Do this in Remembrance

I am running only a skeleton service here during this Holy Week. My mind isn't fully on temporal matters, as I've found as I grow older that Easter becomes more and more important as a time for thought and consideration. Housman's 'Cherry Tree' from the Shropshire Lad (you should know this too) gets harder to recite once you hit 60. 

As John Betjeman wrote, though oddly about Christmas 'And is it true, and is it true, that most tremendous tale of all?' If it is true, of course, the world is one sort of place. If not, it is another. I have always been most persuaded of its truth by the story of the Supper at Emmaus, brief and unsettling, full of human doubt and inability to see what is in front of your nose because it does not fit with what you think. The words (presumably of Cleopas ) 'Abide with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent' are mysteriously moving (this is to be found in what Mr Slippery, who is being Christian this week, calls 'The Book of Luke', more generally known as the Gospel according to St Luke, the 24th Chapter)

Something about the weather and the sky at this time of year, combined with my good fortune in having many times visited Jerusalem (where General Gordon became convinced that Golgotha was on what is now the site of the East Jerusalem bus station, a theory which led to the creation of the only Protestant shrine in that city, the – enchanting but unproven – Garden Tomb) makes each spring twilight very poignant. It is easy to imagine the surreptitious gathering, the expedition to the Garden of Gethsemane (gardens are everywhere in the Bible, and a tiny trace of Gethsemane still, astonishingly, survives), while the arresting party assembles, Judas nerves himself for his treacherous kiss,  and then the chilly early morning where Peter warms himself by the fire and betrays his master, and the agitators prepare the mob for the show trial, and the orchestrated calls for the release of Barabbas, which will follow soon afterwards.

Oddly enough these scenes only came fully to life for me when I read Mikhail Bulgakov's difficult, confusing but often enthralling 'The Master and Margarita', in which Pilate appears as a fictional character. Suddenly, in my imagination, an old, stiff black-and-white woodcut of Easter, filled with rather dark colour and became fluid and alive and rather frightening. It has ever since. And as I observe the world, I see the truth of (who said this?) the statement that the Crucifixion and Resurrection did not just happen once. They are happening, again and again, all the time.

On Thursday night, Maundy Thursday, find a quiet place to listen out and see if you can hear ordinary time  falling into step with eternity.