The Friday Feeling

Here I am Lord,
Listening
Speak to me
within my heart and soul.
I am listening.



Luke 23:46

Father, into Your hands


Reflection
Why?

I remember, Lord, the ‘Come and See’. Remember, I came; following, listening, learning. Full of joy, full of hope – the New Day was going to dawn, the Kingdom of God was near.

I did not come to ‘see’ this, Lord; standing ankle deep in the waste of the city, tears streaming silently down my face, my mouth full of blood as I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from crying out. For I do not want these others to know that I know you.

I don’t know you.

The fear, the demons, the hopelessness is back and you are not here to save me. The crowd shouts out to you ‘Save yourself’ and I truly believe that you could – even now, you could. But it seems you are taking yourself out of this world. Your light is too bright for them and they have closed their eyes against it.

What sort of plan was this? You had driven me here with the message of love and forgiveness. But who got the message? The plan has gone wrong. If not, how is it right? The meek were going to inherit but all I have is this hill, the town dump. Was this what I was supposed to see?

Then a sound, perhaps just a cry on the wind; ‘Abba’. That you still call Him this, now, when surely, if He were here, He could just reach down and lift you out of this. Under my breath, I begin to say the words, the prayer you taught me. And at the end, ‘deliver us from evil’ - if you are here Abba, take your Son –deliver him from the evil that we have all done this day.

The wind drops and this time I know it is your voice – ‘Father, into your hands’. The wind rises, hot and as sudden as a sirocco; and you are gone. And, at that moment, I know in my soul - there is no power on earth that can save; at the end, not even you. Only the Father has that power, only the Father can call us home.

Father, into your hands…

Contemplation
That Friday Feeling

I apologise, at the joyful climax to this great Feast, that I drag us back to Good Friday. But I have found that any journey is best remembered by the challenge met against all the odds, what went wrong rather than what went right, the thing you thought you would never do. And, indeed the great joy of today is intensified by the memory of how bad it has been.

If we cast our thoughts back to the anticipation surrounding Christmas; remembering those days before a birth, especially a difficult birth, especially when the outcome is not guaranteed to be a happy one. When you find hidden strength, when your heart lives only on hope, when you pray with every fibre of your body, like the woman who only touched the robe of Jesus, believing with the greatest of faith that God is present, that healing is possible.

And it is; and it happens; divinity that was hidden within humanity is transformed and now wraps humanity with divinity; and as much as there was agony and blackness there is the brightest of new dawn and the joy of new life.

The journey through the desert has left sand in our shoes so that we are always reminded what we are waiting for; the waiting ends here, waiting in joyful hope begins here,


Closing Prayer
May the blessing of the Sacred Three
The Father who gave us the Word
The Son who is the Word
The Spirit who opens the Word within us
Be with us today and evermore.Amen

wordinthehand2009

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