State of Alarm - Good Friday

I woke up early with ideas for a sermon of the day, and wrote a draft before getting up for breakfast and saying Morning Prayer. I have to put together an audio act of worship for today, and because of the length of the St John Passion, it will be too long to include an address, just pandemic prayers and devotions before the cross. The address can come during a separate evening act of worship and reflection. I wanted to include suitable music, and chose meditative Taize chants to use in both, but I also used the Aria 'He was despised, and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief' from Handel's Messiah, rather than use scripture itself. The music is so eloquent in conveying the message behind the reading. 

I has intended to listen to Passion music on Radio Three, but never got around to it, with so much to do. For a second night it was dusk before I finished my walk of the day. This is always a tiring week but this year, so much more challenging because of what's happening all around us and how this is affecting the way we look at everything in life. It's amazing how it's brought out the best in so many people. The bad and selfish things naturally get highlighted by the media which loves to be outraged and scandalized, 

To me what's significant is how many people are acting self-sacrificially in the Spirit and teaching of Jesus and the Gospel, even though so few now attend church, and religion is marginalised in the public realm. The news takes an interest in how religious communities are quick to adapt and adopt digital social media for experiments in worship and fellowship. Occasionally a person will be interviewed who makes it clear how much their faith is helping them cope with crisis and if they've been sick, to recover. It's clear to me this catches the interviewers off guard, as they seem all to ready to put their own politically correct neutral secular spin into interpreting what the interviewee has said. This is a sad reflection on their own attitudes. I wonder if they realise how the faith of others, without trying, is putting them to shame?