Week One

Part 1: A man of sorrows…

Jesus’s sojourn among us embodied an ongoing divine message that while sorrow comes and night falls, so too will our hearts fill again and the sun rise.

Read Exodus 20: 1-17

These ancient commandments offer divine way markers towards hope and away from sorrow. They say — remember who I am, remember who you are, remember to rest. Then they offer a roadmap through the heartbreak inevitable in discordant communities found when intimacy, family, rest, the divine, livelihoods and the value of life break down.

There is so much to unpack in this sequence but as a starter let’s consider verse 12 about honouring our mother and father. Who have been the ‘alloparents’ in your life? (The people who were not your parents but who helped raise you and shape who you have become like other family members, neighbours, teachers, Godparents and more). And in an even wider sense who have been your parents in faith? Perhaps people you have never met but who left a legacy which helped guide and inspire you. How can we give all these different kinds of parents honour?

Read Psalm 19

The vivid image of honey speaks of how in the midst of the hurt of life the sweet (and even antibacterial) rules of God bring balm and comfort.

As a group come up with a range of ‘sweet things’ you could do tomorrow to live out God’s love in your local communities.

Read John 14: 1-7

Jesus knew the role he had to take on, to become truly a man of sorrows and in that sorrow to give us the opportunity to blossom as a people of hope. He was mindful of the pain to come and yet he took heart in the expansive divine love he was fulfilling.

Jesus urges every generation to take heart. ‘Taking heart’ doesn’t mean ignoring, or suppressing or minimising the heartache. We can’t wish the pain away. But through taking heart we make a gesture of hope, we stake a claim of ownership on a future promised us where the story of who we are will make sense of where we have come. As Julian of Norwich famously said: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

How can we gently and sensitively encourage one another in these difficult times to take heart?