fidzbit

Today is Palm Sunday. I don’t fast for Lent but, by this point in time, I imagine that those who do are really beginning to crave chocolate. There is something about abstinence  - forced or voluntary - which makes us hunger and thirst for the thing we are lacking. As they say, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. The new highlight of my day is the 30 minutes exercise and essential shopping trip. In normal times we might try to avoid the menial chores  (“It’s your turn, I did it yesterday”) but it will probably not be long before my wife and I are competing over who gets to go and buy the milk! Granted this is all pretty mundane but you don’t need to be locked inside for too long before you start appreciating little tastes of the freedoms we normally take for granted. Psalm 27 describes one of the times when David was stuck in the wilderness being hunted like an animal by his enemies. It would have been completely natural for him to start craving his bed, missing his fam...

Do you remember Sundays before they changed the trading laws? I have a vivid childhood memory of how quiet Sunday mornings were then. The only people up and about were those on their way to church. There was very little man made noise. For just a few hours the city paused. It was restful. We live on a main road linking the edge of town with the city centre. It has lots of shops and regular buses. In normal times it never sleeps! But this morning it is quiet. The last few days it has been quiet. It reminds me of those Sundays. It is peaceful. It rarely happens anymore. The normal bustle of life has become wearisome because it is so relentless. It is why many of us put such value in going somewhere more remote for our holidays. Perhaps, like me, you enjoy going to the mountains or the coast to get away - where the only noise is that of the birds, the wind, or the sea. We struggle to rest without peace.  God knows this. He built this need in to us. He set the example, afte...

Since the earliest days the Christian church has met to worship on a Sunday, the day that Jesus rose from the dead. There have been some disagreements between Christians over the details of how exactly this relates to the Old Testament Sabbath. Those arguments are not my concern here! The vast majority of Christians agree that the ‘spirit of the law’ goes back to the creation story. God set a principle of one day in seven for rest and worship and in practice for most Christians this happens on ‘church day’, Sunday. But what happens in times when churches cannot meet, when doctors and nurses have more night shifts than usual, and any of us might find ourselves having to care for sick loved ones? This is a story from Mark’s gospel: Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely  to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.  Jesus said to th...