Steps on The Way

This morning I had the privilege of delivering the Moment of Reflection at the beginning of the Graduation Ceremony – and it was a joy to see one or two folks I know walking across the stage to receive their degrees. The text is printed below.

Good morning! I expect some of you will know the old joke about two behavioural psychologists who met on the street one day: one said to the other, ‘You feel fine, how do I feel?’ I have no training in psychology, but looking at you today in your graduation robes, I’d say that you look and feel more than fine, and so you should. I congratulate you on your achievements and am sure that your family and friends will be justly proud of you.

A month ago, my wife and I spent a week with the Christian monastic community in Taizé, France. There were around 1500 people present, the vast majority of whom were under 30. All of us came with our questions about life. We made new friends from a variety of countries. One of them, an elderly Dutchman, said to my wife in his heavily accented English, ‘I think your husband looks like a famous film star. His first name is Dustin.’ Personally, I don’t see the resemblance, and I don’t know what he was so chirpy about, because we all agreed that he looked like an aging Sean Connery!

In the moments of silence and times of reflection at Taizé, I not only realised that I am not Dustin Hoffman, but also that I am not the person I was when I first graduated in 1979, or even of ten years ago. I have grown and changed, and my understanding of my vocation has also evolved in that time.

As you look back on the years of study leading to this day, you came to Edinburgh to explore your chosen subject. That exploration has also involved finding out more about yourself and what you want to do with your life – finding your vocation. You are not the same person who started off on that journey of exploration, and you will continue to change and grow.

In the coming years, I encourage you to take time out for reflection on the questions, ‘Who am I now? What is my vocation now?’ Don’t ask them every five minutes, but make the opportunity to listen to your heart and your dreams. As you seek the answers for that point in your life, I hope that you will learn more about yourself and your vocation. I also hope that in finding these answers you will be better able to make your contribution to the common good of humanity and experience a sense of fulfilment in doing so. I wish everything good for you for the years to come.

No, this is not a post about Mick Jagger, but an attempt to answer the question, ‘Why do Christians eat chocolate Easter eggs?’ (Apart from just saying, ‘We like chocolate, so why not?’)

Easter eggs should be eaten on Easter Day and not before, so for the beginning of our answer we need to rewind a little to the Friday before Easter – the day Christians call Good Friday. Jesus has been popular with the common people for his teaching (that God loves them too) and his healing. But he has fallen foul of the religious and political authorities and they conspire to kill him by the horrifically painful method of execution called crucifixion.

Taking their lives in their hands, two of Jesus’ less well-known disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, go to Pilate, the Roman Prefect, and ask for Jesus’ body so that they can bury it before the Sabbath, when no work can be done. But where to put it quickly and securely? Joseph is a man who thinks ahead and already has his own grave marked out – a cave with a large stone next to it, which will block the entrance and deter grave robbers. Since it’s near the place where Jesus was crucified they decide to put him there in the meantime and with some effort manage to roll the stone in front of the cave.

Along with the stone there is an official ‘seal’ (a kind of Roman police cordon – ‘do not break this seal on pain of death’) and a guard of soldiers preventing Jesus’ disciples stealing his body to fool people into thinking he’s still alive.

Time passes. Friday afternoon turns into Saturday, and as Sunday dawns, some of Jesus’ female disciples want to get on quickly with the burial rites before he starts to decompose. Before dawn, fumbling their way in through the darkness, they make their way to the cave. To their consternation, confusion and distress, they come to the grave where they think Jesus should be, but there are no soldiers, the stone has been rolled away from the entrance, there is no body and yet there are grave clothes lying folded inside. What the…? Have we come to the wrong place? No… this is the right place so what’s happening?

Christians believe that Jesus was raised to new life and promises a share in that new life to all who follow him. The empty cave is not a proof but a witness to the fact that Jesus is alive. And the stone was rolled away to let us hear the testimony of the empty cave.

That such a big stone was rolled way (in darkness) was said to be the work of angels. Today we make it easier for ourselves! Admittedly we need to use a bit of imagination for this, but each Easter Christians use hard-boiled eggs and chocolate eggs to symbolise the stone that was rolled away from the empty cave – not to let Jesus out but to show it was empty. Our rolling eggs trigger the memories of the story, or re-enact the story, and the fun we have doing it reflects our joy that Jesus is alive.

So tomorrow, Easter Day, roll your eggs, eat your eggs and rejoice that the one who was dead is alive for evermore and offers his life to all.

But why chocolate eggs? Well, we like chocolate, don’t we…and dairy produce is off the menu in Lent!

The scene in the garden at Priestfield Church today after the snow fell, showing off the blue of the contractor’s huts as they get ready to start work on 11 March. The projected time for the work is 14 weeks, so we should receive the site back in mid-June.

Those who know me well, know just how much I hate receiving a Christmas card with a robin on it. (Or a snowman, or a Santa, but the robin just seems to epitomise this for me.) Christmas is about Christ, not winter.

But I’m sharing this to show you that I don’t have it in for robins, because today I was ‘wonderstruck’ – the name of a new book by Margaret Feinberg, who is virtually pestering us to look at things with more wonder. The trouble is that the more people tell you to look with wonder, the less wonder I have. For me, wonder just happens – I can’t make it happen just by thinking about it.

Today it just happened. Without warning. I was sitting having breakfast and I glanced out the window. There it was. A little robin with its red breast proudly sticking out was perching on top of our gate post. For some reason I was entranced by its beauty. Statuesque is how it looked, but with such grace and vibrant colour that no statue of a robin could ever capture.

I realised – slowly, I confess – that it was lying in wait to compete with some sparrows who were munching on some bugs in the pile of apple tree branches stacked ready for collection. Its moment never came. A passing pedestrian scared it from its perch and the branches are gone now too. But for a fleeting moment, there on the gate post it looked as if it owned the world. I was wonderstruck.

While it seems no time since Christmas, we are already in Lent, and in order to have Easter cards ready for distribution to the Parish at the right time, they have just been ordered from the printer. That has meant getting the brain into fast-forward to draft an Easter message while trying to keep the heart in Lent, still early on in the journey to the cross. 

The process was helped by recently reading sections of Tom Wright’s book, ‘How God Became King,’ in which he reflects on how Cross and Kingdom relate to each other, including the clash of God’s Kingdom with Caesar’s Empire. The brief message is below together with the picture from the front of the card. If you are the praying kind, pray that it will be used to speak to those who see and read. Thanks. 

Our fluffy bunnies, chocolate eggs and the bright colours of Spring flowers on display seem a million miles away from that first Easter weekend two thousand years ago. The darkness of midnight descended upon Jerusalem at mid-day on Friday, shrouding the suffering of the three men hanging in agony upon Roman crosses. The forces of Empire and Religion had joined together to do away with the Pretender to Israel’s throne – the one they call Jesus, who hung upon that central cross. Might appeared to have triumphed over right.

Yet, in that darkness something mysterious was happening. Christians believe that on this cross, Jesus was taking to himself the evil, suffering and sin of the world – and by doing so brought about the restoration of our relationship with God. But how can we think that this is so? Because death could not conquer Life;  darkness could not extinguish Light. On the Third Day, the first Easter Sunday, the Crucified One became the Risen One. God’s King had triumphed over Caesar and all the forces of Evil. Jesus was alive, and lives for evermore.

Perhaps, after all, the bright colours of Spring flowers will help us celebrate the victory of Jesus over death – as a symbol of the new life he offers to us today.

Jared Hay (Minister)

The PDF file attached is the reflection for our Ash Wednesday service at 9pm in Priestfield Church Hall.

021313 Ash Wednesday