Even the stones will cry out

Dear friends

We have come to the culmination of Lent. In church a distinctive series

of services through Holy Week will invite us to make the journey with

Jesus into Jerusalem and remember together the events at the heart of

the Christian faith, almost in real time.

We begin with Palm Sunday, telling the story of crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem with so much noise and enthusiasm that the authority figures rebuked him – telling him to control his followers and silence them. Intriguingly his response was that if the people were silent: “Even the stones will cry out”

And so it would be.

On Good Friday we tell of the hours when the voices fell silent at the footof the cross, darkness fell as Jesus died and his body was placed in a stone tomb. The first sign of resurrection on the third day – Easter Sunday – was a message from a stone, the stone rolled away to reveal

the empty tomb. He is not here, he is risen!

Even the stones cry out a deep conviction that this reversal, this

resurrection from death is a triumph for the whole creation. God’s love,God’s life-giving love which holds everything in being, really is stronger than all that tries to silence it.

This year Good Friday falls on 18th April which is the anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of St Matthew’s church. Mrs Elizabeth Mallock laid the first stone for the church on land donated by her family which enabled it to be built. A stone laid and built on to cry out the faith that God’s stronger-than-death-love is present in this and every community, for everyone.

Stones that keep faith.

Today, stones in the place where Jesus walked are crying out for peace,

for reconciliation, for the overcoming of hatred. The stones of so many

places in our world are crying out in the same yearning for the triumph of love to overcome the forces of death.

Perhaps it is our turn to take up the cry of the stones, to allow this week that carries us to Easter to strengthen us with the faith they keep – that we really are part of the story of love overcoming hatred. That we are part of the story of love overcoming death. In what ways might we share the mission of love’s triumph in the world this week?

How might we cry out and live out the message that God’s love is stronger than death this Holy Week?

God bless,

Samantha