My book ‘Fruit of the Spirit: Reflections on Growing in Christ’ is now available on Amazon!
How can we grow to become more like Christ? Is it just a matter of keeping rules or is there a better way? This collection of reflections on Christian life and growth explores each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit in turn, showing how it applies to our lives, what it might mean to us, and how we can travel and work together with God to grow more of it. Each section also ends with a range of different practical activities to help you build on the reflections and explore for yourself, and there is suggested further reading. Come on a journey of Christian growth and discover how to live a more fruitful life.
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A Thought for the Day for Black Cat Radio – May 2022
Hello
We’ve recently started a wildflower area in our garden at home. I hesitate to call it a meadow because to me that suggests a much bigger area than we’ve got. The ground is cleared of rubbish, raked over, and sown with seeds, which are already beginning to sprout. We’ve been watering as well, although the recent downpours of rain have also helped with that.
Audrey Hepburn is supposed to have said that “To plant a garden is to hope for tomorrow”. I don’t know if she really did, because internet quotes aren’t always reliable, but it’s a lovely thought, nonetheless. I think it’s important to remember that idea of hope. There’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, including the truly horrific school shooting this week in America, and hope doesn’t pretend it’s not there. What hope does do is believe that things will one day get better. Whether you believe in God working in the world to put things right, or in the power of human beings to work together for good, or some combination of those, hope is an important part of being a human being.
Gardens also involve work, though, and so does making our hope into a reality. It’s no good just looking at the ground and wishing something will grow how we want. We have to make the place ready, provide the right conditions, get rid of anything that might choke or stunt the plants we want. Similarly, if we want a better world then we all have something to do. It might be as small as helping a neighbour, or as big as changing our lives to work in a far-off country. Either way, anything we can do is a step in the right direction.
Our attempts might not work out, and sometimes it can all seem too difficult, and we need a break. At those times, maybe the best we do is remember another quote, by Mary Anne Radmacher: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow”.
The American writer Hal Borland is credited with saying “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn”. I love this, as it reminds me that however dark a day might be, either literally or emotionally, there will always be a better time coming up.
It’s especially fitting for this Easter weekend, I think. Having Easter in the spring makes a lot of sense, as it’s a festival about new life and new hope, about seeing the start of something beautiful growing. We’ve had all the darkness of winter and the darkness of Good Friday, and now the light and happiness of spring and new life are here for Easter Day. So many of us celebrate, maybe with chocolate eggs, maybe with a roast dinner, maybe in church. I’ve also been celebrating by filling the garden with new flowers and plants so that it looks colourful and cheerful (even if something has been eating my parsley!). The birds are out and about, squabbling over nests and mates, and I even spotted a couple of hedgehogs on the patio.
All these things are signs that spring is not skipping its turn. They don’t undo the negative things happening in the world, but they do remind us that there’s still a lot of good to be found. Similarly, Easter Day doesn’t pretend that there aren’t problems to be sorted out, but it does say that, despite the worst the world can throw at us, goodness and love will always eventually win out, just as they did on the first Easter Day.
I hope you find joy, blessing and hope this Easter weekend, however you celebrate, and even if you don’t. (And if you know who the parsley thief might be, please let me know!)
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ He answered him, ‘You say so.’ Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, ‘Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.’ But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, ‘Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?’ They shouted back, ‘Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him!’ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.
Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.’ They argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say, “Why then did you not believe him?” But shall we say, “Of human origin”?’—they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’