Reconciliation - with the Crucified Man

Photo from here

The story of the Reconcilition Statue pictured above.

The story of the sculptor, Josefina de Vasconcellos.

I’ve abandoned my trust in the wise and the proud
For this fragile, mysterious weakness of God
And I dare to believe in his scandalous claim
That his blood cleanses sin for who ever
Will call on his name
Live or die here I stand
I’ve placed my hope in a crucified man

Read all the words of

Crucified Man by 

Graham Kendrick here

A crucial meditation

St. Brigid's Cross

...Misner walked away from the pulpit, to the rear wall of the church. There he stretched, reaching up until he was able to unhook the cross that hung there. He carried it then, past the empty choir stall, past the organ where Kate sat, the chair where Pulliam was, on to the podium and held it before him for all to see – if only they would. See what was certainly the first sign any human anywhere had made: the vertical line; the horizontal one. Even as children, they drew it with their fingers in snow, sand or mud; they laid it down as sticks in dirt; arranged it from bones on frozen tundra and broad savannas; as pebbles on riverbanks; scratched it on cave walls and outcroppings from Nome to South Africa. Algonquin and Laplanders, Zulu and Druids – all had a finger memory of this original mark. The circle was not first, nor was the parallel or the triangle. It was this mark, this, that lay underneath every other. This mark, rendered in the placement of facial features. This mark of a standing human figure poised to embrace. Remove it, as Pulliam had done, and Christianity was like any and every religion in the world: a population of supplicants begging respite from begrudging authority; harried believers ducking fate or dodging everyday evil; the weak negotiating a doomed trek through the wilderness; the sighted ripped of light and thrown into the perpetual dark of choicelessness. Without this sign, the believer’s life was confined to praising God and taking the hits. The praise was credit, the hits were interest due on a debt that could never be paid. Or, as Pulliam put it, no one knew when he had “graduated”. But with it, in the religion in which this sign was paramount and foundational, well life was a whole other matter.
from Paradise by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1998, pp 145-147

Season of the Soul: Good Friday

Stations of the Cross - 4

Jesus meets his mother on the way by Australian Aboriginal artist Miriam Rose Ungunmerr

GOOD FRIDAY

O my chief good,
How shall I measure out your blood?
How shall I count what you befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I your woes
Number according to your foes?
Or, since one star showed your first breath,
Shall all your death?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or can not leaves, but fruit, be sign
Of the true vine?

Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour;
That your distress through all may run,
And be my sun.

Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure does know,
Each sin may so.

Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Your sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart has store, write there, where in
One box does lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Your whips, your nails, your wounds, your woes,
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with your grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

George Herbert

Season of the Soul: Sighs and Groans

Christ as The Man of Sorrows

Albrecht Durer c 1493

Sighs and Groans
O do not use me
After my sins! look not on my dessert,
But on your glory! Then you will reform
And not refuse me: for you only art
The mighty God, but I a silly worm;
O do not bruise me!

O do not urge me!
For what account can your ill steward make?
I have abused your stock, destroyed your woods,
Sucked all your storehouses: my head did ache,
Till it found out how to consume your goods:
O do not scourge me!

O do not blind me!
I have deserved that an Egyptian night
Should thicken all my powers; because my lust
Has still sewed fig-leaves to exclude your light:
But I am frailty, and already dust;
O do not grind me!

O do not fill me
With the turned vial of your bitter wrath!
For you have other vessels full of blood,
A part whereof my Savior emptied hath,
Even unto death: since he died for my good,
O do not kill me!

But O reprieve me!
For you have life and death at your command;
You are both Judge and Savior, feast and rod,
Cordial and Corrosive: put not your hand
Into the bitter box; but O my God,
My God, relieve me!

George Herbert

Season of the Soul: The Bag

The Bag
Away despair! my gracious Lord does hear.
Though winds and waves assault my keel,
He does preserve it: he does steer,
Ev'n when the boat seems most to reel.
Storms are the triumph of his art:
Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart.

Have you not heard, that my Lord Jesus died?
Then let me tell you a strange story.
The God of power, as He did ride
In His majestic robes of glory,
Reserved to light; and so one day
He did descend, undressing all the way.

The stars His tire2 of light and rings obtained,
The cloud His bow, the fire His spear,
The sky His azure mantle gained.
And when they asked, what He would wear;
He smiled and said as He did go,
He had new clothes a making here below.

When he was come, as travelers are wont,
He did repair unto an inn.
Both then, and after, many a brunt
He did endure to cancel sin:
And having given the rest before,
Here he gave up his life to pay our score.

But as he was returning, there came one
That ran upon him with a spear.
He, who came to us all alone,
Bringing nor man, nor arms, nor fear,
Received the blow upon his side,
And straight he turned, and to his brethren cried,

“If you have any thing to send or write,
I have no bag, but here is room:
Unto my Father’s hands and sight,
Believe me, it shall safely come.
That I shall mind, what you impart,
Look, you may put it very near my heart.

“Or if hereafter any of my friends
Will use me in this kind, the door
Shall still be open; what he sends
I will present, and somewhat more,
Not to his hurt. Sighs will convey
Any thing to me.” Hark, Despair away.

George Herbert

Season of the Soul: The Cross

The Cross
What is this strange and uncouth thing?
To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,
Until I had some place, where I might sing,
And serve you; and not only I,
But all my wealth and family might combine
To set your honour up, as our design.

And then when after much delay,
Much wrestling, many a combat, this dear end,
So much desired, is given, to take away
My power to serve you; to unbend
All my abilities, my designs confound,
And lay my threat’nings bleeding on the ground.

One ague still dwells in my bones,
Another in my soul (the memory
What I would do for you, if once my groans
Could be allowed for harmony):
I am in all a weak disabled thing,
Save in the sight thereof, where strength does sting.

Besides, things sort not to my will,
Ev’n when my will does study your renown:
You turnest th’ edge of all things on me still,
Taking me up to throw me down:
So that, ev’n when my hopes seem to be sped,
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

To have my aim, and yet to be
Further from it than when I bent my bow;
To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
Of all my woes another woe,
Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And ev'n in Paradise to be a weed.

Ah my dear Father, ease my smart!
These contrarieties crush me: these cross actions
Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart:
And yet since these your contradictions
Are properly a cross felt by the Son,
With but four words, my words, Your will be done.
’n when my hopes seem to be sped,
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

To have my aim, and yet to be
Further from it than when I bent my bow;
To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
Of all my woes another woe,
Is in the midst of delicates to need,

And ev'n in Paradise to be a weed.

Ah my dear Father, ease my smart!
These contrarieties crush me: these cross actions
Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart:
And yet since these your contradictions
Are properly a cross felt by the Son,
With but four words, my words, Your will be done.

A Sign to guard and guide

Tradition and story, ritual and re-telling in the many facets of human existence help us to remember and keep to what is important. Whether it is grandmotherly recipes or the nuances of faith, tradition and ritual can have great value. Lent is a time of remembering our origins and our traditions and bringing us back to them. Of such is the Christian tradition of making the Sign of the Cross. In the main, the sign is associated with Catholic and Orthodox traditions. In the Reformed traditions of Western Christianity, it is maintained in the Anglican and Lutheran traditions.

But perhaps the Sign of the Cross is about to make a comeback. The evangelical magazine, Christianity To-day, has published an article which includes two book reviews on the topic.

Miss Eagle would like to bring to remembrance the Catholic tradition of the triple sign of the cross when standing to receive the Gospel. The triple sign of the cross is made with the thumb by tracing a cross on the forehead; on the lips; and on the sternum. As this is done the following words are said:

The Word be in my head

The Word be on my lips

The Word be in my heart

Seasons of the Soul: A fool for Christ

Ash Wednesday Cross

by

master craftsman and member of the Mansfield Parish, Gary Bernhardt

outside St Paul's Cathedral, cnr Flinders & Swanston Streets, Melbourne.

Thoughts for Ash Wednesday Service '07

Preached by Rev Susanne Chambers at the Church of St Thomas, Upper Ferntree Gully

Wednesday 21 February 2007

Today at St Paul’s Cathedral there was a special Ash Wednesday service which included a giant cross carved from wood burnt in the recent bushfires. The cross is alpine ash from the back of Timber Top. As you know, Mansfield, Jamieson and Merrijig and surrounding areas, were on full fire alert day after day throughout December and January, leading to a high level of anxiety and fear--------- combined with community spirit and outreach.

The vicar of Mansfield, Chris Huxtable, said the visual symbol of the cross recognises the suffering of the Victorian countryside, in partnership with the prayers of the city. Quote: “I can see the direct parallels with the Easter story. The high country has been crucified by the fires. There has been devastation for the people and the environment. The cross made from suffering wood stands in the middle of this and it speaks to me of Jesus being in the midst of our community”.

When we speak of Ash Wednesday, most members of our community think of the Ash Wednesday fires. In conversation, we then add the church’s reason for Ash Wednesday.
They usually look bewildered/politely nodding/but think we are a bit potty!

Ash Wednesday the beginning of our Lenten time together, as we grow through/ go through lent to Easter Day!

Maybe they are right in thinking we are a bit mad…look at the man we follow! At an early age around 30ish, he headed straight to his death..to Jerusalem….to Golgotha…some would say ‘what a fool!’ and he did it for all people? People he didn’t even know? Why? To give them a chance for new life. To show them a different way to live their lives.

Palm Sunday this year is on April Fool’s day….

seems to me to be an interesting theme to take up!!
Is Christ a fool?
Are we fool’s for Christ’s sake?

Tonight when we pray the litany of penitence, let the words creep past any barriers you may have built up. Open yourself up to new possibilities!! To new life not only for yourself, but for future generations…your grandchildren and mine…for the environment….for relationships of different cultures… let’s be open to not just pray for rain, but first say sorry for the mess we have added in our small corner to the changing weather conditions. Let’s be honest to God and to ourselves.

Ah …but is this just foolish talk??
Maybe….but I am a fool for Christ…are you?