Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, 

who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through….

Additional Collect

True and humble king, hailed by the crowd as Messiah: 

grant us the faith to know you and love you, 

that we may be found beside you on the way of the cross, 

which is the path of glory.   

Today: Lent 6 (‘Palm Sunday’)
Principal Readings 

Liturgy of the Palms: Matthew 21.1-11 Psalm 118.1-2, 19-end

Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50.4-9a Psalm 31.9-16* Philippians 2.5-11 

Matthew 26.14 - end of 27 or Matthew 27.11-54

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist

6.00  Evening Prayer

Monday 

9.30-11.30 Toddler Time (St Mary's Hall)

6.30 Ecumenical Stations of the Cross   (St Mary's)
Tuesday

9-12 St Mary's Spring Clean
2-4 Bereavement Group (St Mary's Hall)
Wednesday 

9.30 Eucharist  (St Mary's)

7.30 Ladies’ Group (St Mary's Hall)
Thursday

2-4 Sewing Bee (St Mary's Hall)

The Great Three Days

Maundy Thursday:
7.00 The Maundy Thursday Eucharist (St Mary’s)

Good Friday
10.15 Worship for Good Friday at Trinity Methodist
followed at 10. 45 by walking up for
11.00 An Ecumenical Service at St Augustine Webster

2.00 An Hour Before the Cross (St Mary’s)

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 

Reflection: ‘This is the record of John’

It was most inconsiderate of the New Testament to have two characters in it by the name of John, and some of those who may have whistled the first bars of Orlando Gibbons’ motet based on John 1.19 and following ‘‘This is the record of John’’ might have expected that the John mentioned there and the John of the Gospel which contains the line were one and the same. 

We who know that the John referred to in John 1 is John the Baptiser, who met his end before Jesus’ public ministry began, are at no risk of confusing them, but in a sense, Holy Week is ‘the record of John’, since the Gospel readings from Monday in Holy Week right through to Easter Day are traditionally taken from John’s Gospel. Matthew makes his showing this year on Palm Sunday, but – especially on Maundy Thursday and  Good Friday – it’s John and his take on the Passion who will steer us through.

It’s not as if there’s any lack of Holy Week material in Matthew, Mark and Luke, nor is there a lack of spiritual depth in those three Gospels – from Mark’s harrowing tale of the self-emptying of God, through to Luke’s story of compassion (‘Father, forgive them’) and faith to be found in strange places.

John still feels different, though, with Jesus’ long discussions with his disciples, his puzzling actions and words, all done with hints and oblique references. Not an easy read, even when compared with the works of the other evangelists. So much feels hidden and hard quite to get hold of, and with the possible exception of the Beloved Disciple, no-one in the story quite sees what’s happening either.

There’s probably no single key to unlocking the depths of St John, but one way of encountering the story is to imagine it as it being two stories woven together, one obvious, the other far less so.

The obvious story is the one we all read about, the betrayal and execution of Jesus of Nazareth at the hands of an unholy tie-up between Church and State. The reasons for it happening remain murky, but it certainly doesn’t reflect much credit on human nature.

Underneath it, though, not usually visible, surfacing only briefly, is another story. Though it looks as though power and initiative lie with the authorities, with Judas, with the forces of darkness and hatred, throughout the story is being driven by Christ. 

He takes the initiative to go to Jerusalem, he challenges Pilate to examine his own motives and values, he causes the arresting authorities to fall back in fear, and generally sets the pace. The cry from the cross is not one of dejection, nor forgiveness, but of ‘Job done’. From start to finish, the story of salvation takes human scheming and fear and ruthlessness and harnesses it in the cause of hope and redemption.

It is, one you start to unpick it, a topsy-turvy tale, where kingship is found on a cross, where leaders serve, and where threatening darkness is driven back by light. It tells of death as the gateway to life, of defeat which is a victory, and of power used against itself to bring about new beginnings. Nothing is quite as it seems as a conspiracy against Jesus the Galilean prophet is subverted into becoming the way of salvation.

At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we saw how the ordinary becomes extraordinary in the hands of God, at the sign of water becoming wine. We’ve had a hint of death as the gateway to life in the story of Lazarus. And we have sketched before us the portrait of a God for whom to serve is to rule – and rule from the cross.

For our prayers

Church:

The Church in Melanesia.  

Christians in the Middle East. 

Our Holy Week journey.

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: New residents. The newly retired.
Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: Young People’s Uniformed Organisations.

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: Anyone able to wield a duster or who enjoys he satisfaction of chucking out someone else’s junk will be very welcome on Tuesday morning in Church from 9 onwards. No previous experience with a vacuum cleaner required!

Thanks to all who organised and supported St Mary's mini-Easter Fair,

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.

Barton’s APCM and election of Churchwardens is on Tuesday April 7th  at 7, and nomination papers for wardens, PCC members etc are at the back.

And finally
should you have arrived this morning to find the service almost over, you forgot to put your clock forward last night.

If Church is deserted completely, you probably remembered the clocks changed, but put them back instead of forward!