‘Easter 2020’: A New Poem

On this most unusual of Easters, in the midst of COVID-19, I read this newly written poem by Malcolm Guite:  Easter 2020, “And where is Jesus, this strange Easter day?”.

Malcolm Guite

Like all of us, I have been drawn deeply into this strange Easter when so much of the outwardly familiar has been taken away, and yet the inwardly familiar, the great Easter story of Death and Resurrection, has suddenly been renewed and become more agonisingly close, more vividly relevant to our lives than ever. But, like so many, I am deeply distressed at not being able to gather in church this morning, and to receive communion in community, to meet Christ ‘risen in bread, and revelling in wine’, as I put it in a sonnet long ago. But this Easter he calls me to discern him in new ways and in different places. He is risen indeed, and if I cannot go to church then where am I to find him? That is the question my new poem seeks to address, and if it is a question you ask yourselves…

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Hebrew

I recently heard a reliable anecdote about a senior Hebrew scholar.  He was asked whether Hebrew was difficult to learn.  He answered “Yes, I’ve learned it six times.”

Reading Romans

I’m in the process of studying Romans. My plan was to do a reasonably quick read through in Greek and then work through it with several commentaries, probably focussing on Cranfield and Jewett (and Moo and Barth et al.).  The plan, however, is in imminent danger of collapsing.  I could not resist digging into the issues around Romans 1:16-17, including Paul’s use of Habbakuk 2:4 with reference to both the LXX and Hebrew of Habbakuk.  That in turn raises issues of Paul’s use of passages from the Hebrew Bible; hermeneutical issues raised in Thiselton’s The Two Horizons and The Hermeneutics of Doctrine; large picture issues such as the righteousness of God and justification; etc. etc. 

I recently ran across a reference to a comment by Augustine about the moral dangers of intellectual curiosity.  Perhaps I should take that to heart and march onwards with blinkers?

2 Timothy and Linus

I was recently reading and thinking about 2 Timothy so was interested to see a post by Ben at Dunelm Road.  He draws attention to a passage in Against Heresies (3.3.3) where Irenaeus accepts Paul as the author of 2 Timothy and that Linus in 2 Timothy 4.21 was the first bishop of Rome after the apostles; see here.  Irenaeus says he was writing when Eleutherius was the 12th bishop of Rome after the apostles (somewhere between 174-189).

Thanksgiving and Gratefulness

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada.  Although there are other influences, the roots of the Canadian Thanksgiving are in the Harvest Festival which we inherited from the English and European liturgical traditions.  The Parliamentary legislation fixing the date of the holiday links it directly to thanksgiving to God for the harvest. 

In the modern day many people have no direct connection to the soil or the production of food. But Thanksgiving remains a time of gratitude for all the blessings we enjoy, including many which we in the western world take for granted:  water, food, shelter, healthcare and financial income. 

Thanksgiving and gratefulness is a sometimes difficult but always important part of Christian life.  Paul called on the Ephesians to be “always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”  In a book addressing the “atrophied contemplative faculty” of many in the modern world, Ronald Rolheiser wrote:

The first exercise we must do to restore our contemplative faculty to its full powers is to work at receiving everything – life, health, the people around us, love, friendship, food, drink, sexuality, beauty – as gift.  Becoming a more grateful person is the first and the most important step in overcoming the practical atheism that besets our everyday lives.

(The Shattered Lantern, rev. ed., p. 167)

I have much to be thankful for in my own life, not least the material comfort and comparative wealth of living in the western world.  But thankfulness should go beyond this to include gratitude for God’s steadfast love for us.  I recently finished working through (I hesitate to say reading) Psalm 103 in Hebrew. It begins:

Bless the Lord, O my soul; 
   and all that is within me bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits.

For us, these benefits include God’s radical love for the world, shown in Jesus Christ.  Even in times of trouble, the famous passage at the end of chapter 8 in Romans assures us that we are always secure in “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  For that we should be thankful as well as for the physical blessings in our lives.

May the Lord help me to be grateful to him when times are good – and when life seems full of problems and difficulties. 

One of my favourite hymns is the German Lutheran hymn Nun danket alle Gott.  It is frequently sung at Thanksgiving services; its opening verse expresses the gratitude and thanksgiving which we should remember throughout the year:

Now thank we all our God,
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices;
Who from our mother’s arms
Hath blessed us on our way
With Countless gifts of Love,
And still is ours to-day.