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BRITISH SUMMER TIME! DON’T BE LATE FOR THE EASTER CELEBRATION! THE CLOCKS GO FORWARD ONE HOUR ON SATURDAY NIGHT I am concerned about the dumbing down of the cross. Or to put it another way I think the crucifixion romanticised in many of its presentations. ‘When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died…his dying crimson like a robe…did ere such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown.’ I love Wesley’s Passiontide hymn, but should I? Isn’t there far too much post Good Friday gloss, seeing the tortured Jesus as the Prince of Heaven, the triumphant saviour. When on the other hand I see reports of men crucified in Syria by ISIS, I recoil at the horror of it. I am enraged at the cruelty and barbarism, disgusted by the fact of it, and sickened in the pit of my stomach by the thought of those men’s suffering. It is much worse than beheading, because the agony of death is stretched out for hours, even days. It’s designed to strike terror into those who witness it and it succeeds. So I wonder if it isn’t some sort of blasphemy to wear depictions of such a torture around one’s neck, as I have done, or to march about with processional crucifixes in worship. We make Christ in our own image and play with the story to suit our own ends, squeezing out the offensiveness with the fingers of transcendent glory. Far less painful. And not unlike the religion that sings hosannas on Palm Sunday and alleluias on Easter Day and forgets the valley of the shadow of death in between, as Psalm 22 has it: ‘I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint : my heart also in the midst of my body is even like melting wax. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my gums: and thou shalt bring me into the dust of death.’ Then there has been the carnage in Brussels, the family whose car slid into the sea drowning all but a small baby. The depth of suffering is an unavoidable part of the Easter narrative because it is this we are trying to make sense of and, for Christianity, it is only by finding God in the wound rather than in the bandage that we are able to do so. Even then it’s a struggle! |
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| | Services
—Maundy Thursday
There will not be a Lunchtime Eucharist this Thursday. 8.00pm- Eucharist of the Last Supper and the stripping of the altar
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Good Friday 12pm- Stations of the Cross 1pm- Poetry of the Passion, read by young members of the congegration 1.30pm- Choral Music for the Passion with the University Church Choir Thomas Tallis, The Lamentations of Jeremiah 2pm- Litany for Good Friday and veneration of the Cross
Easter Sunday 10.30am - Choral Eucharist with the University Church Choir Joseph Haydn, Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo
John Taverner, Dum transisset Sabbatum
FOLLOWED BY EASTER EGG HUNT FOR CHILDREN
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| | | | | | | Forthcoming Concerts & Other Events
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Saturday 26th March 6pm (NOT 7.30pm as advertised on Sunday) Semi-Staged dramatization of Handel's oratorio
Tickets £10-£14 from Tickets Oxford
Check out our website and Facebook pages.
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| | Poetry corner —
from The York Mystery Plays, Play 27: The Last Supper
JESUS Peese be both be day and nyght
Untill this house and till all that is here.
Here will I holde as I have hight
The feeste of Paas with frendis in feere.
MARCELUS Maistir, we have arayed full right
Servise that semes for youre sopere:
Oure lambe is roste, and redy dight
As Moyses lawe will lely lere.
JESUS That is, ilke man that has
Pepill in his awne posté
Shall roste a lambe at Paas
To hym and his meyné.
ANDREAS Maister, the custome wele we knawe
That with oure elthers ever has bene,
How ilke man with his meyné awe
To roste a lambe and ete it clene. Image: Eric Gill, The Last Supper This extract is from the opening of The Last Supper, traditionally performed by the Bakers; a play in the York Mystery Cycle. A quick gloss: Jesus wishes peace on the house and all in it; and makes good on his promise (‘hight’) to hold the Passover meal. Mark confirms that all is set accordingly, and that, true to Moses’ law (Exodus 12:3-10), they’ll have roast lamb. Jesus says that every man with authority (‘posté’) should do the same with his family (‘meyné’). Andrew chimes in and agrees that the elders (‘elthers’) know how each family ought to ‘roast a lamb and eat it clean’. The discussion doesn’t end here; it is interesting how each guild takes its particular play with some sort of professional interest – hence, for the Bakers, the lengthy discussion of the fittingness of food in The Last Supper; and, of course, the central bread.
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