Holy Week Reflection - Wednesday

Holy Week Reflection - Wednesday

Holy Week Reflection - Wednesday

# Reflections

Holy Week Reflection - Wednesday

Holy Week Reflection (order of service here)

Wednesday - Sons of Zebedee

This request of James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, (who had left their father in an instant when Jesus walked past them in their fishing boat), can easily cause our eyes to roll. Oh, for goodness sake, we can judge, how could they have got it so wrong?

But today, as we creep closer to the cross, let’s lay aside our natural instinct to be judgemental, and consider what we can learn from this exchange.

Firstly a little context - This request comes after Jesus says “the first will be last, and the last first”, and then predicts his death for the 3rd time. Immediately after those two things are said by Jesus, James and John make this request. The atmosphere must have been serious as Jesus has spelt it out, and made it crystal clear what is going to happen. These friends of Jesus have a very short amount of time left with him – a few hours to be with the one they had left everything for, in an instant. The one who loved them beyond their wildest imaginings. The one who was courageous in the face of bullies. The one who healed broken people. The one who noticed the outsiders, cared for the women and children.

As their hearts are breaking in anticipation of losing him, they live up to their nicknames which he has lovingly given them – Sons of Thunder. And they impetuously ask him what may just have been a badly worded question. And maybe, just maybe the Gospel writer was still annoyed with them for being crass and self seeking, and in his indignance he wrote down the words we have now.

Of course it may have been exactly what they said, but humour me -

What if we redeem the question this evening? What if what they had meant to say was – When you’ve gone, how can we pray to you just as if we were still sitting either side of you? Let’s imagine for an instant that’s what they actually said, but it has been misquoted by the Gospel writer.

Creeping closer to the cross is about our own relationship with God through Jesus – not about criticising or praising other people’s relationship. And so, leaving James and John to one side, we have ONE day left before the Last Supper, so let’s all ponder what our question is. And in the remaining hours, can we find a way to ask it?

We may be like these brothers, wondering how we can communicate with Jesus.

Or perhaps we want the gifts and the courage to be true kingdom builders.

With the gift of hindsight, and knowing what Jesus is about to suffer, might we ask him what we can do to alleviate that? Or what we can do with our own lives which will make his sacrifice worthwhile?

And then we can hear him saying: “Nothing you can do will make me love you more. And nothing you can do will make me love you less.” As Jeremiah said many centuries earlier “I love you with an everlasting love”

Last night Hannah talked about Mary of Bethany, and how she gave Jesus a gift out of the abundance of her love, as a response to all he had done for her. What about asking a question which comes from the overflow of our hearts, and not something which is self seeking. Imagine being able to ask Jesus something which he would then take with him to the dark Gethsemane, and the even darker Golgotha? A question which we know he will treasure in his heart even as he dies?

And so as we listen to this music, show Jesus your fragile heart, ponder your question, and maybe muster the courage to ask it. 

Suggested Music

Appropriate Prayers

Let the light of these candles be for you the light of God,

As we meet in the darkness, in the deep places of our being.

See the hidden things, the creatures of our dreams,

The storehouse of forgotten memories,

The gifts we never knew we had been given.

Touch the wellspring of our life and hear our own true nature

And our own true name, spoken from the mouth of God.

Take the freedom to grow into that self

The seed of which was planted at your making…

May our only wounds be these – the wound we cannot avoid because we belong to one another and feel and hear the murmur of the world’s pain;

The wound of a sense of compassion for others;

The wound of a sense of longing for God,

The source of life and love deep within us and beyond us.

 

O God our creator,

O God, by whose mercies and might the world turns safely into darkness

and returns again to light:

we give into your hands our unfinished tasks,

our unsolved problems, our unfulfilled hopes,

knowing that only those things which you bless will prosper.

To your great love and protection, we commit each other

and all for whom we pray,

knowing that you alone are our sure defender,

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

As the rain hides the stars,

as the autumn mist hides the hills,

as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so

the dark happenings of my lot

hide the shining of thy face from me.

Yet, if I may hold thy hand in the darkness,

it is enough, since I know,

that though I may stumble in my going,

Thou dost not fall. Amen.


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