for 9 months, not all of them easy, only to be told for at least as long afterwards “Don’t they look like their Dad?” We too should carry the family marks. We too should have people look at us and say, “Aren’t they like the Father? Can’t you see that this is a sibling of Jesus?

God bless,

Vicci

The Stations of the Cross on Holy Saturday:

This was a wonderful, peaceful and thought-provoking event and if you were unable to attend then please follow the link below to view photographs on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064930801235

or visit the Thames Valley Circuit website to view photos in the “Gallery”section:

www.methodistthamesvalley.org.uk

Thoughts for Holy Week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Once more, we have come through Holy Week.  We have journeyed with Jesus through the East Gate as the crowds gathered round donkey and colt to wave palms, to lay down their cloaks, to cry “Hosannah to the Son of David!”  We have entered the courts of the Temple and experienced the terrible anger of Jesus as he over-turned the tables of money-changers and animal-sellers and we have hoped that it will never be said of us: “It is said that my house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”  We have heard Jesus’ authority challenged and witnessed the decision of Judas to betray him.  We have heard the words “This is my body broken for you, do this as often as you eat it in remembrance of me” for the very first time and reflected as the Master knelt to wash feet and have been inspired again to love one another, as Christ has loved us.  We have sung our hymns and gone out into the night to the garden and witnessed Jesus plead with his Father that “if there is another way, let this cup be taken from me” and we too have hoped that in the end, we would have said with Jesus, “Yet not my will, but thine be done.”  We have fallen asleep whilst Jesus prayed and we have followed the betrayed Son of God to the courtyard of the High Priest’s house only to deny him as he is condemned by the Sanhedrin.  We have watched Pilate wash his hands and followed Jesus down the Via Dolorosa to the very foot of the cross, have watched the soldiers dice for his clothing and as he died we have wondered at his request to God, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Our hearts have been torn by the great cry “Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  In the end, we too have said, “Surely, this man was the Son of God” and in that moment it was as if we were the only one to have ever thought it.  It is finished. 

Now, everything begins.  The hill on which thieves and perfection hung side by side is silent.  The cross lies empty to the sky.  The stone is rolled away.  Soldiers are allowed to say they had slept on watch without punishment.  Angels are seen.  Women, entering the tomb to wash and prepare the body find the place empty, the winding cloths in place, the head wrap folded and laid where we, night after night, position our pillows.  Mary has seen our Lord in the garden.  The world has changed.  Nothing will ever be the same again.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

God bless,

Vicci

Saturday 8 April Praying the Stations of the Cross

There will be a series of artistic representations in various mediums, including painting, floral arrangements and even cake, of the stations of the cross. These will be accompanied by a sheet of meditations which will lead you around the church and the story, from Upper Room to Garden Tomb. Spend as much or as little time as you would like at each station and then join us in the Falder Hall for coffee and hot cross buns, or leave in the silence as you wish. The church will be open between 10 and 12 and you may start at any point. Drop in and take some time to reflect this Easter. All are welcome.

Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Fortnight 2023 is taking place 27 February – 12 March 2023.

This Fairtrade Fortnight, join us in spreading a simple message: making the small switch to Fairtrade supports producers in protecting the future of some of our most-loved food and the planet. 

Did you know?

Coffee, bananas and chocolate could soon be much more difficult to buy.

Climate change is making crops like these harder and harder to grow. Combined with deeply unfair trade, communities growing these crops are being pushed to the brink. 

But here’s the good news.  

More people choosing Fairtrade means extra income, power and support for those communities.

By making the small switch to Fairtrade, we can all support producers in protecting the future of some of our most-loved food and the planet. 

To read more about this visit the website…….

https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/current-campaigns/fairtrade-fortnight

The Transfiguration: A Reflection by Richard Cracknell

Friends:

A few years ago we were on holiday in Austria, it was July so it was shortsleeved shirt weather. One day we decided to take a trip up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain and we enjoyed cracking views of the sun-drenched countryside as we went up in the cable cars. As we got nearer the top, however, it began to get misty and patches of white appeared on the grassy banks below us. Soon we were fully enveloped in cloud and the ground was now covered in snow. It was like we had suddenly been transported to another world, where people were skiing dressed-up in thick coats, hats and gloves. We didn’t stay long at the top, mingling with the skiers who regarded us in our summer clothes with amusement. It’s fair to say I’ve seldom felt so out-of-place, or indeed so cold in all my life!

The mountain-top experience is a familiar motif in the Bible and some of the most important Biblical characters went up a mountain and found a different world above the cloud. A world where the boundaries between Earth and Heaven were blurred: Moses receiving the ten commandments, Elijah finding God in a gentle whisper. In last week’s gospel however, it is Jesus’ turn for a mountain-top experience which we know as the Transfiguration. This account comes shortly after Jesus speaks to His disciples for the first time about how He must suffer and be put to death. They all need time to process this news so Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray. But once they are on the mountain, He appears to take on the heavenly glory of His divine nature, we are told that:

‘His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.’

He is joined by Moses and Elijah who were maybe able to offer Him some support and re-assurance from their unique perspective. Peter wants to prolong the moment by offering to build tents for them, but he is interrupted by a voice from the cloud saying:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

As quickly as it had occurred the transfiguration experience was over, and Jesus and His disciples returned from the mountain top, but I expect their experience stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

Maybe we crave our own mountain-top experience of God, an experience that would strengthen our faith and cement our own credentials as disciples of Jesus, but I think these are few and far between. We mustn’t be disheartened, however, for we are called to inhabit the lowlands of Gods kingdom and to share our faith and hope with those around us. For we believe that the glorious kingdom of God, glimpsed by those three disciples of old, will be shared by us all one day. This was made possible by Jesus who, having been re-assured by Moses, Elijah and God Himself on the mount of Transfiguration, took the path of obedience all the way to the cross. So that one day we too can ascend through the clouds - so to speak – to another world, a world without pain or conflict, a world full of the glory of God, where we shall be with Him in eternity, on the mountain top.

Richard”

Thought for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Sophie and Tommy have taken a couple of days leave and travelled a little further north. Today they went to Warwick Castle and it reminded me of going myself at 18 when I was staying with a school friend. There was a talk on when it had been used as a prison which we joined. I don’t remember much about it now, excepting that we were told there had been a time when a judge could offer you a choice between hanging and deportation to Australia. There were a couple of Australians in the party who, as you might imagine, found the idea that it had actually been a choice hilarious. “Yes,” said one, “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!” I am not going to rehearse all the reasons that using Australia as a penal colony was a terrible thing – we know it was – I merely note that I am aware of this in case anyone thinks I am being blasé or flippant about it. However, the Australian girl’s comment is fascinating in terms of Christianity. “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!” Of course, she was being sarcastic. From her point of view, it was a no-brainer – Australia every time. Mark’s work as a chauffeur-bearer for a Funeral Director takes him into some extraordinary churches, particularly in central London. They are glorious works of art which were intended to give the poor and down-trodden working classes of the city a glimpse of the glory of heaven. However hard daily life was, they would come to church on a Sunday and for one brief hour rest their bodies and feast their eyes. Never mind if the text was impenetrable and the preaching boring, they could see the future promise of the Christian life. We live more in the now than in the future and of course, the “Pie in the sky when you die” model of Christian hope was never a good one. Jesus came “that they may have life in all its fullness” on earth and not just in some nebulous future. Nevertheless, I wonder if in our busy lives, we need to have some time still to think about the glories of heaven, if only so that we will remember that when we say “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we recall that we seek as disciples to grow more like Christ in who we are and how we are, and in so-doing, to shape a world that is more like heaven, a world that, because Jesus came, has a pattern and a way that leads us into paths of justice and mercy. God bless, Vicci