Blog posts will be released each day until Easter Sunday 4 April

Contributed by Christian members of the Faith and Spirituality Team.

Tuesday

Jesus was a Rabbi (teacher) and throughout the week his main activity was to talk with anyone who would listen. He had a reputation for teaching radical things, not, he said, to abolish the law which Jews observe, but to fulfil it. So, his teaching was not about the letter of the law, but the spirit. And to Jesus the spirit was always love and forgiveness. Many wanted to debate the issues. You can read some of that debate in Mark’s gospel, chapter 11, verse 11, through to chapter 12, verse 37. But if you want a concise summary of the best of Jesus’ teaching, go to Matthew’s gospel and read chapters 5,6,7, what we call “the sermon on the mount.”  From the Iona Community’s Stages on the Way:

It was on the Tuesday
that he gave it to them in the neck.

If you had been there
you would have thought
that a union official was being taken to task
by a group of back bench Tory MPs;
or that the chairman of a multinational
was being interrogated by left wing activists,
posing as shareholders.

They wanted to know why
and they wanted to know how.

They were the respectable men,
the influential men,
the establishment.

The questions they asked
ranged from silly speculations
about whether you would be a bigamist in heaven
if you had married twice on earth,
to what was the central rule of civilized behaviour.

They knew the answers already ….
or so they thought.

And like most of us
they were looking for an argument
with no intention of a change of heart.

But he flailed them with his tongue,
those who tried to look interested
but never wanted to be committed.

And that was on the Tuesday…
the day when he gave it to them…
to us,
in the neck.

Jesus Washes the Disciples feet. Painting by Shirley J. Veater

The material from Iona comes from Stages on the Way, 1998. Copyright(c) WGRG, Iona community, Glasgow Scotland. wilgooselscotland. Reproduced with permission.

Artworks by Shirley Veater used with grateful thanks. www.shirleyveaterdesigns.co.uk