A Novena for Lent - Praying with the Gospel of John

In the busyness of our world, especially in the long journey of Lent and Easter, it can be very hard to find the time, frame of mind, and openness of heart to enter into the spacious uncertainty, challenging encounters, and the harrowing story of our Lord’s passion for us.

This year I am exploring with you a contemporary version of Novena – the discipline of praying for nine days the same prayer as a way of opening our hearts more fully to the Divine and to seek greater clarity in our life. (If you spend more than nine days wonderful but at the least it should be a sufficiently “bite size” spiritual discipline that even busy persons can keep!)

Over the nine “days” of this Novena we will explore a part of the narrative according to John’s gospel of Jesus’ ministry and last days. During Advent and Lent the church considers portions of John’s gospel but we never stay within this gospel. So I am taking this opportunity to stay with the gospel of John for this journey. I am exploring with you how this journey invites three spiritual goals, as expressed over eight hundred years ago by Saint Richard of Chichester (1197 to 1253).

“Day by day, Dear Lord,

of Thee three things I pray:

To see Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly,

Follow Thee more nearly,

Day by day.”

So, we will explore how we see or perceive, how we love and allow ourselves to be loved, and how we follow. Some of the readings chosen will be heard on Sunday mornings but not all of them. In deciding which portions to read and reflect on I am indebted to the work of:

David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Kimberly Bracken Long, editors of “Feasting on the Word: A Thematic Resource for Preaching and Worship, Lenten Companion”, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2014.

Our Novena for Lent:

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repitative thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day One:

Read John 3:1-21.

This story of Nicodemus, the Jewish leader, who comes to Jesus at night (so he can’t be seen?) is a wonderful story that John bookends with comments by Jesus about sight and being seen. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without out being born from above.” vs 3 And this story concludes with a description of the judgement “that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil … but those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” vs 19 – 21

The gospels, including John’s gospel, have many stories about blindness and healing from blindness. Here it is spiritual blindness. This story is very much about how we see, our perception, and about the need and desirability of bringing things into the light.

The spiritual journey requires a deep and disciplined regular checking of our perception - of how we see, what we see, and how we are seen. How do we look at God, the kingdom, our world, our selves? Are we clear eyed? Do we need to soften our gaze or look more sharply with less distortion?

On this day we especially pray that our eyes be opened, the lens of our perception be cleansed that we might see the divine more clearly in the grandeur and vulnerability of creation; in our neighbours, family and friends and in those we struggle to see the divine; and in the busyness and brokeness of our own lives help us see as God does all that is to be celebrated and all that is to be let go of.

Novena: 

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repitative thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Two:

Read John 4:5-42

We are a thirsty hungry people, hard to satisfy for long, and so many of us are prone to restless searching. One of the gifts of Lent is the invitation to sit, even in the midday sun, by a well and meet the one who offers more than we knew we needed or was possible.

Many of us love this story from John’s gospel – for the central role of the unnamed woman, for the honest and earthy repartee between them, for the richness of the story with its layers of symbolism and resonance with the ancient stories of desert encounters, and for the image of a gushing spring of what we long for. Whatever draws us in we are likely to find something that speaks to needs deeper than we knew we were carrying.

We of faith “know” we have access to living water that will quench our thirst and yet we are oftentimes as distracted by lesser thirsts and anxieties and ambitions as others are. Part of Lent can be about attending to our thirsts and hungers and sitting with them quietly and long enough to discern what is our deepest thirst. And then when we sit a little longer, with the one who joins us by the well, we discern again where our thirst is met.

I love the image of the living water being a spring that the divine spirit causes to gush up within our own self. That is, we are being reminded to look within for what comes from beyond. Let us consider that again – we are being reminded to look within for what is from beyond us. It is not so much that our fragile, flawed selves are the answer but that the eternal and life giving gushes up within us. We have access to the divine water of life because the divine is not distant from us and we have been made to be a receptacle to the divine upwelling of life.

In this we are not separate to life but a conduit for what we long for. We are cleansed from within, we are healed and restored from within, and we are set free by what pours into us from the divine source of all life and love. I invite you to sit with this for a moment or two in your times of prayer and reflection and know in yet another way that we are not separate from God.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetative thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Three:

Read John 9:1-41

It seems to be a human need to be see and be seen. And most of us ache to be not only seen in the everyday sense but we long to be seen as we potentially are – to have someone see us as we could be, are meant to be, are hoping and growing toward. We live in an age and culture when being seen as we would like to be is an art form that brings fear and reassurance. Think of the effort that goes into social media accounts and managing our appearance in the world. The shadow side of this desire is the anxiety about being seen as we fear we really are.

To not be able to see, to be blind, was and is a great hardship. And in the time of Jesus to be born blind begged questions about sin and punishment. Jesus makes it clear that the sin or otherwise of this young man and his parents is not the issue. The gospel story ends with Jesus turning it around so that it is the blindness of the religious that is the issue. And isn’t that the experience of faith, particularly in a penitent season such as Lent. Our experience of God, in prayer, in Scripture, through preaching and teaching, and personal reflection – shines God’s light into our lives and shows up, or exposes, things about ourselves that we would rather not have to see. That is why we kept them in the shadows! But – here comes grace – the act of exposing what is shameful, grubby, injured, anxious, prideful … transforms us into light. The very process of exposure is the beginning of healing, of being made new, of being redeemed. 

As an old adage puts it ‘Sunlight is the best form of disinfectant.’ Sometimes fresh air and sunlight are what is most needed to allow something to heal. It is the core principal of much therapy that it is by remembering and talking we bring into the light what is old and half forgotten but still poisoning us and others in our lives. And the very process of bringing something up to the surface and into the light changes it – heals us, takes some of the sting and shadowy power away, and helps us begin to change and grow into freedom.

So, all this self examination is not simply because some strange people enjoy pain – although there are a few no doubt – or because people think they are not worthy to gather up the crumbs under the table and deserve no better – although at one level that is true enough. All this self examination is so that we can invite the light into our lives, including all the embarrassingly not nice corners of our souls and lives.

But it is not an easy process for there are great forces of resistance – denial of sin, minimising, rationalising … the list of defences against the grubby truth is long. In what ways are we blind? What parts of our life do we keep in the dark hoping God can’t see us and hoping that we won’t have to deal with it? Many of us prefer to suffer than to change, than to accept healing.

Part of the gift of Lent or any process of reflection and self examination – of having the light shone in and things revealed to the light – is that we might find that even those aspects of ourselves that we despair of can be seen differently. For the God who chose as King a young boy full of promise and flaws also chooses us, sees us in such a way that we are remade.

We are seen as we are not in order to be judged and rejected but in order to be loved and encouraged into our fullness! What we and others disregard or disapprove of may just be the wound that allows us to compassionately and humbly serve others. The gift and inconvenient passion we suppress may just be the charism or gift that the world needs more of. And the energy that we spend protecting, containing, disapproving of aspects of our selves (and usually others as well) may just be better spent giving over every aspect of our selves to the transforming light of Christ so that we can become more fully the one who God knows and sees and calls.

So let us take what we know and do not know, what we desire and what we fear, into our prayers, that we may see more clearly the love of God.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetative thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Four:

Read John 11:1-46

 The story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead speaks at so many levels – layers of symbolism and meaning.  Including of course that it prefigures Jesus’ own resurrection. But it is also a sign and promise for those who are about to follow Jesus to the foot of the cross and then take up their own cross, that whatever comes ends in life not death. Resurrection is a principal that flows through all creation and time.

And while preparing this reflection I had a dream in which the Christ figure, a patient in a hospital bed about to be discharged, reached out his arms and embraced very tenderly a group of health workers. You could see their faces dissolved in grief and relief and gratitude as they were met where they worked in the mess of pain and death. And I was reminded that the Christ, who joined us in the human condition, did not abhor the virgins womb, or the company of the dubious and marginalised, and when his friend died he did not abhor even the stench of death and grief but went to the door of the tomb with the grieving and summoned Lazarus to come out! Christ comes to us even when and where we think all is finished.

This is a belief that must permeate every aspect of our life – our hearts, our minds, our souls. Resurrection is a spiritual, social and physical principle. It needs to express itself in our love relationships, our finances, our charitable giving, our farming and gardening practices, our political affiliations, our correspondence, our conversations.

Resurrection gives us the eyes to see and the hearts to discern hope and joy. Resurrection upends us and disorientates us. Resurrection restores us. But resurrection cannot work against our will. If Martha and Mary had not sent word, if those with the strength had not rolled back the stone, if Lazarus had not heard the command, if his loved ones had not unwrapped the bandages resurrection would have been blocked. Like almost everything since the creation it is an act of free gift and acceptance, it is a work of co creation.

It is maybe why we have to go through this cycle every year, every Lent, and many times besides so that each time another layer of despair, and death, and hate, is stripped away until nothing is left but desire, life, and love. It is an ancient spiritual truth that we must die before we die. That is, that the many deaths of our hopes, our everyday life, what we regard as precious must be stripped away so that our naked and true self awaits the call of the Christ to come forth. The great cycle of life revealed in natural cycles of plants and animals and maybe planets themselves of birth, life, death and new life and brought to fullness in the birth, life, death and new life of Jesus the Christ.

If Lent or the evening news or our own lives finds us entombed in fear or grief or shame, even if our lives emit the stench of failure, then Christ is not afraid or reluctant to come find us where we are and call us out of the tomb.

Let us pray.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

 Day Five:

Read John 12:1-11

 Shortly after the resurrection of Lazarus Jesus visits his friends again – Lazarus, Martha and Mary. His disciples are with him. And in the intimacy following a meal with friends, in the tension of preparing for the last journey to Jerusalem, Mary anoints him. It is intimate, it is prophetic for it acknowledges his coming death, and it is costly loving. So much is happening in the story as it was at this moment in the story of Jesus. And yet for a moment the perfume fills the room and this moment between Mary and Jesus represents something for all of them. So much so that all depictions of this story have at least some of the disciples upset and questioning the gesture. And yet Jesus not only defends the woman, Mary, but says that she has understood what is happening and has helped prepare him for his death.

How is this a description of how to love? As women and men, we are being invited to love in ways intimate, costly, courageous. The perfume fills the house. The complaints fill the air for a moment. When have we loved in ways costly and courageous? What resistance have we met? Looking back do we regret our generosity or wish we had been more generous? What has love cost us? And when has our loving eased the burden of another?

As we reflect on the nature of our loving – our desire for love and our desire to love God and neighbour – how does this story speak to us? Let us bring all our thoughts and memories to our prayers.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Six:

Read John 13:1-17, (18-33), 34-38.

 Only days after Mary, sister of Lazarus, has knelt at the feet of Jesus to anoint them with nard Jesus kneels at the feet of his disciples to wash them. I like to consider that the humble vulnerable love of Mary helped prepare Jesus for what was to come for him and that Jesus took this gift and gave it to his disciples to help them in what was to come for them.

In this beautiful scene, that we associate with Maundy Thursday, Jesus spends his last night at table eating, then afterwards washing their feet and then teaching. The washing of the feet precedes the powerful teaching of the Farewell Discourse as chapters 13 – 17 are often known. It seems as though only when the disciples are cleaned and humble and vulnerable are they ready to receive these last verbal teachings.

And I find it very touching and challenging that this chapter describes both the tenderness of Jesus for his disciples and also some of the desperation to make sure they understand the basic task – to love one another – within the context of Judas about to betray him and Peter about to deny him! This is the context in which the disciples are called to love one another as they have been loved – not in perfect easy discipline but in the mess of betrayal and failure!

And if we are honest with ourselves sometimes we are betrayed and denied and sometimes we do the betraying and denying. Neither are easy or pleasant places to be. Both are extremely human and both are where the divine invites us to dig deep and find a loving response. (I need to say that responding with love to betrayal and denial is not the same as giving others permission to hurt us but rather to set boundaries and protect ourselves with calm respect and affection for the other rather than with anger or as retribution.)

Any of us who have been done wrong by someone we love will know that we do not want the wrongdoer cast into outer darkness – none of us want Judas to take himself off and end his life! We want healing and restoration for our loved one and between us, where safe to do so. Loving one another as Jesus loved us is not about ignoring problems but responding with forgiveness and the invitation to healing.

What wounds and fears need to be taken into your prayers? What old and new betrayals and denials need healing? What limits your capacity to love and be loved? What you cannot yet confess or own give to Jesus to take with him.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Seven:

Read John 14:1-21

We often hear John 14:1-7 at the funeral of people of faith – a wonderful reminder that our loving God has somewhere special waiting for us to join in the fullness of life eternal. In this season of Lent we hear this comforting promise in the moment between Jesus’ last private words and actions with his disciples and his going out into the night to be arrested, tried and crucified. At a moment when Jesus might have wanted comfort and reassurance he is offering it to his disciples! And not just the comfort of knowing that somewhere beyond the grave they will have a perfect resting place but the comfort and encouragement of knowing that they are following the right one, they are on the right path, the one who leads to life, and that they will grow into the strength of that when it is time for them to continue on without his physical presence.

And so it is for us. We are not only promised a dwelling place when we have finished here on earth, we are offered a person and a relationship in which to dwell now, and to live out of. We are invited into a way of living that is founded in the truth and life of the divine in relationship with us. The way in which John’s gospel uses the word translated as dwell has the sense of abide, to stay with, to settle, in a long term relationship. We are invited into a long term, fully engaging, all of life residing with the divine in a way in which his death or ours does not make the difference.

The love we are invited into is not severed by death. Indeed the love we experience now will be a thread to follow, the way to journey, for all of our life. In this confidence we can pray.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Eight:

Read John 17:1-25

Before Jesus leaves he prays for his disciples – then and to come. This means that before we were born, before we struggled and failed, during our greatest successes and most shameful wrongdoing, we have been and are surrounded in prayer! (Mostly) I find this of great comfort – that I have been loved and blessed before I even think to ask for help or guidance or strength.

And like so much of the gospel of John if we read it as though it were a legal or engineering document it makes little sense - it is at best a circular argument! Indeed, it only really makes sense when we think of it as a description of an intimate all encompassing circle that starts as the embrace of father and son, human and divine, creature and creator, and then is extended through relationship with Jesus the Christ to include all of us. “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one …” vs 22-23 This is the prayer and the promise – that we know we are embraced and included in the oneness of God so that whatever happens we are not separated or outside of the love of God.

As we turn to our prayers, to our discernment about whatever we are seeking clarity on, we do so from within (already within) the embrace of God!

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

Day Nine:

Read John 18:25-27

 Just before Jesus breathed his last he looked at those gathered at the foot of the cross – his mother, her sister, Mary wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene and the unnamed disciple – and he spoke to them, giving them to one another to care for. “Woman, here is your son,” “Here is your mother.”

When I was first commissioned as a parish priest I remembered these words and thought of how we were being given to one another to care for. Jesus gave many instructions as he prepared to leave his disciples but in some ways this is the most human: take care of my mother, and mum take care of this young disciple.

We come to the foot of the cross to contemplate our relationship with Jesus and yet we somehow find ourselves referred back to each other. While many of us desire more time and focus to our relationship with the divine, if only other people and life would leave us alone! Yet Jesus gives us to each other. Was Jesus simply taking care of his responsibilities for his family? And/or is this another way of telling us that the divine is in each of us and Jesus is directing us to the relationship/s in which we will find the divine in one another. And that we are therefore also needed by others.

I believe that the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus makes everything different and yet it doesn’t take us out of this world, out of the relationships we have, the joys and dilemmas we have, the hopes and confusions we have. In ways mysterious and powerful and humbling the life, death and resurrection of Jesus takes us deeper into the life we are living. Faith does not beam us up into a space ship that takes us to some new galaxy but renews us day by day to attend to, to engage with, to infuse with love and hope, the everyday of our lives. Sometimes that means changes that will take us to new countries and new relationships and careers. But mostly it means being more alive and loving where we are.

Where ever your prayers have taken you, whatever doors have opened or closed, whatever flowers or fronds have unfolded, whatever voices have carried on the wind of the spirit, please know that Jesus the Christ is already and always beside you, within you, desiring you to know love now and always, where you are and where you will be.

We seek your presence Lord,

from which we are never truly absent,

and we seek to open our minds, hearts and lives

so that we may know you more fully.

We pray you still our racing minds and repetitive thoughts

so that we might know something beyond ourselves.

We pray you settle our overworked anxious hearts

until we can feel the pulse of your love and invitation.

And we pray you help us put aside pride and shame and worry

that we might lay open our lives before you

and know your healing and awakening presence.

We allow ourselves to notice our breathing without needing to change it.

Let us enjoy for a moment this present moment.

As we quiet and unfurl in your loving holy presence

reveal the shadowy fears and longings of our hearts

so that we can let go of what is no longer ours to hold,

allow hidden treasures to reveal themselves,

and discern what is ours to take up and become.

We spend as much time as we need in prayerful presence and then go about our day or evening.

Hallowed be your name. Amen.

A “bonus” Easter morn reflection:

Read John 20:1-16

I love this moment for so many reasons but particularly because - despite the centuries and the certainties of our formal faith - this description still has the ‘wet with dew’ quality of an experience still fresh and unfolding in meaning. The grief, the unfathomable wonder and the moment of recognition and dawning realisation that who and what Mary thought had died was here with her! Who she most loved was with her still. Everything is different and unrecognisable but nothing and no-one has truly gone. Like Moses before the burning bush that was not consumed we stand with Mary and hold two impossible truths – Jesus the beloved is dead and gone and he is here alive and knows her name!

When we hold impossible and apparently contradictory truths, when our eyes see things we cannot be sure of because they are filled with tears, when our hearts are broken open and confused, when we are in the garden early in the morning and not sure of what is real and what is imagined, remember that we are in good and holy company. This is a place, an experience, that the faith journey brings us to from time to time – deeply unsettling and yet so filled with new possibilities and encouragement.

If life and our Lenten prayers have brought you somewhere unsettling, some place that holds both endings and new beginnings, be encouraged that the one who knows you by name is here in the garden with you, that what cannot yet be seen in the half light of dawn will be seen more clearly later, that this moment holds hope and new life. But if for any reason the moment is unbearable please go find the other disciples, a person who can hold the space with you, who can be your companion in this liminal time. And let us pray for one another as we each journey deeper into our relationship with Jesus the Christ.