Easter weekend

Thursday night’s Maundy service was excellent. Nick’s points were the three prayers of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. He drew out the fact that Christ’s sorrow in the garden wasn’t simply because he was facing death – many martyrs have faced death joyfully – but that that he was facing the full wrath of the Father. Being God himself, he knew the horror and the anger he faced. Nick also noted that in the garden, Jesus opens his prayers with his customary “Abba, Father” – but on the cross, during the period of darkness, he prays “My God, my God”…the father-son relationship had been severed at that point as God the Father poured out His judgement. Yesterday, Good Friday, instead of focusing on the suffering, he looked at Jesus’ compassion on the cross, how he prayed for his persecutors. It was really another good service. We had it at Sandy Bay at 10 am, a combined service, and the little chapel was packed. It was a blessing to hear the congregation singing together so heartily in the little building. The Jamestown group sang an item, and the Sandy Bay group did one too. After the service, we joined Elza and Sarel, Dot and Iva at Steve and Maureen’s house for a cup of tea and jaffa cakes. It was so nice to be invited out for tea afterwards! We came home at about 12.30, and then had lunch of hamburgers at about 1.30 – quite a late lunch for us. It was such a hot day, even in the country, that we didn’t actually feel that we wanted to go anywhere, preferring the relative coolth of our own home. I sat outside crocheting while Nick played cricket with the boys, and then Nick did some more work on the wall while I rested and the boys played outside. Supper was pizza, which we took to the docks, and watched the sun set. It was a rare privilege to see it actually dip into the sea, because the sunsets are often obscured by a cloud bank. Sunset is now at 6.21 pm. We thought about the fact that on Good Friday, Jesus’ body would have been taken down from the cross before sunset, so for the disciples and followers all those years ago, it was all over (so they thought). It’s difficult to imagine their intense grief, as not only did they lose a beloved friend, but because they didn’t fully understand what Jesus had been prophesying about his death and resurrection, their hopes for a Messiah had died too.