holy week

Wrestling with God: A Reflection for Holy Week (Monday 14th April 2025)

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A vibrant painting with a red background depicts a dynamic biblical scene. On the right, an angel with golden wings wrestles with a man in a blue robe, their bodies locked in struggle. In the center, a small goat stands near a tree with a gnarled trunk. On the left, several figures in white and blue robes, possibly women, sit and observe the scene, set against a backdrop of green hills and a dramatic sky. The overall mood is intense and symbolic, capturing a moment of spiritual conflict.

Given at St Mary’s, Potterne

Genesis 32. 22-32

“Oh, sorry Vicar!” People often say that when after they’ve just had a good swear in front of me. A vicar is, of course, the sort of person you shouldn’t use foul language in front of. He – or, she, these days – is a very prim and proper person who would never swear, any more than they would drink, and blushes to hear even the first syllable of the word balderdash.

A classical painting depicts a dramatic scene of two figures engaged in a struggle. One figure, dressed in a red and white robe, appears to be a man with a beard, gripping the other tightly. The second figure, with wings and curly hair, is likely an angel, wearing a white garment. They are locked in an intense wrestle, set against a muted, earthy background, suggesting a moment of spiritual or physical conflict.
Rembrandt, Jacob Wrestling with An Angel (1659). Hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

And God is often perceived by the same people, in the unlikely event He exists at all, as a sort of Supervicar, very prim and priggish, in front of whom you want to be on your best behaviour—because if God does exist, and He finds out what’s really going on in your head, then you’re in big trouble.

The same people sometimes tell me that they’d like to believe in God—they envy people who have Faith, they tell me, envy the meaning and purpose our lives and envy our strong sense of community. Of course, we Christians know that we’re actually a bit more prone to isolation and drifting than that, but let’s roll with the idea… These people tell me they envy us our Faith, but they struggle the idea of a God who created life to include the harsh realities of suffering and pain. Because why would a supervicar do that?

The Bible paints a picture of God that is far from a supervicar. Far from expecting blind obedience, in tonight’s reading, God is presented as a mysterious stranger who proactively seeks out Jacob for a good bout of wrestling that lasts all night – we all know about wrestling with God all night don’t we? When dawn breaks, the stranger has not defeated Jacob, who is still battling gamely with Him, although He has been left with a limp from a blow to the hip.

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Reflection on ‘Judgement’ for Holy Week; Monday 3 April 2023

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A medieval church, St Mary's in Potterne, brilliantly lit in golden colour by bright evening sun.

Given at St Mary’s, Potterne

Matthew 25. 31-40

Do we want to live in a universe where Jimmy Saville got away with it?

A medieval church, St Mary's in Potterne, brilliantly lit in golden colour by bright evening sun. Some tombstones are in the churchyard, also brilliantly lit, and a few primroses are just visible
I walked over the fields on a gorgeous spring evening to this wonderful church and then gave a reflection on judgement, damnation, and one of the vilest characters ever to disgrace British public life… © Gerry Lynch, 3 April 2023.

I found myself asking this as I prepared the readings for tonight’s service. Many of us will know the famous parable of the sheep and the goats that our bible reading tonight came from. It was rather too long for this short service, so I left out the bit about what happens to the goats. I left out the bit that may be the most important for us to hear, because I didn’t want to frighten or upset anyone.

The idea of God as divine judge is frightening and upsetting. Maybe, however, that’s no bad thing. It’s a pity that Jimmy Saville wasn’t a bit more afraid of being judged by God.

The Church has in recent decades downplayed the idea of divine judgement. It wanted to be positive, to celebrate the best in humanity; it often said that judgement really wasn’t what Jesus Christ, Love incarnate, was about. People weren’t fooled. They knew this was a rewrite of what Christianity had always said. You can’t escape for too long that the Biblical record is pretty clear that Jesus did talk a lot about judgement. Worse yet, nobody seemed much interested in this rewrite, which is probably part of the story of why the churches slowly emptied. If we don’t need redeeming from our sins, then why do we need a saviour?

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Celebrity and Humility: Sermon Preached on Sunday 2nd April 2023 (Palm Sunday)

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Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot and Holy Cross, Seend

Philippians 2. 5–11; Matthew 21. 1–11

If Jesus made his second coming in the near future, how would we know about an event like his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday? I suspect we might learn about it from TikTok, or a YouTube video, probably made by one of the army of professional YouTubers trying to cash in on Jesus’ popularity.

When I talk to primary school children, one of the most common things that both boys and girls say they want to be when they grow up is a “YouTuber”. You might wonder if that can actually be a job. Well, the highest paid video-maker on YouTube in 2020 earned US$26 million in that year alone. He is a boy from Texas called Ryan Kaji who reviews toys, and 2020 was the year in which he had his ninth birthday.

A watercolour painting in dull colours by James Tissot of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey carrying a palm surrounded by cheering crowds.
James Tissot, The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem, (1886-94). Hangs in the Brooklyn Museum

So, the Palm Sunday story should resonate powerfully in our era of celebrity. Jesus rides into town like a king, and He is quite conscious of what he is doing; He seeks to fulfil Hebrew prophecy, with a direct quote from Zechariah. What comes next has clearly been carefully thought through, and Jesus seems to have made preparations for His triumphant entry to the Holy City with people in Jerusalem who call him “the Master”, but who aren’t known by even the closest disciples who have travelled with him from Galilee. The crowds greet Jesus like a conquering king entering his new capital, spreading their cloaks in front of him and forming a guard of honour.

Today, we break the story here, with Jesus the darling of the masses. Yet within just a few days, the story will take a dramatic twist. To be a darling of the crowd and greeted as a coming king is, needless to say, a serious threat to the actual kings and rulers of a society. The authorities soon launch a campaign of black propaganda against this preacher who some people see as a prophet. The propaganda is effective and soon enough the masses turn against Jesus. When He is brutally executed just five days later, those members of Sunday’s crowd who come to see Jesus on the Cross do so not to cheer, but to jeer.

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For the Were Afraid: Sermon Preached on 4th April 2021 (Easter Day)

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Josef Žáček, Resurrection (1988). which hangs in the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice, Czechia.

Preached at St John’s, Devizes

Readings – 1 Corinthians 15: 1–11; Mark 16:1–8

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

May I speak in the name of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Josef Žáček, Resurrection (1988). which hangs in the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice, Czechia.
Josef Žáček, Resurrection (1988). which hangs in the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice, Czechia.

When I was boy, the local radio station my mother always listened to in the morning had a daily feature of the wackiest snippets from the day’s papers. One Easter week, it told the story of a church on the previous Sunday, that I seem to remember was in Devon. When the parishioners arrived for the main Easter Day Eucharist, they were told that their newly installed vicar, the Reverend So-and-so, had died suddenly on the afternoon of Good Friday. Nonetheless, his wife had battled on to make the church bright and full of new life for Easter morning. The show must go on and all that.

The parishioners were distraught, some openly weeping as the service began, with a strangely hollow Gloria and then the readings. At the end of the Gospel, some strange bumping noises began to be heard from the giant, two metre-high, papier maché egg, that some of the churchgoers only at that point noticed was stationed just below the pulpit. Soon, holes began to be punched in the egg from the inside by a pair of furious fists. Suddenly, out jumped the vicar, with a cry of “Surprise!

He said his aim was to allow the parishioners to actually feel the sense of shock that the first disciples felt when they realised that Jesus had actually risen from the dead. The parishioners were, however, deeply unimpressed. I think they must have written some stiff letters to the Bishop of Exeter afterwards.

I can promise you that I shan’t resort to such histrionics at any point in my time with you at St John’s. That Devon vicar from 35 years or so ago clearly made a rather crude error of judgement. Yet, for all its emotionally manipulative crassness, his stunt did get across one easily missed point; the experience of the Resurrection was, at least at first, deeply disturbing and upsetting.

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