By Stony Paths: Easter Day
Easter Day Script
Welcome to ‘By Stony Paths, following the way of the Cross. Using scripture, symbols and time for reflection as we journey with Jesus through Holy Week.
Today is Easter Day and our gospel reading is John 20.18 and tells of Jesus’ resurrection
The symbol to go alongside your stone is candle, or a fire.
As we move into this meditation, light your candle (or the fire)
Take time to just watch the flame…
As you watch, let your mind wonder back over the week, the symbols: palm cross, the perfume, seed, something broken, towel and bowl, cross, empty vessel,
Notice what has drawn you through it…
The seeking, desiring… that has brought you back to being with Jesus
What aspects of Jesus have you appreciated more deeply
Is there a resurrection you are seeking for yourself?
Reading: John 20.1-18
Meditation
What a morning for Mary Magdalene. While it was still dark – she finds the tomb opened, she rushes back to the disciples with this horrifying news, chases after Peter and John back to the tomb, watches as Peter charges in and finds empty linen wrappings.
Confused, they return to their homes leaving Mary, weeping, in the quiet company of an empty tomb and an empty garden.
Take time to be with Mary in this quiet
What in you understands her weeping…
Join her as she moves into the tomb to see for herself and meets two angels
Why are you weeping?
Showing the depth of her attachment to Jesus she blurts out ‘he’s been taken away, I don’t know where…’
Then she senses another presence, behind her, is it the gardener who might have done this?
But she hears a response, so familiar ‘Mary’
And there he is, Jesus
Can you feel the lift in her heart? The joy, the delight, the impulse to grasp, to dance…
Can you see the delight on Jesus’ face.
Notice how it is for him…
Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed, Alleluia
As Mary is called on to share this extraordinary good news with the disciples…
What is your sense of the good news of the resurrection? How does it lift you? What impulses emerge from you? Are you being called to share this with someone?
Let your attention come back to the flame.
As you notice it burning, ask the risen Jesus that the light of his resurrection would enable you to share the good news.
The Blessing of God be with us,
(This comes liturgies in ‘Darkness Rising’ a wonderful creative resource for Holy Week by Jim Cotter, Martyn Percy and others.)
Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed, Alleluia
May the blessings of this Holy Week journey, continue to well up in you, living water for the journey of faith and life.
Amen.
Its been a privilege to offer these Holy Week meditations. I would love to know something of how this has helped (or otherwise) you this Holy Week. So do go to my website soulspark.online and to the By Stony Paths page where you can add your comment. You can also sign up for my monthly mailing in which I offer insights and ideas for spiritual growth and ministerial flourishing.
Reflections on Easter Day
Many the time in leading liturgy and meditations through Holy Week, that I’ve got to Holy Saturday night feeling rather spent. The spiritual and emotional energy used in engaging with the journey of Holy Week, and enabling others to engage with it, is used up. This can seem inappropriate when logic suggests that the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection deserves great joy, life, vigour. Indeed it does, but where is it to come from. The energy of the resurrection did not come from some fortitude within Jesus. It was the power of God by the Holy Spirit – thus from beyond his humanity. It is utterly appropriate that coming to celebrate easter we do not know where the life, joy etc to celebrate will come from. But we can let the power of the story, by the work of the Holy Spirit bring life, joy, etc to celebrate.
You may notice in this meditation, I invite you to look at the joy of Jesus as he shows himself alive to Mary Magdalene. It is a wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola to invite those praying the resurrection scenes in the Spiritual Exercises to do this. Once again, he invites this consciousness of God, Christ, the Spirit, wanting us to know how God, Christ and or the Spirit feel about things. This shift away from ‘how do I feel about life etc’ is transforming. It transforms the human ‘I am the centre of things’ tendency to the margins, eclipsed by the wonder of God at the centre of things, and God’s delight to be at the centre of things and relating to me, you and all things. Now there is resurrection life!
2 thoughts on “By Stony Paths: Easter Day”
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Thank you so much, Nick. Sarah and I have followed the podcasts as the backbone of our Holy Week this year and found them very profound and helpful. It’s also been a joy for us to read the psalm together and talk afterwards about what has spoken to us. Reading your very interesting reflections on the process helps me see more of the Ignatian iceberg mostly beneath the surface. Thank you for sharing so generously.
Nick, thank you so much for this inspiring and very helpful series of Passion Week meditations. It really has been the most meaningful of Easter journeys for me.