Preacher: Canon Karen
Date: 15/04/2020
From Canon Karen
So, what’s coming up this May? As I write this piece in the middle of April a further three week lockdown is about to be announced which will take us to at least the beginning of May, and what happens thereafter will, no doubt, depend on the situation with regard to Covid 19 then. It could be that we continue in a form of lockdown or, perhaps, that some restrictions will begin to ease to enable the economy to start up again.
But whatever the Covid 19 situation, three events will definitely be happening. The first is the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Plans had been made for the weekend of 8th – 10th May for various happenings in our town to remember the end of the Second World War. Those cannot now take place but the virus can’t stop us remembering and many families will be remembering loved ones who didn’t return from the war and others who suffered from wounds sustained, physically and mentally. There are many who will be remembering their own part in the war and that of their friends. So there will be remembering but also thanksgiving for the 75 years of peace which the sacrifice of war brought about. As we look back and remember, let’s also look forward and pledge ourselves to continue to work for peace.
The second and third events happening this May are connected and they are the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Ascension on 21st May marks the end of the 40 day Easter season. Easter didn’t end on Easter Day – it had only just begun and continues until Jesus’ Ascension to be with his Father.
We will be hearing in the Bible readings this month of how, following his Resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and others as the risen Christ and how they came to know that despite what they had seen and heard on that first Good Friday, the tomb had not been able to contain Jesus and that he was alive and present in our world.
But that could only be for a while because the next stage of God’s plan had to be brought about. Jesus had been released back into the world but the world could no longer contain him either. His role in God’s plan had been fulfilled, joining God’s humanity with us in our world and lifting us up to his divinity, so now Jesus had to return to his Father to enable the next event.
…which was the coming of God’s Holy Spirit at Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension and which we shall, therefore, be celebrating on 31st May. In the coming of the Holy Spirit, God is released into every nook and cranny of his world and into the lives of all his beloved people. That gift is represented in the story we read of that first Pentecost (Acts 2: 1-21). People from across the known world were living in Jerusalem and now they were hearing the disciples speaking to them in their own language and not just that, but with a tongue of fire resting above each of them. What an image! The power of God as represented in the fire spreading across human boundaries, no longer confined to what we now call the Holy Land, but released into all the world to all God’s people.
We may be in total or partial lockdown, but the power of God’s love cannot be confined. And we’ve seen that at work in the ways our community has responded to these difficult times in the care you have shown for your neighbour in many different ways such as the shopping scheme.
May it be our prayer that when things return to normal, it may be a new and different normal of a world that more closely reflects God’s understanding of living together in community, fired by his love for his world and his beloved people.
Happy Ascension Day and Happy Pentecost!
Karen