Welcome!

I'm not sure about everyone else but I enjoyed our Palm Sunday services yesterday.
For several years now along with our neighbouring churches we've held a joint Palm Sunday Praise Service in the evening, with the Praise Band & Singing Group taking the lead. Last night was no exception and I enjoyed it a lot - even though I had to play the trumpet most of the time when I would rather have been playing the fiddle.
But my favourite moment from yesterday came in the morning.
I went into the church about 15 minutes before the service and some of the youngest members of our church family were gathering down at the front - making sure they got a front seat. (We haven't taught them to be Presbyterians yet! In fact they are a very sociable bunch.)
Some of the under-fives in particular are experts at going up to new children, introducing themselves and then introducing their new friend to others. I was introduced to Heather, who, I was told, was visiting us from Canada. (I knew this already, of course, but it was amazing how much information the under-fives had managed to glean in just few minutes, and just how quickly they established relationships. I wish some of our adults would learn from them how to do it!)
It was all very appropriate because in the "Family Talk" I was asking the children all about welcoming others.
We got all the expected answers about saying "hello" etc.
When I asked what they would do if the Queen should arrive in Carluke at the door of their house. One wee girl had the perfect answer: "I would tell her to come in and ask her if she'd like to stay for dinner."
It was all leading up to another Palm Sunday song:

Shout Hosanna

Shout 'Hosanna! Welcome to Jesus our King!
Welcome to Jerusalem.
God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord.'
Wave palm branches and be a disciple.
He is coming to save his people.
Shout 'Hosanna! Welcome to Jesus our King!

Line the roadside, welcome the Son of our God!
Welcome to Jerusalem.
Make a pathway, welcome him into your heart!
Wave palm branches and be a disciple.
He is coming to save his people.
Sing his praises, welcome the Son of our God.

(c) Iain D. Cunningham

Holy Week, which began yesterday, is a very significant time for Christians when we reflect on matters at the very heart of our faith culminating in the Easter Day celebrations. For us Easter has got nothing to do with eggs and bunnies and chocolate...
...but, all the same, I couldn't resist sharing these pictures with you.
You've probably seen them already.

He is risen indeed!

A HAPPY EASTER to you all!

There are some stories that I never get tired of hearing and whose novelty for me never wears off. Perhaps the greatest of these is the Easter story.
Part of the endless fascination for me of the "Easter" events described in such different terms by each of the gospel writers is the sheer mystery of it all. Not even the gospel writers themselves could really say exactly what happened, because no one witnessed the resurrection itself.
That doesn't bother me. On the contrary, it comforts me. It leaves room for faith as well as wonder. It is one of those mysteries which the more you know about it, the more mysterious it becomes. The deeper you plunge into it, the deeper it seems.
I guess the word is unfathomable.
But, you know, part of the reason why no one knows exactly what happened on that "third day" is that the resurrection took place "while it was still dark." The sun hadn't even come up by the time Mary and the other women got to the tomb to find the stone rolled away.
Could that in itself be somehow significant?
Of course, Jesus seems to have had a habit of getting up before daybreak to go off into some lonely place to pray but this takes 'getting up early' to a new dimension altogether!
What I like most about this seemingly insignificant detail of the Easter narrative though is that it reminds me of a truth we find all through the Bible... the light shines IN the darkness and the darkness can't put it out, and eventually the light grows to banish the darkness itself. It's the triumph of future hope over present circumstance.
And isn't that something we all need these days?

Break in... break out

Last Sunday, being Easter Sunday, we had an All Age Worship service.
At one point in the service we had the whole congregation playing the old hand game - Rock, Paper, Scissors. I haven't time this morning to explain why to those who weren't there. But I think the congregation were as surprised as I was (when preparing the service) to discover there is a World Rock, Paper, Scissors Society!
I hope everyone knows how to play it.
If not you might like to look at this. Or, to see how not to play it...

There is even an annual world championship - though I suspect not every country in the world sends representatives to it, and the cost of staging it is unlikely to rival that of the Olympics.
As the picture above shows, we also had our own representation of the curtain in the Temple, torn symbolically in two at the death of Jesus. Members of the congregation, of all ages and stages, came out to pin onto the torn curtain little strips of red ribbon, or little pink hearts, to represent all those things in our own lives that may be barriers between us and God, and the congregation were reminded that the grace of God shown in the death and resurrection of Jesus can tear down all these barriers.
It was very moving to see people joining in as enthusiastically with this as they did with the Rock, Paper, Scissors game.
Today, however, is sometimes known as Low Sunday - which for our congregation means they'll just have to listen to me preaching a sermon instead. Definitely an anti-climax.
Much more importantly, the 98-year old lady I mentioned in my last post died yesterday. She was a woman with a very strong faith. We will miss her very much.

The last laugh...

Well, this afternoon I decided it was time to remove the graffiti from our window. It was hard work but all it needed was some warm water and washing up liquid, a scouring pad, and a lot of hard scrubbing.
Half way through the process, though, I toyed with the idea of leaving it as you see above. Part of me thought that it would be a neat irony, and certainly not what the vandals intended, to advertise the name of Jesus beside the empty cross. However, I reckoned the longer I left the paint on the window to dry and harden the harder it would be to remove it, so the next best thing was simply to photograph it.
Given that it is Easter Monday I was actually laughing to myself while I scrubbed. For the last laugh in the end belongs to Jesus and a little bit of graffiti is hardly going to defeat him or his cause when all the powers of death itself could not hold him back.

The writing's on.... the window

Following on from the story of our 'moving' gatepost, we got something of a surprise this morning to discover that someone last night decided that one of our living room windows just wasn't colourful enough.
It really was a bit of a shock.
All the more so because last night at the Good Friday service I had been preaching about those who mocked Jesus.
At one point I had said something like this:
"He who had given so much love, who was giving so much love, was subjected to mindless hate.
The story of Christ’s passion is not just a story about physical or spiritual suffering: it’s a story of a man’s humiliation. Christ was mocked and ridiculed and humiliated by just about everyone....
If he had called upon Elijah to come to his rescue (as some thought he was doing) then the crowds (in amazement and wonder) would have carefully lifted the crown of thorns from his brow and replaced them with a crown of kingship, and they would have bowed at his feet, but at that very moment Jesus would have ceased to be the true King.
You see if at any moment Jesus had given in to the temptation to prove to the mocking crowds who he really was, (as Judas wanted him to) he would have become someone else, and no more able to save others than you or I.
This is why it was so easy to mock him, and why he could give no answer back.
Jesus knew that the mockery and ridicule were part of the pain he had to bear if he was to be what God had called him to be and to do what God had called him to do.
He also knew and warned his disciples that they too would face ridicule and derision from a hostile world.
And so it has proved to be down through the centuries. It almost goes without saying that if we would follow Christ at all, it is almost inevitable that we will face mockery and scorn from a sceptical world."
Maybe someone who had been at the service wanted to test my reaction?
Seriously, though, isn't it strange how Christ is still mocked by those who have no idea of who he was or what he has done for them?
Still, it will soon be Easter morning. And I know who will have the last "Laugh Out Loud."*

[* in case you can't read it, the graffiti says 'LOL at Jesus' - i.e. laugh out loud...]

Off with his head...

Last night our church was full as we hosted the annual Carluke Churches' "Palm Sunday Praise" service.

We had, as our special guest, the amazing Steve Price, who describes himself as a "Gospel Illusionist."

As well as being a highly-skilled conjuror, he is also a very witty entertainer, so we all had a real fun-filled evening. The singing wasn't bad either and, as usual, I got a lot of enjoyment out of playing in the band.

Steve uses his 'magical' skills to convey a Christian message and he does it very professionally, with a great sense of comic timing.

I'm sure there are some people who think that Jesus was really just some kind of illusionist when it came to performing miracles, like walking on water, or turning water into wine etc. For such sceptics the Easter story must seem like the ultimate conjuring trick. But for those of us who believe there is no illusion about it: it is instead the ultimate reality.

PS. In case, you are wondering... although the guillotine chopped the carrots clean through, the young man's head stayed firmly on his shoulders.