Coracle Trust E-Reflections

Lent: Who do you think you are?

Saturday 2 April 2011

Give me this night, O Father, the peace of mind which is truly rest. Take from me All envy of anyone else All resentment for anything which has been withheld from me... And all futile regret about the past. Prayer, Source unknown

Read John 8: 48-56 and return. 'You are a Samaritan and demon-possessed!'

The heat of battle

Here is an escalating conversation, one that oddly reminds me of our tea table! Heat is being generated and there’s no backing down – the kind of locking of horns Enneagram #8s for example relish. To the Jews Jesus goes way too far, they have him. He’s left himself wide and open to accusation. Yes, he’s wide and open. ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.’ You can feel the rippling indignation in the climactic responses, ‘Who do you think you are?’ Greater than Abraham? Greater than the prophets! It’s almost as if Jesus has finally got them to admit to their own question, and the question in fact with which centuries of men and women are left to ponder. It repeats in our lives, a question that echoes through the various stages of our lives, as sounds resonate and ricochet of the walls of caverns.

Am I standing in my own shoes?

Recently I heard of a German term that means standing away from your shoes. Here is Jesus however in his ‘glory’ standing squarely and fully in his own shoes. It is this confident, open, no shades, look at me, receive me, know me mode. One that Jesus invites us to stand in for ourselves. ‘Who are you, Jesus?’ is very closely allied to our recurring and regenerative question ‘Who am I?’ Andrew Hook