3/4/22
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, Nicholas Markell
from 'Walking the Way of the Cross', Church House Publishing, 2013
Dates for your diary
Postponed until 7th May - Howay day
10am - 1pm
Wed 6 Apr - Living in Love & Faith, evening Lent course
7pm at St James
Thurs 7 Apr - St John's weekday service
10.30am at St John's
Fri 8 Apr - Living in Love & Faith, morning Lent course
11am at St Margaret's
Holy week 10 - 16 April
Compline: Mon - Wed at Ven Bede
Palm Sunday: 10 Apr - 11am at Ven Bede
Maundy Thursday: 14 Apr - 7.30pm at St John's
Good Friday: 15 Apr at St Margaret's, 1pm stations of the cross; 2pm liturgy of G.Friday
The Easter liturgy: Sat 16 Apr - 8.30pm at St James'
Sun 1 May - Hub service moves to St James
11am at St James'
Sun 7 May - Howay day (new date)
10am - 1pm
News
Sunday school is on this Sunday!
Fun activities to help kids engage with the Bible and worship.
Primary school-age are welcome to join us in the hall for the first part of the service, and we will return to the church in time for communion.
There will be several DBS checked volunteers at each session. For more info speak to Dominic or Claire.
Holy Week, begins Sunday 10th April
Join us from next Sunday for the most special time in the church's year. As we journey through Holy Week we recall the story of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection.
Flowers for Holy Week
We are welcoming donations towards the flowers for Holy Week and Easter to get our churches looking great.
Please just speak to Elspeth Kirkwood or Liz and Olwyn if you would like to make a donation or if you would like to help with creating the displays.
Show your heart campaign
Our artist in residence, Artep Avordno has been creating a giant orange heart with local people, now on display outside St James.
The heart is based on the colours of the refugee flag and other orange hearts will be displayed at landmarks all over the country.
This is part of the campaign organised by 'Together with refugees' to show support for refugees and call on the government to amend the 'Nationality and borders bill' which seeks to criminalise refugees and prevent them entering our country.
Ukraine appeal
USPG and the Church of England Diocese in Europe need your help to support humanitarian work both in Ukraine and with refugees fleeing into neighbouring countries. Churches and agencies are already responding to the crisis. This appeal will provide critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of people still in Ukraine and those who have left as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.
Living in Love and Faith - Lent course 2022
How do questions about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage fit within the bigger picture of the good news of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to live in love and faith together as a Church?
For 5 weeks during Lent we will follow the Church of England's Living in Love and Faith course.
Group 1:
Wednesdays, 7pm at St James
(16, 23, 30 Mar & 6 Apr)
Group 2:
Fridays, 11am at St Margaret's
(18, 25 Mar & 1, 8 Apr)
St John's Thursday service this week 10.30am
Join us this Thursday morning, 7th April, for a service of Holy Communion and fellowship with the lovely people of St John's Benwell Village. You will find us on Ferguson Lane, NE15 6NW, next to Green Tree Nursery.
Worship Texts
The Collect
Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Isaiah 43.16–21
Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
Philippians 3.4b–14 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Gospel
John 12.1–8 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
Sermon
Today is Passion Sunday the start of Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent this week and next week which we call ‘Holy Week.’ Our focus in these weeks is increasingly on Christ’s Passion.
Passion here has a special meaning one quite different from the everyday use of the word, it is nothing to do with enthusiasm or romantic love. Surprisingly the word comes from a Latin word ‘passio’ which can be translated as to suffer, but is more than that, it is where we get the word passive from, it means something that happens to you, something over which you have no control.
For Jesus, as Fr Timothy Radcliffe puts it, ‘It all begins with his condemnation to death. This is when he enters into his passion. It is not just that he suffers; that had begun long before. “Passion” literally means that things are done to him. He is treated as an object. He is condemned; he is made to carry a cross; he is overcome by exhaustion; he is nailed, pierced, killed, and buried.’
These are the realities we are asked to reflect on in these coming days. They are not pleasant things; they can make us feel uncomfortable or want to turn away. So why do we do it? Well certainly not out of any macabre sensationalism nor to make us feel bad about ourselves. The real reason is simply to draw closer to Jesus and in doing so come to see how he draws closer to us.
None of us goes through life without times of tribulation we may not experience the extremes that Jesus does but that sense of a loss of control is a very human experience. Looking at his passion we can come to see how as Radcliffe puts it
‘He is with us every time we feel our lives are not in our own hands, when we feel pushed around, subject to humiliation, victimized and used, drifting helpless towards death’.
So how might we do it? Well, these words come from a little book introducing ‘the stations of the cross’. The Stations is a traditional devotional exercise intended to help us as we focus on the passion of Christ. It can be used in a group or by individuals. It is often said during Lent and Passiontide, and we will be using it as part of our Good Friday Service at St Margaret’s.
How did it come about? As Radcliffe points out God is everywhere and can be worshipped wherever we are- ‘in Spirit and in truth’. But Christian faith also believes that in Jesus, God chose to reveal Himself in a particular time and in a particular place. Early in the church’s life the believers felt the pull of holy places and by making pilgrimages to those special spots felt they were able to draw closer to God. No places were more strongly associated with Jesus than the places of His Passion. The via dolorosa or sad way/road, the route He walked to the crucifixion, became a hugely popular place of pilgrimage, as it still is today, to go to walk in His steps, to try and feel as he must have felt. The stations of the cross grew out of that experience. For many people travel to the Holy Land was impractical, especially in times of war or strife, but by setting up a mini via dolorosa in every church or parish, it became possible for people everywhere to share in that experience. Born out of necessity this became something greater, a wonderful manifestation of how the universal compassion of Christ made real in one particular location then extends to every locality and community.
Stations simply means a stopping place, places on the route where Jesus Himself may have stopped, places to stop and reflect in our turn.
The traditional devotion has fourteen such stops as you can see around the church today, they can be marked with a simple cross or more elaborate illustration to aid meditation.
In making the devotion in the customary way worshippers gather at each stop and have a time of prayer and reflection. By the end of the devotion, it is as if we have made a real journey and finish in a different place to where we began. I first properly experienced this in Belfast on placement while training for ordination in 1984. It was a time of civil conflict violence and anxiety. I vividly recall one church where the stations of the cross were carvings, but the faces of the roman soldiers had all been broken off. The priest explained ‘Roman Brits’. The sense of identifying with the scene had gone as far as to inspire some to vandalism -not what was intended but an example of how the stations can touch deep emotions. My own experience of joining in was at Clonard Monastery on the Falls Road where I was staying. I was a little unsure about all the trappings of Catholic faith. I felt a bit guilty about it, but I took down the enormous crucifix that was right over my bed and put it in the cupboard, there was no way I could sleep with that there. So, when it came to the stations, I didn’t really know what to expect or how to join in. I need not have worried. With loving companions walking with me I became vividly aware of how as we accompany Jesus we do so alone, but not alone, we walk as his companions did, the disciples, the women and above all his mother, and as we walk with them, we can begin to look on the passion with their eyes their sense of loss of shame of grief but above all with the sense of the infinite love and pity with which He returns their gaze. That changes us.
On Good Friday we will have the devotion at 1.00pm we may not process in the traditional way, but we will reflect on each station, the Good Friday Liturgy then continues at 2.00pm and you can join for all or part. This year sadly we are not having our walk of witness in Benwell.
Join us if you can but even if not try and reflect on the passion in these coming days, perhaps make time to read the story over in one of the gospels, read slowly, pause, and try and imagine the scene. Pray quietly, use your own words or just something simple the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary or the Jesus Prayer-Lord Jesus Christ Son of the Living God Have mercy on me a sinner.
And make sure to come next Sunday too, Palm Sunday when the Passion will be at the heart of the service as different voices tell the story, there may still be time to take part if you ask Dominic.
A final word from Fr Radcliffe
Each station recalls a moment when Jesus stopped…. He stops to talk to people in compassion; he stops when he falls to the ground out of exhaustion, unable to carry on; he stops at Golgotha because that is the end of the road. Jesus is close to us when we too are stopped in our tracks and wonder whether we can carry onanymore. We may be halted by illness or failure, by grief or despair. But Jesus carries on , making his slow way to the cross and to the resurrection, and brings us with himself in hope. Let us set out.
Amen
Intercessions
To add names to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
Prayers for others:
Nadia
Batoul Malayeri
George Irving
Alistair
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Peter Wilson
Michelle Wilson
Liz Holliman
Joan Finley
James, Christina, Anastasia, and Xavier
The Riches Family
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Baptisms
Ava Midlemiss
Those preparing for baptism at Easter
Rest in peace
Mark Coulson
Other intentions
Ukraine, Yemen, Ethiopia and all places at war.
Post Communion prayer
Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.
Amen.