Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect

Lord of all life and power, who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory; to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might, now and in all eternity...

Additional Collect

God of glory,

by the raising of your Son you have broken  the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope; for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open in our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Today: Easter Day
Principal Readings 

Acts 10.34-43; Ps118.1-2,14-24* Colossians 3.1-4; John 20.1-18 or Matthew 28.1-10 

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Sung Parish Eucharist of Easter Day {incense)

6.00  Choral Evensong 

Monday 

Bank Holiday

Tuesday

10.00 Bonby APCM

7.00 St Mary's APCM
Wednesday 

9.30 Eucharist  (St Mary's)

11-1.30 Visiting Bellringers (St Mary's)
Thursday

2-4 Sewing Bee (St Mary's Hall

Easter 2 ('Low Sunday/ 'Quasimodo Sunday')
Principal Readings 

Acts 2.14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-end   

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist  (Trinity Altar)

11.00 Together@11

2.00 Baptism

6.00  Evening Prayer

Reflection:  ‘Ands ‘Orf’,

It’s one of the classic scenes of the Easter stories, as Mary Magdalen greets Jesus in the Garden, and is immediately told not to touch him. ‘Noli me tangere’ is the title of a famous picture of the scene by Titian, and this first interaction between Mary and the risen Christ has given rise to as many interpretations as Jesus’ harsh retort to his mother, ‘What’s it got to do with me, woman?’ at the marriage at Cana.

Given that he’s happy to be touched a matter of hours later, one popular suggestion is it’s something to do with Mary being a woman, and that doesn’t get us very far in understanding what’s going on unless misogyny is still a popular Christian option.

Modern English versions have cottoned on to the fact that John’s Gospel was written in Greek, and that ‘Don’t touch me’ isn’t a good translation of what John wrote, and far prefer phrases like, ‘Don’t cling to me’ to get to the heart of what John means.  

But what does he mean?

Given that there’s no indication that Mary’s tried to grab hold of the Lord, we might think it worth thinking about other ways of clinging. Trying to ‘hold on’ to something even if its time has come and gone, or refusing to change the way we see something. Sometimes we want to bottle up a precious experience and try our best to live in it for ever. It’s what humans do.

‘Moving on’ is difficult, painful and often bewildering. Ask any bereaved person how difficult it is to hold the past and the new (usually unwelcome)present together and they’ll tell you., So what might Mary be tempted to cling to?,

Well, possibly her understanding of who Jesus is, and what his resurrection means. Perhaps she thinks back to the long talks and precious moments of the past, the conversations, the insights, the friendship with someone who has freed her from her (unspecified) burdens. Jesus is now back, and he’s staying., And, of course, he isn’t. Not like that, anyway.

In ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ the wizard Gandalf the Grey falls to his death while fighting a monster in the depths of a deserted mine. It comes as a bit of a shock when he reappears a few chapters later, and is greeted by his companions. But his reply is strange. “Gandalf? Yes… that’s what they used to call me. Gandalf the Grey. That was my name. I am Gandalf the White. And I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.” 

Whether or not the devout RC Tolkien intends us to see this as an oblique reference to the Resurrection appearances in the Gospels, who can say? However, just as Gandalf is both Gandalf and not-Gandalf, something has happened between their last meeting, where he is apparently overpowered, and this new one.

The story of the risen Christ is perhaps where Tolkien got the idea, for Jesus in the Garden (and elsewhere) is both recognisable as the one with whom they walked and talked and ate, yet at the same time different, even unrecognisable. If the disciples refuse to acknowledge the new, if they cling to the old, they will usually fail to recognise him in the new world born on Easter Day.

However what’s gone before isn’t abandoned – the disciples remain disciples, Jesus still recognises those who walked with him in Galilee as his friends. The old somehow is caught up in the new – but it’s different. Being able to hold that together, to be secure enough in what’s coming into being to be able to trust that the past isn’t lost, but part of something unimaginably greater – there’s the challenge. Cherishing the past, but not imprisoned by it.

Christ’s instruction ‘Don’t cling to me’ isn’t about the rejection of physical contact, or a suspicion of the world in general and women in particular being ‘unclean’. It isabout experiencing the Resurrection as transformation of what has gone before, of new realities being opened up hitherto unsuspected, where Christ and new life are discovered at work in places previously unimaginable, and we learn to look through eyes refreshed at a world suddenly pregnant with hope and possibility. In a world deeply in need of both, the Easter message, calling us to move on with God, is probably needed more than ever before.

Happy Easter.

For our prayers

Church:

The Church in Mexico.  

Christians in

the Middle East.

Our Easter celebrations

World: 

Those in authority. 

Gaza, Iran, and all the lands of the Middle East. 

Ukraine, Sudan, Mexico. 

Peacekeepers and Peacemakers. 

Those leading in the protection of our planet 

and the resolution of the issues surrounding migrancy. 

Our Community: 

Parish cycle of prayer: Those who care for our Church buildings-
caretakers, cleaners, flower rotas, architects, sacristans….
Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: the Construction Industry

The world’s half-forgotten troubled lands:

Afghanistan, Myanmar.

Those in need. 

All who are fleeing war, poverty or climate change. 

People living under the shadow of fear, deprivation or illness; 

the anxious, the lonely and mourners. 

Those struggling to make ends meet. The homeless. 

Those in hospital or who watch with them. 

Especially, please pray for: 

Those on our Parish prayer boards

The Departed. 

Notices.

St Mary's Spring Clean: Thanks to all who organised and scrubbed on Tuesday to get the old place spruced up.

Thanks too, to everyone in our churches who’s contributed to our worship over the last week , not forgetting servers, readers, flower- arranger, Easter Garden makers, musicians and probably thirty-seven other whom I’ve overlooked.  It’s a big tam effort, and it makes a difference.

APCM Season

Just a heads-up that we're approaching the season of Elections of Churchwardens, Annual Parish Meetings and the like. Please keep a lookout for further details in the coming weeks.

Bonby's APCM is on Tuesday morning at 10, Barton’s APCM and election of Churchwardens is on Tuesday April 7th  at 7.