Weekly Reflection

 

March 15th to 21st

Lent 4

Refreshment Sunday / Mothering Sunday: Joy, Sustenance, and Hope

 

Readings: Psalm 34:1-9, John 6:25-40

 

1 I will extol the Lord at all times;

    his praise will always be on my lips.

2 I will glory in the Lord;

    let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3 Glorify the Lord with me;

    let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;

    he delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant;

    their faces are never covered with shame.

6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;

    he saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,

    and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;

    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

9 Fear the Lord, you his holy people,

    for those who fear him lack nothing’

 

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

 

Today is Mothering Sunday, but it is also referred to as Refreshment Sunday; this is traditionally a day off from our Lenten fasting.  It is also sometimes called Laetere Sunday, a Latin imperative meaning Rejoice!  In early Christianity the fourth Sunday of Lent was acknowledged as a time for Christians to return to their Mother Church, the place where they were baptised.  Today this is often impractical, but we should celebrate and give thanks for our mothers, or those who brought us up.  This is good if our mothers are still with us, or if they are mothers themselves and are celebrating with their families.  It can also be a difficult time if one is childless and not so from choice.

 

If we now look at our Psalm we see God’s meticulous care for each one of us, and we can see this lovingly expressed in Matthew 23:37 where Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, … how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings”.

 

Moving onto our major theme, that Jesus is the Bread of Life, we need to see what Jesus is saying here.

 

In Holy Communion we take bread and wine in order symbolically to take the Body and Blood of Jesus[1]. The significant point about the Communion Service is that it is a direct command; Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, that he received it from Jesus and so he passes it on to us.  Many people do this every week but it may different for you.  What matters is that we each do it according to our conscience and ability.  In the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), Anglicans are expected to attend Holy Communion at least three times in the year, one of which shall be Easter Day; this is hardly an onerous duty (except for reason of infirmity or other constraint).

 

Many Christians say that one should not say Hallelujah during Lent; I disagree.  Hallelujah literally means Praise God; there cannot ever be a time in any of our lives when we do not say Praise God!  We praise Him when we are joyful, but also when we are sad or suffering, because He loves us beyond measure at every twist and turn of our lives.

 

John 1:1 and John 1:14 say thet Jesus is the Word of God, and in Ezekiel 3:1-3 the prophet has a vision where God tells him to eat a scroll containing a prophetic Word from God, and this scroll tasted as sweet as honey in his mouth.  Also in the BCP (on the 2nd Sunday of Advent) we are told to Read, Mark Learn and inwardly digest the Word of God.  this is our constant calling,

 

Father, we praise and thank you for your constant love and care for us every hour of every day.  thank you for our mothers who nurtured us, and if we have the gift of our own families, we thank you for them too Lord.  Please Lord, give us your wonderful gift of Love to share out with the other generations of our families, both older and younger than ourselves.  Amen.

 

[1] I say symbolically; an aside here is Transubstantiation, which is a mostly Roman Catholic doctrine which claims that the bread and wine at communion actually physically become the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Most Protestants do not believe this, but rather that they are symbolic.