Palm Crosses

A Christian online resource has just emailed to offer to sell me palm crosses, and it startled me because once again, I find myself moving through Lent without giving it much thought. I wanted to make it more of a pilgrimage this year, but one thing or another intervened and I never got myself organised with focused Lenten meditations or readings, and already we’re looking ahead to Palm Sunday.

I do like the aspect in some church traditions of having liturgical seasons, so that every Sunday one is reminded by the colours of the hangings even, what season it is. Maybe I’m just flighty but I kind of need frequent reminders.

As a teenager, every Lent was marked by one or two sessions of folding palm fronds into crosses to give out on Palm Sunday. I folded so many over those years that I can still perform the intricate folding today. In Scotland palm fronds are hard to come by, so I used to use heavy paper to do it with children in Sunday school. But now you can buy them online and save yourself the bother of folding them.

My memories of the folding of the crosses was not that it was a tedious task but that it was fun to chat and laugh with others as we mindlessly got on with it. Like worries, which once shared are halved, so work like this seems less onerous if done in company.

I say mindlessly got on with it, but actually there were moments when the very act of folding the straight frond into a cross reminded me of just what Jesus did for me. It’s weird that Christians have a symbol which was an instrument of torture, but that symbol means so much. 

Jesus took up the cross, though he was pure and holy, because I am not. He bled and suffered unspeakable horrors and died so that I might live. 

I want to remember that as I walk through the next few weeks of Lent. I want to sense a proper appreciation and respect for his sacrifice. I want to stand with him, symbolically, as we remember his humiliation, his scourging, his crucifixion, so that the full implications of Resurrection Day hit me. 

I can’t say thank you enough to him.

Heady Hyacinths

Three white hyacinths burst forth into bloom last night, spreading a sweet aroma through the room. 

They sit in front of me as I write, and I inhale deeply, savouring their heady scent.

A single pink hyacinth is about to open too, perched on the mantel piece and ready to burst forth.

Smells are so evocative. The smell of hot cross buns as I enter the supermarket takes me straight to Good Friday afternoon, after the 3- hour service at church, when Mom would bake the hot cross buns and Judy and I would frost them, to be eaten with dinner that night and over the ensuing weekend until all were consumed. Sweet memory.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ...’ That is incredible. That we carry the aroma of Christ, the fragrance of the King of Kings. I know someone who is very partial to Chanel; in fact, I am myself; but this is miles better. Imagine being dabbed by the fragrance of Jesus, a perfume mixed of purity and self-sacrifice, love and goodness, mercy and forgiveness, justice and kindness and joy. 

Yes. Those are the ingredients I value in my perfume. I am so grateful that when God the Father catches a whiff of me, it is the whiff of Jesus, and not the noxious whiff I might otherwise emit, a perfume mixed of bitterness and regret, unforgiveness and selfishness, envy and strife and critical thoughts, injustice, meanness and anger.

Thanks be to Jesus for his wonderful aroma of life.

It's the Light

This far north, it’s all about the light.

As spring begins to burst forth in colours – the purples and golden hues of crocus, the mellower yellows of daffodils and the pure white of snowdrops – as it begins to burst forth in sound – the increase in birdsong is just amazing as they all seek out a mate for the year – as it begins to show itself in rising temperatures (except at night) – still, the best thing about the turning of the year towards summer is the return of the light.

Longer days. We’ve not shifted clocks around yet but already I’ve missed the dawn when I walk the dog and I can walk her again at 5.30 or 6 and it is still light. 

And it’s not just light. It’s the quality of the light. There is a golden hue to it somehow, a palpably refreshing tangibility to it which is hard to explain. Maybe it’s because we are emerging from the darkness, where there is a monotony of black and bleak.

Jesus declared himself the light of the world. He himself is light. Without him is only darkness.

Who would choose to live without him?

Glass Half Full

Life’s events can sometimes seem to overtake us, with worries multiplying like rabbits and responsibilities weighing us down. 

Perspective, my dad used to advise. Keep it all in perspective.

Two people can look at the same situation and one sees a half-empty glass while the other sees a half-full glass. Who are you?

The Bible gives good counsel on how to look at life. ‘Don’t worry about anything,’ Paul wrote. ‘Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.’

Thank him for all he has done. What a liberating action that is, because as you mentally revise all he has done, your faith for the future rises and the half-empty glass begins to look half full. 

And what happens when you thank him for all he has done?

‘Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.’ 

Those verses from chapter 4 of Philippians are among my Bible favourites. They are so encouraging, and as you begin to discipline yourself to practice the advice, you find your mood and outlook lifting and the whole perspective shifts. 

You can move from feeling like a victim of life’s circumstances to feeling like a victor, not on your own but with Jesus standing in there with you. 

After you’ve thanked God for everything you can think of (takes a long time if you’re serious about this, and is pretty humbling to recognise so much blessing in your life), Paul goes on to advise what your mind should focus on, and it isn’t your past, or your worries, or the future. It’s on good things, true, honourable, right and pure and lovely – thinking about excellent things raises your perspective another degree or ten.

My glass is more than half full. How about yours?

The Promise of Spring

The sky is blue, with a warm sun beaming down on the northeast of Scotland. Crocus and snowdrops splash their colour amongst the green verges; one or two trees are in blossom.

Spring is on its way.

And yet...

Early this morning, before the sun was properly in place over the country, the temperature was below freezing and there was ice on the roads. And on that ice, one of my dear daughters-in-law skidded her car, landing on its roof in the field. 

Mercifully, God was riding in the car with her, and she emerged without a scratch, much to the paramedics’ amazement. 

God can do more than we ask or imagine.

Is it coincidence that her husband, Jamie, our eldest son, is en route to Africa for a two week stint of work bringing development and conflict resolution to some deprived and unquiet areas? You may draw different conclusions; I know many Christians who don’t really believe in the activity of an enemy in the world, but I know what I think. The enemy is a liar and a deceiver and also a destroyer, and he does whatever he can to subvert the growth of God’s kingdom in the world.

God is loving and merciful, and his ways are mysterious. He doesn’t always protect believers from the consequences of living in this world, but whatever happens, he is always in the car with them. 

Praise Him that this morning, Jesus sat taller than Chrisie did in the front seat, and absorbed the impact on the roof himself. 

He took the hit so she could walk free.

Same thing he did on Calvary. Praise Him!

Spring is indeed on the way.