The Methodist Church Registered Charity no. 1132208
Jesus is at the centre riding a donkey, with a foal or colt, along a sunlit road lined with sunflowers. There is no obvious depiction of Jerusalem, no garments or palm-tree branches cast before Jesus, but there is a joyous crowd with bunting and decorations. Various flags are flown, some on their side or upside down. The figure to the right, at a window, may be Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to see Jesus. Luke records this as happening at Jericho, but it is often included in the Entry into Jerusalem. The rich luminous colours recall medieval stained glass. When commissioned to undertake this work for the Collection in 1990, Norman Adams replied ‘I would like to do this very much ... It is a wonderful subject’.
Read Matthew Chapter 21 especially verses 6 - 11 The disciples went and did what Jesus had told them to do: they brought the donkey and the colt, threw their cloaks over them, and Jesus got on. A large crowd of people spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds walking in front of Jesus and those walking behind began to shout, "Praise to David's Son! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise be to God!" When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was thrown into an uproar. "Who is he?" the people asked. "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee," the crowds answered.
Ride on, ride on in majesty! Hark, all the tribes 'Hosanna!' cry; your humble beast pursues its road with palms and scattered garments strowed.
The Peasant Wedding Feast by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1586 oil on canvas, 114 x 164 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
The bride is in front of the green textile wall-hanging, with a paper-crown hung above her head. She is also wearing a crown on her head, and she is sitting passively, not participating in the eating or drinking taking place around her. The Bridegroom is not in attendance of the wedding feast in accordance to Flemish custom. The feast is in a barn in the summertime; two sheaves of grain with a rake recalls the work that harvesting involves, and the hard life peasants have. The plates are carried on a door off its hinges. The main food was bread, porridge and soup. Other features of the scene include two pipers playing the pijpzak, an unbreeched boy in the foreground licking a plate, and the wealthy man at the far right feeding a dog by putting bread on the bench. The scene is claimed to depict an accurate portrayal of the 16th-century way of celebrating a peasant wedding. Some argue that it is a presentation of the mystical Wedding of Cana. Others speculate that the painting was a Christian allegory, symbolizing corruption, depicting the corrupted Church, which was supposed to be the bride of Christ, but the groom has not appeared to claim his corrupt bride.
The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is his new creation by water and the word: from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy Bride; with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.
Samuel John Stone (1839-1900) Read Matthew Chapter 22 especially verse 1 - 14
Jesus again used parables in talking to the people. "The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. He sent his servants to tell the invited guests to come to the feast, but they did not want to come. So he sent other servants with this message for the guests: 'My feast is ready now; my steers and prize calves have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!' But the invited guests paid no attention and went about their business: one went to his farm, another to his store, while others grabbed the servants, beat them, and killed them. The king was very angry; so he sent his soldiers, who killed those murderers and burned down their city. Then he called his servants and said to them, 'My wedding feast is ready, but the people I invited did not deserve it. Now go to the main streets and invite to the feast as many people as you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, good and bad alike; and the wedding hall was filled with people. "The king went in to look at the guests and saw a man who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' the king asked him. But the man said nothing. Then the king told the servants, 'Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him outside in the dark. There he will cry and gnash his teeth.' " And Jesus concluded, "Many are invited, but few are chosen." The Pharisees went off and made a plan to trap Jesus with questions. REFLECTION:
Jesus and the Hens 1954 by Stanley Spencer (1891 – 1959) from his series “Christ In The Wilderness” in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
This is one of an unfinished series of 40 paintings Stanley Spencer planned, each depicting a scene from the 40 days Jesus was in the wilderness. Christ’s body encircles the mother hen and her chicks, affording them protection. But is also pondering them. One little chick peaks out at the world from under its mother’s wing, another pecks at the ground and yet another emerges from under Christ’s garment. The cockerels moving in the background signal to us that Spencer’s Christ is focused on the maternal love of the hen for her chicks. Jesus gathers the hen as the hen gathers her chicks, is he protecting her from the cockerel on the outside? Are there other hens outside of his protection? Interestingly, Christ here is posed not unlike the mother of the child Jesus in a nativity scene by Giotto. In the life of a family there are moments which are precious but which the parent knows will not last. Children grow up and away. Parents grow old and die.
And yet here, Spencer, who had lost his own family home, through an affair, shows this transient maternal love enfolded in Christ’s enduring love. This idea of God’s love as maternal goes back a long way. The pelican who fed her own blood to her young was a symbol of Christ for early Christians. In Chapter 60 of her “Revelations of Divine Love” Julian of Norwich describes Christ’s love in terms of a mother’s love for her children. But she notes that unlike a natural mother, who must bring us into the world to suffer and die, Christ “bears us into joy and eternal life”. “And when it was finished and he had born us to bliss, even this could not fully satisfy his marvellous love; and that he showed in these high surpassing words of love, “If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.” ” Brother Lawrence: (Lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in 17th century – sought for his wisdom)
My most usual method is simple attentiveness and a loving gaze upon God, to whom I often feel united with more happiness and gratification than those of a baby at its mother's breast. Indeed, such is the inexpressible felicity I have experienced that I would willingly dare to call this state "the breasts of God."
Read Matthew Chapter 23 especially verse 37 - 39 Jesus said: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me! And so your Temple will be abandoned and empty. From now on, I tell you, you will never see me again until you say, 'God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord.' " There's a quiet understanding when we're gathered in the Spirit, it's a promise that he gives us, when we gather in his name. There's a love we feel in Jesus, there's a manna that he feeds us, it's a promise that he gives us when we gather in his name.
Based on John 1:45-51 The story of Nathaniel is an unusual subject for a painting. Here, he is lying under a fig tree, prior to his calling by Philip, apparently naked. Cazalet suggests Nathaniel knew that Jesus had seen him in his entirety. The modelling of the figure, which is an unrealistic deep reddy-brown, is very sculptural. The ground is sketched in, with the dappled shadow of the fig tree. The tree is botanically inaccurate but fits the artist’s purpose to portray it as an image of fruitfulness and consistency. Cazalet has tried to capture the nub of the story, particularly Nathaniel’s bizarre response to Jesus’ comment, and to suggest something unusual about the narrative. The simplicity of the composition captures the simplicity of the story, the ‘metaphysical moment when every part of Nathaniel was “seen” by Christ’. This picture helps tie together this story with the warning about the fig tree in Matthew 24, and also the disciples who fall asleep in the garden on the Mount of Olives. We are all warned to stay awake and be ready for when the time comes, and we face Jesus. Note the roots of the fig tree are like the feet of Jesus.
Read Matthew Chapter 24 especially verse 32 - 36 "Let the fig tree teach you a lesson. When its branches become green and tender and it starts putting out leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, you will know that the time is near, ready to begin. Remember that all these things will happen before the people now living have all died. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. "No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come – neither the angels in heaven nor the Son; the Father alone knows. Fear not, rejoice and be glad, The Lord hath done a great thing; Hath poured out His Spirit on all mankind, on those who confess His name. The fig tree is budding, the vine beareth fruit, the wheat fields are golden with grain. Thrust in the sickle, the harvest is ripe, the Lord has given us rain.
Priscilla Wright Porter (born 1928) Though the fig tree doesn’t blossom and no ripened grapes appear, Though the harvest fails and fields provide no food; I’ll be joyful in my Saviour, the Lord who is my strength; He will keep my ways and lead me in His truth.
HOME MEDITATIONS FOR HOLY WEEK 2020 Maundy Thursday
This is a page from “The Road of Courage” drawn by Frank Hampson who was one of the illustrators of the “Eagle” magazine with which I grew up, you might recognise the style from “Dan Dare”. “Eagle” was set up by Rev Marcus Morris to both entertain but also inform and teach religion and morals. An early form of this strip was serialised in the first editions.
Read Matthew Chapter 26 especially verse 17 – 30
1. An Upper Room did our Lord prepare for those he loved until the end: And his disciples still gather there to celebrate their Risen Friend.
2. A lasting gift Jesus gave his own: to share his bread, his loving cup.
Whatever burdens may bow us down, He by his Cross shall lift us up. Fred Pratt Green 1903–2000
Description: This seemingly simple image is in fact a very sophisticated construct of space and colour. The unflinching identification of Christ’s pain does not wholly negate the image’s immediate playfulness. The artist referred to the crucifixion as ‘the most horrific story I have ever heard’ and so there was no need to highlight the suffering: any depiction was enough to recall all its mystery, terror and wonder. A Bedlington terrier dog was originally shown at the foot of the cross. A printer trying to help finish the work added a tiny detail to the dog’s head but, on seeing it, the artist erased the dog completely. However, its ghostly outline is still visible to the bottom left hand side of the cross.
Peter’s Comment: Aitchison wrote: “The picture I hope clearly tells a story, which is what paintings at the beginning were intended to do”. This is not your expected image of the Crucifixion, nor is it easy to see. Is it too clever or trying to be humorous? His fascination with Christ’s Passion dates back to his schooldays, when Glasgow Corporation made the headlines by paying a large sum for a crucifixion scene by Salvador Dali. ‘I went to see it, and although it was a long time after that that I started painting crucifixions, it stuck in my mind. It [Christ’s Passion] is a horrific story, and I think more worth trying to say something about than anything that’s happened since.’ He included his Bedlington Terriers in his many paintings of the Crucifixion saying: ‘It makes them look sadder, if there’s an animal there getting in a state.’ He painted hundreds of Crucifixion pictures, every one different, although he didn’t profess to be religious he was so fascinated that he kept trying to paint it differently “it is worth trying to do a better version each time. I’m always trying to get one which I might just stop at and not do it again.” Do we look at the Crucifixion afresh each year? What does it say to us this year?
Read Matthew Chapter 27 v 1 - 56 3 Would I have matched my step with yours when crowds cried, ‘Crucify!’, when on a rocky hill I saw a cross against the sky? Or would I too have slipped away and left you there alone, a dying king with crown of thorns upon a terrible throne?
Verse 3 from “Would I have answered when you called?” Hermann G Stempfle (1923–2007) Singing the Faith 674
Michel Onfray writes: This painting’s highly unusual dimensions (30.5 x 200 cm) make it a unique object in the history of iconography. In my eyes at least, because entering this work is like entering a coffin to see what’s happening inside. Which is nothing, apart from a dead body, a corpse – motionless for all eternity. But take a look at his face. This corpse doesn’t look as dead as all that. The mouth open, eyes too, you might just be able to hear, at least in a virtual sense, the final breath; you might guess the presence of the Holy Spirit. The viewer sees Christ seeing: he might also perceive what death has in store, because he’s staring at the heavens, while his soul is probably there already. No one has taken the trouble to close his mouth and his eyes. Or else Holbein wants to tell us that, even in death, Christ still looks and speaks.
Read Matthew Chapter 27 v 57 - 66
The cross still stands on Calv'ry hill, tree of a new and blessed life; And in a garden close at hand the Lord of life and death lies still.
The peace of death enfolds him now, anguish and pain can do no more. The Victor-Victim for our sins, He sleeps awhile to rise again.
Mount Saint Bernard Abbey
REFLECTION:
After the sound and fury comes the silence. After the Work of Christ is done, the Lord of Life sleeps. After the suffering comes soothing death. After the glory of the Cross comes the anonymity of the tomb.
This is such a quiet time, Lord, Wrap me up in its quietness As I contemplate your Son wrapped in his grave cloths Waiting in his tomb for your victory to be revealed.
This is such a quiet time for us all, Lord, A time of aloneness and helplessness A time when everyday life is a waiting game Bound hard by restrictions, anxiety and sorrow.
Lord, I bring to you in prayer today All those who are waiting: Waiting for news, for diagnosis, for treatment; Waiting for healing or release; Waiting for life to get back to normal.
Read Matthew Chapter 28 The Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed! Praise God.
1 Christ the Lord is risen today; Alleluia! 2 Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! Fought the fight, the battle won; Alleluia! Vain the stone, the watch, the seal; Alleluia! Christ hath burst the gates of hell: Alleluia! 4 Lives again our glorious king; Alleluia! Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia! Once he died our souls to save Alleluia! Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!
Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
In 2012 Si Smith, an artist and illustrator produced a set of 12 Stations of the Resurrection entitled “Raised in Leeds”. If you know the city you would recognise the various places where the Bible account has been set. Si imagines it happens today. As we go about our everyday business, we too can meet the risen Jesus.
1) “Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb”, shows Mary getting up early to go to the body. Note the flowers left like a shrine by the door, the Policemen (guards) asleep in their car and the angel looking down from the top window.
2) “The disciples run to the empty tomb”, shows Peter & John rushing to see what has happened. Note the sun rising; the light shining; the cracks on the pavement after the earthquake which moved the stone and has shaken up the world; the folded clothe and the empty coffin they see inside.
What could this scene look like it our community? Has the news of resurrection shaken you today? Celebrate the raising of Jesus, who is alive and with us now.
