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SUMMARY:Family Communion
DTSTART:20250406T090000Z
DTEND:20250406T101500Z
DTSTAMP:20260419T073124Z
UID:11848562025-04-06 09:00:00+00:00achurchnearyou
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Family Communion for the fifth Sunday of Lent: celebrant the R
 evd Tola Badejo.\n\nFirst reading: Isaiah 43. 16 – 21\nGospel: John 12. 
 1 – 8\n\nToday\, a fortnight before Easter\, is Passion Sunday\, the day
  which is considered to mark the beginning of Passiontide. Over this time\
 , as far as we can in imagination\, we follow Jesus's journey through triu
 mphant entry into Jerusalem\, accusation\, rejection\, betrayal and crucif
 ixion\, before the joy of the resurrection marked on Easter morning. The O
 ld Testament reading and the Gospel today relate to the broader Passion na
 rrative in interesting and indirect ways\, although neither mentions it di
 rectly.\n\nThe emphasis in Isaiah's prophecy is on the complete reversal o
 f everything that his listeners thought they knew\; the world is to be tur
 ned upside down by the 'new thing' God is to create. The Gospel passage is
  full of literary foreshadowing (the Gospel writers were excellent storyte
 llers): the Mary in this story is a disciple\, the sister of Lazarus\, who
 m Jesus raised from the dead\, and unlike the repentant sinner in Luke's a
 ccount of a similar anointing\, she belongs to Jesus's close circle. Mary 
 anoints Christ's feet with spikenard\, foreshadowing his anointing before 
 burial\, and Christ himself refers to his impending death. There is a real
  tension here between the setting - a meal (probably a very good one) shar
 ed by friends - and Mary's extreme emotion\; possibly she intuitively unde
 rstands something that the rest of her family and friends have not yet ful
 ly realised.\n\nThe image above is a detail of 'The Anointing at Bethany'\
 , created jointly by Rubens and van Dyke. They capture the varied emotions
  the others present must have felt: shock\; embarrassment\, perhaps\; conc
 ern\; disapproval from some\; from others\, perhaps a dawning awareness th
 at they are gradually experiencing a 'new thing' beyond their understandin
 g.
GEO:0.037423;51.469833
LOCATION:Kidbrooke\, St Nicholas
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/671/service-and-events/events/11
 84856/
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