My dear Friends,I do hope that you had an enjoyable time over recent weeks and that you feel refreshed in your relationships with those who sustain and support you. I also hope that there has been a relief from the usual patterns and a chance to do new things.One of the things I was able to do when all the Christmas services were finally over, was to watch some television. Not that I found much I wanted to see on the usual channels but a film I did switch over to was one which I had seen years ago and one which I remembered for one stunning scene which has stayed with me in my mind ever since.The film was Apollo 13. You may have seen it too. Tom Hanks and two colleagues are tasked with embarking upon a lunar mission which went wrong, this being based on a real life story from 1970. They were eventually forced to abandon their moon landing after an oxygen tank explodes, threatening their lives and crippling their spacecraft. NASA is forced to improvise a daring rescue to bring them safely back to earth. It is a gripping tale where the relationships between the characters, in the context of such a potential disaster, are fascinating.However, it wasn`t the drama of the situation which was the reason I rewatched the film, it was because I remembered one scene which had moved me to the point of my forgetting to breathe as I watched: it lasted for only around 3 second, by I can see it now, shimmering in my memory and imagination. It was the moment when the Tom Hanks character sees from the space craft, not the surface of the moon but rather the surface of the earth spinning below them. Verdant greens, cleansing blues, all bathed in brilliant glowing light, looking absolutely perfect, magnificent, complete, harmonious, whole.It made me remember where I was following the television broadcast in 1969 when, as a 7 year old child, I had just been informed that a human being was at that very moment walking on the surface of the moon. I walked out into the garden, it was late evening, and I gazed at the moon in the night sky in a moment which stretched my mind and stimulated my imagination.Here I was, some years later, presented with an image of the earth from space, appearing to be the most beautiful and radiant place of peace, harmony and wholeness, silently spinning, creating awe and wonder in anyone who saw it.It isn't how we normally think of the world is it, as we see it from the ground, from the perspective of our lives, situations and what we see on our television screens in the news broadcasts. There we see the world primarily through the prism of political tensions, social divisions, the aggression of war, the greed and corruption of some world leaders, the perversity of polarisation and human pain. From space we see our planet as a whole, as a harmonious entity. From the ground we see only discord and dispute, destruction and demoralisation.Of course, both images are true. Both are real. From space we are indeed a spinning globe, perfect and complete, with swirling bands of emerald green and cerulean blue, a halo, a nimbus of shimmering light glowing over its surface. But we are also a warring, worried world, of people vying with one another for positions of power, a disharmony of a humanity, disfiguring society.And there is it you and I are called to pray, in the midst, in the creative tension of those two realities: the image of a perfect and complete, harmonious and united creation and the experience of so many in this world, of persecution and pain, injustice and intolerance, hunger and fear.And we must also recall and draw strength from other experiences of being human: the ability to feel love, compassion and empathy, the spirit of adventure and achievement in the arts and sciences which enrich and extend people`s lives, those things which fill us with tenderness and gratitude for the gift of being alive, for those moments of enlightenment when we sense the presence of our Creator reassuring us that He is there.In this coming new year, which has begun with many things which may have alarmed us and given us cause for concern, let us draw strength from the promise we celebrated at Christmas, that Christ is Emmanuel, "God with us" who will never abandon us, but is always there beside us.And let us more faithfully, consciously and committedly join in His prayer for the world as He speaks to His Father, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."With blessings and best wishesJeff[Image - Earth seen from Apollo 11, July 1969. NASA Photo]
My dear Friends,It probably has been so before, but reading aloud the gospel which speaks of Jesus' final days as I did on Palm Sunday to those who were there, felt an uncomfortably contemporary thing to do.It all seemed very real and immediate. Strained relationships between friends, power struggles that sought to silence someone who was offering an alternative to the party line, betrayal by someone who was trusted, feeling out of control as the power of the state kicked in, friends helpless to intervene as the inevitable suffering and death of a loved one takes place before their eyes..... The horror of the story. Jesus, a man we think of preaching love and forgiveness, healing the sick and embracing the outcast. A man of compelling presence who helped make God more real and immediate for others, slaughtered, silenced, suffocated, scourged, nailed to an instrument of torture and killed.It was not easy to carry on reading on Sunday, it was tempting just to stop, for the events seemed not to be happening 2,000 years ago in another land, but in the here and now of our existences.Perhaps it is because you and I witness so much suffering, pain, disappointment, persecution, fear, injustice, horror and cruelty on the news on television that superimposing the suffering of Jesus onto such landscapes seems almost unbearable as we register, this time of year more than any other, the reality of what some members of the human family did to one we believe to be our creator, indeed the reality of what some members of the human family continue to do to His creatures and His creation.Which is why you and I need not just to prayerfully connect the suffering of Jesus 2,000 years ago with the suffering of so many now in 2025, but also to be present on Easter Day as the Paschal Candle is lit and raised in church, a symbol of life triumphing over death, light over darkness, love over hate. To hear the Resurrection Gospel proclaimed which makes real to us now the energy of renewal and regeneration which began in such an unpromising place in 1st century Palestine and which still infects creation with its breath of new life.If Jesus connected with the cruelty and suffering experienced by people from His cross 2,000 years ago, so too we can connect with the transformation He offers us from His empty tomb.May that energy of new life be real to us in a new way this Easter; may it fuel our prayers as we focus our thoughts on those who continue to struggle in this world; may He breathe new possibilities into the world order and dis-order, that fresh possibilities come into being between divided nations and may our broken, frightened and fragmented world know greater healing, unity and reconciliation as we move forward, praying that it may be into His future for a humanity He cares about and loves.Please join us at St Mary's as we celebrate Jesus` saving acts over the coming days.With blessings and best wishes,Jeff
