Honesty, Humility and Hope in Holy WeekA highlight of the past week for me was the Archbishop of Canterbury zooming into the diocese for some pastoral care. He invited all present to offer three words to describe how they were feeling at present. Our amazing comms team enabled all this to be translated into a wordle. Front and centre was hopeful. Around this, words that stood out for me were exhausted, tired and weary. They reminded me of that Easter cartoon which did the rounds a few years ago and which proclaimed ‘The Lord is Risen. The Clergy is Dead!’.In response to our three words (and three excellent words by Chris, Tara and Esther), I heard and saw Archbishop Justin articulate and model three words in response: honesty, humility and hope. Honesty was articulated through acknowledging his own mistakes and struggles in the past year; humility was expressed through a recognition that frenetic activism is not the answer to the challenges that face us; and hope was celebrated in recognising the sovereignty of the God who in Jesus leads us beyond the cross to the empty tomb.I sense that inhabiting these three words will bring blessing to Holy Week this year. Let’s pray for honesty on Maundy Thursday as we allow Jesus to wash our feet, acknowledging that they might feel as if they can walk no further; let’s pray for humility on Good Friday as we recognise that nothing other than Jesus’ work on the cross can save us from ourselves and the delusion that we can save ourselves; let’s pray to be filled with hope on Easter Sunday as we sing again (in a Covid safe way!) that ‘we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song!’.It is such an immense privilege to serve the leaders and people of this diocese. I’m extremely aware that we arrive at this Eastertide after what has felt like a very long Lent. Please, please make sure that you take proper rest after Easter as we face an extended season of recovery.With love and gratitude,Paul Davies, Archdeacon of Surrey
In 1552 a special prayer was added to the Prayer Book, asking for God’s pity and the withdrawal of the plague. In 1603 ministers were instructed to shorten their services because of the danger of keeping people in ‘thick and close assemblies’. In 1625 royal orders were issued to clergy that church services should only be held in places that were ‘free and safe from infection’, and that those coming from infected areas should be excluded from churches and asked to worship at home. In 1720 the government imposed a 40-day quarantine on all ships coming from affected ports. It’s curiously comforting, from time to time, to get a historical perspective on a current crisis, and I’m grateful for this one to the journal of the Prayer Book Society. It somehow reminds us that the word ‘unprecedented’ is seldom strictly accurate, however much we like to use it; rather that, as the grumpy author of the book of Ecclesiastes puts it, ‘There is nothing new under the sun’. As we move through Passiontide, though, and approach the bitter-sweet rigours of Holy Week, how good to remember a glorious exception to the grumpy author’s rule. For the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was indeed unprecedented, something genuinely ‘new under the sun’, indeed the ultimate ‘new thing’ to which the prophet Isaiah was given real, if partial, access. As we look to the past, it enables us to see the pandemic from a fresh perspective, with lament and hope just two sides of the same coin. As we look to the future, it enables us join with Isaac Watts in worship of our ‘Help in ages past, our Hope for years to come’.Bishop Andrew
