The next day, the day after my gossipy blip, I was out and about in the spring sunshine when I saw this very large dumper truck drive up a rough farm track where I was walking. It was delivering a large load of unwanted stones. Stones, I discovered would shortly form the foundations of a new building project, a classic example of one person’s rubbish being another’s useful recycling.

The truck drove in and reversed, lining up its back end with the designated spot where the driver had been told to dump his load. Then slowly, the bed of the truck hummed and lifted; higher and higher until the weight of the stones caused the tailgate to open and they poured out. They clattered and rattled down the sliding truck bed to form a growing heap on the ground. As the pile grew, the truck had to inch forward to give space for all the stones to run out. When the load was fully dumped, the tipper bed hummed back down, and the truck driver drove off with a cheery wave leaving behind a mini mountain of grey stones.

Having dumped his load, the driver was never going to go back and pick them up. Why would he? He had done what was needed and given his rubbish to someone else who could usefully use it.

The analogy doesn’t need spelling out!

I, however, needed to be reminded again. When I’d realised what I’d said dishonoured God and His image in me, I had genuinely repented. I did not need to return and pick up that rubbish again.

Leaving our stuff- our sin, our regrets with God is a conscious practical choice as much as a spiritual one it seems!

I walked on with a new spring in my step, that lovely spring day.

The post Dumper Truck first appeared on Bryony Wood.

The women had risen early; they had to make the most of the daylight. Although the Sabbath had finished at sunset the night before, a graveyard was not the place to go in the dark. Anyway, it would not have been enough time for them to do their work; this was special work, a labour of love.  Something that needed the utmost care and attention. Something that could not be hurried or done in the darkening moments of a Saturday evening.

And so they came, carrying the tools of their job. Jars of myrrh, spices, oils and ointments and cloths. Probably with pitchers of water too, to gently wash down the blood-spattered body of the man they had watched die some 40 hours before.

They were still numb, numb from shock and grief. This was a living nightmare, and every step was an effort. But as much as their grief was crippling, they knew what had to be done to fit in with burial practices in Jewish law. It was their one last act of love and devotion for the man they had hoped and thought would be their messiah. But now, all that hope looked as dead as the body they had gently retrieved from the cross at Golgotha.

It was over; all the tears in the world wouldn’t change that.

And so they walked silently towards the tomb carved into the hillside. A borrowed tomb offered at the last minute by a good man. That had been a relief, as looking to prepare a tomb had been the last thing on anyone’s agenda.

The women were expecting trouble ahead; the Roman soldiers had been ordered to guard the tomb with their lives, and a Roman soldier never disobeyed orders and got away with it alive. Yet the women knew what had to be done and they prayed that somehow God would make it possible for them to get into the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus.

Stumbling over the rocky garden path, they prayed under their breath, seeking strength for the task ahead.

Then turning the final corner, they stopped in horror, not believing what lay before them. The huge stone sealing the tomb’s entrance lay smashed on one side. Discarded as if a mighty power had hurled the rock away.

No sign of guards, no sign of the crucified body inside and with one voice, they wailed in confused despair presuming the tomb had been raided. Surely this was insult upon injury, who would steal the dead body of their beloved Jesus?

As the women sobbed in the empty tomb, their tears blurring their vision, they became aware of a glow, so white and bright that it shone with the glory of heaven. It was brighter than the sun yet not blinding them. Through the light, they saw the figure of a young man, an angel, dressed in white, sitting on the stone slab where they’d laid the body of Jesus two days before.

‘Fear not,’ the angel told them, ‘you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified… he has risen, he is not here!’

Tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy as the women realised that this was no dream; this was the power of the living God, the promise of the resurrection before their very eyes.

With indescribable joy, and untold adrenaline the women hoisted up their robes and ran as fast as could, dropping their jars and morbid oils, to tell the remaining disciples still hiding in shock back in the city.

Half-afraid, half-delirious they ran, breathless and trying to process in human minds the extraordinary reality that they knew to be true. Who would believe the word of a woman!

Jesus has risen, he had not stayed dead, he had been right after all, he was the messiah. He still is…and women and men are still sharing that amazing news today.

The post Easter Reflection: He is Risen! first appeared on Bryony Wood.

Perhaps all day through Good Friday they had half expected Jesus might pull some sort of miracle out from somewhere and save himself. That the angels would come and rescue him.

But as each hour went past and the beatings and floggings and mockery perpetuated and insult added to injury, their hopes must have faded, perhaps even tinged with a faint glimmer of ‘surely Jesus will stop this soon.’ Jesus was only just beginning his ministry, there was so much more yet to do?

But as night became morning came on that Friday, and he was hauled up to the wooden cross surely the angels would step in now? When they heard the sickening sound of nails been driven through flesh and bone and the agonising cries of their beloved friend… Surely God would intervene now?

The Jesus they had seen perform incredible miracles. He’d raised people back to life, fed thousands with a few crumbs and two measly fish, surely he could step down from the cross and show himself as both victor and untouchable.  Or, perhaps if he didn’t stop this travesty, he would be taken straight to heaven in a whirlwind like Elijah, and bypass the pain and suffering of a tortuous crucifixion.

But he didn’t step down, and he did suffer it; the searing gut wrenching pain of the nails and the whip and the loss of his father’s presence as he hung naked and humiliated, in desperate suffering.

Darkness fell across the land and hopes started to fail, until at three o’clock Jesus breathed his last.

Nothing had saved him.

All was lost.

He was really dead. Even in those days they knew when someone was dead.

The spear stabbed in his side proved it as water and blood flowed from his lifeless heart. Numb and frightened those who loved him took down his body from the cross and wrapped it as best they could, as quickly as they could, before the Sabbath arrived at sunset.

They had so little time, and so much grieving to do.

So the body of Jesus lay in a borrowed tomb, until Jewish law allowed them to anoint it properly on Sunday.

And those who loved him, who had hoped for something, anything better than this, who had trusted his messianic message of love and power now faced the bleakest of Saturdays. Not knowing the future. Desperate, scared and hopeless.

We all face times like this, when all hope seems lost, and Jesus understands this.

That’s why he asked them to trust him, despite what was going to happen. But those fallible disciples hadn’t understood that after the darkness would come the most brilliant dawning of light and new hope for all of us.

That’s why he asks us to trust him today. Because of that Easter Saturday we can all have hope however dark it seems now, the light will shine again somehow, someday.

The post Easter Reflections: Easter Saturday first appeared on Bryony Wood.

A warning that Mary as the mother of the Christ Child would also suffer deep anguish. Not first hand, being persecuted herself as far as we know; but the desperate anguish of seeing her own son suffer and intensely more harrowing for a mother than suffering it yourself.

As the events of Good Friday unfolded and Mary saw the hatred and violence wrought upon her boy, how she must have pleaded in desperation to God.

I wonder how much she understood? How much Jesus had explained to her, or had she, like the disciples, been unable to comprehend the path Jesus had to take to complete his ministry?

Mary was the first human to touch the flesh of God. She felt him growing inside her, kicking against her belly during her pregnancy. She felt his struggled entry into this world when he was born. She saw him take his first breath, his first steps, heard his first words, saw the first time he shone with the love of his earthly and heavenly fathers; and watched him grow day by day in the favour of man and God.

She saw him blossom as the Holy Spirit empowered him and led him in ministry and heard his words of love and wisdom transfix the crowds who gathered to hear him teach. She saw how he challenged the authorities and made too many important enemies as he overturned the social and religious precepts of the day.

The she saw him flogged, his flesh torn into tatters by a vicious whip branded by brutal men. She saw him mocked, abused and abandoned and hanging in agony.

She heard him with his dying breath commend her to John for safekeeping. She heard him redeem a crucified thief and forgive his persecutors, and perhaps in her agony she railed and wondered how God could do this.

She must have cried out in her own agony feeling his every shot of pain. A mother watching her son, her innocent, loving, good, divine Son die, just beyond her reach swathed in the darkness of an eclipse.

The desperate anguish of a mother, her soul pierced by the sword as prophesied a lifetime before.

Mary, mother of God, carrying the weight of grief in her heart, almost too much to bear, until Sunday. Until the time when she finally believed the exciting, confusing news that the tomb was empty because her son had risen from the dead.

And Mary, the mother of Jesus finally saw her beloved, resurrected holy Son exalted to the new life he was born to make for us all.

The post Easter Reflections: Mary first appeared on Bryony Wood.

It was springtime and with the trees in blossom, there would be fallen petals carpeting the ground. And as it was Passover, chances are their walk was well lit by the full moon.

Jesus walks his last walk as a free man, accompanied by bemused, tired disciples.

And there, in Gethsemane he finds space to pour out his anguish to his father. Infact, his anguish was so great that he literally sweats blood, which is a medical phenomenon seen in extreme cases of human strain when blood and sweat literally mingle.

Jesus was fully human and went through the same fear and torment that you or I would go through, even more perhaps because he knew the depth of hell he’d have to face when carrying the burden of the cross. Something that no human could ever imagine.

Three times during the next couple of hours, Jesus asked his friends to stay awake and pray, to support him in his hour of need. Yet three times they failed and dozed off unable to appreciate the urgency of this request.

Then finally, the gospels tell us that Jesus prayed the most selfless prayer, ‘If you are willing Father, take this cup from me… yet not my will but yours be done’.

His humanity baulked at the task ahead yet his divinity knew what needed to be done and in the battle of his mind he offered himself as God’s eternal purpose.

But then, still in the darkness of night, he must have heard the crowd approaching, Jewish religious leaders and soldiers led by Judas…their presence lit by torches and lanterns.

Strengthened by the Holy Spirit and his love for you and me, he faced the oncoming mob with outward calm and resolution. And there in the garden, where he had pleaded with God to take the cup of suffering from him, he allowed himself to be led away.

Jesus knows just what it’s like to fear and to dread; he knows when we go through such emotions just how hard it is. Often we cannot choose to run away from such times, perhaps after the diagnosis of a severe illness, or a financial crisis, or the death of someone we love. Those times when bad things in life outside our making or choosing. And those other times when we have to do something we really do not want to face.

It’s not an empty platitude to say that Jesus understands. He really does. Gethsemane proves that.  Jesus received the strength to do what he had to by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and that same power is available for us today. All we can do then is trust, believe and do what Jesus did and ask God for divine help and guidance.

‘Let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done’, hard words, almost impossible words at times to say, but sometimes they are the only words possible.

And when we say in exasperation or desperation, ‘God knows;, he really does.

The post Easter Reflection: Gethsemane first appeared on Bryony Wood.

Nor will we know just when and how Judas became so disillusioned with his master. He saw the miracles, the love and power and yet still chose turn his back on the man who showed him divine love.

Surely Judas had many redeeming qualities, or he wouldn’t have fitted into the group of twelve? He must have been able to see Jesus’ love for him throughout the three years they stayed together. So how did a man soaked in the love of God turn his back on God personified?

I don’t believe Judas was just a hapless pawn, used by God and abused by Satan. He had a choice to accept or deny God, as we all do. However it must have been helped, no doubt by the hatred of Satan, who schemed to get Jesus killed, so that the plan to save humanity would be thwarted. So with his demonic lies and whispers, Judas’ weak mind was corrupted and his reasoning and love were destroyed.

But we know now that Satan played right into God’s hands. It was crucial for Jesus to die on that cross to take our punishment, when he become the perfect sacrifice for our sins and to restore us into a right relationship with God.

So after three years living and working alongside his Master and friend, Judas set out on his path of betrayal and destruction. He sneaked away from the last supper to betray Jesus to the Jewish authorities, knowing that Jesus knew his plan and the betrayal in his heart. Even though he’d just felt the hands of Jesus washing away the grime of the day from his feet. The Lord of Lords had knelt before his turncoat disciple showing that even Judas was worthy of having his feet washed by the servant king. Then later he must have seen the love in Jesus eyes as they dipped their bread in the same bowl over supper.

To then leave the light and love of that upper room and go into the darkness to turn his Lord over to those religious bigots who hated this preacher from Galilee. Perhaps in some convoluted way Judas thought he was helping move Jesus’ cause along? We’ll never know what was in his mind- but God knew then and still loved him, despite it.

Over the next few hours Judas was to realise the cataclysmic depth of his mistake and regret it to such an extent that he could not live with himself. We’ll never know his last thoughts as he hung the rope around his neck. Where they repentance and sorrow or yet more hate and despair?

Yes, I do believe that the love of Jesus is so great, that if Judas did really repent and acknowledge his treason, even he was not beyond God’s grace. Even he might have been forgiven and welcomed into Paradise with the thief who died on the cross next to Jesus that awful ‘Good’ Friday.

One day we might discover the truth, until then perhaps we can all reflect on the depth and heights and vastness of God’s grace and mercy.

The post Easter Reflections: Judas first appeared on Bryony Wood.

With a healthy three-year-old daughter I was about to give birth again. So on one particular Thursday, the day before the Easter weekend, it was time to go into hospital to encourage my overdue baby to enter the world.

A few months before, I’d started going to church and was aware of the Easter story. Everything in life was hunky dory, except for a little cloud of doubt that something was wrong with my baby. Everyone tried to assure me but the niggle persisted.

I sat with the other expectant mums that Maundy Thursday joking about hospital food and my ‘last supper’ before tomorrow’s induction. Before bedtime, relishing a good night’s sleep, my last for some months, I found a Gideon Bible in the locker, and settled down to read the account of that first Easter.

I read about the last supper Jesus ate with his friends, how he told his disciples this would be his last meal, although his words were confusing. He showed such love and grace to them, all of whom would be stricken with grief and fear within hours. During the night Jesus wrestled with his mission in the Garden of Gethsemane; I too was a rather nervous about what my next day might bring. I figured Jesus knew about fear and if he could cope with his next day, then so would I. I prayed for my baby, some instinct told me he was a boy, we’d chosen his name and I loved him already.

Good Friday dawned to the clang of a tea trolley clattering along the corridor. It seemed a topsy-turvey day to be having a baby. New life entering the world on the day when Jesus took his last breath.

As the contractions started, I found a job changing the flower water in the vases around the ward, pausing to breathe properly and reassure my baby that all would be well. By noon, things were really progressing and pain rolled in on waves. I thought of Jesus on his cross; enduring intense pain with deep humiliation and rejection.

Jesus took his last breath around three o’clock in the afternoon, six hours after being nailed to the cross. My son, Matthew took his first breath a little after three o’clock on that Good Friday afternoon, around six hours after labour started.

My baby was adorable! The first question I asked when he was born was not, ‘boy or girl’, but ‘is he OK’? After a slight pause we got a tentative ‘yes’, although he had several small things not quite right; including a large birthmark covering his back. But I was so relieved it didn’t cover his face so wasn’t too concerned. I had expected the worst and here he was, with no apparent life threatening problems, even if he would need medical treatment later on.

The first Easter Saturday in Jerusalem was bleak. Hopes died among his followers as Jesus’ body lay in a borrowed tomb. His family and friends were desperate, hiding in grief, terror and confusion.

My Easter Saturday was joyful. Visitors shared our delight as I cradled Matthew. Hope and relief, after months of worry, drew me to higher highs than I thought possible.

Easter Sunday in hospital dawned so early it was as if the night never really happened. I’d fed Matthew almost constantly for he seemed unable to suckle and settle. We’d both slept fitfully. At dawn I thought of the grieving women going to the tomb only to find it empty for Jesus had risen from the dead!

Around lunchtime the medical team breezed in for a routine postnatal check-up. We would cope with Matthew’s imperfections- he was still my precious son. Then something made my heart skip a beat, the doctor stopped smiling, went quiet and turned to me saying gently, ‘your baby has a problem. We need to check out his heart.’ Words to chill my soul and obliterate the joy.

Over the next few hours, a nightmare unfolded. The family came, our vicar came; we prayed and sobbed as we learnt that Matthew had a serious heart problem. He needed to go to a specialist hospital 50 miles away. Numb with shock, we followed the flashing ambulance that carried my baby and a medical team, hurtling up the motorway as the Easter weekend world carried on around us.

That evening we faced a decision. Matthew had deteriorated and was limp and silent in his cot. Without surgery he would not live. Surgery offered a chance to mend his heart, but the operation carried immense risk. We sat in intensive care surrounded by bleeping equipment as the chaplain baptised my precious baby and we gave him into God’s care.

Three hours later, when Sunday had actually tick-tocked into the early hours of Easter Monday, the nurse who had taken Matthew from my arms into surgery returned. She didn’t need words – her tears said it all. Matthew’s heart was too poorly to be fixed; he’d died during surgery.

It was like living in the negative of a photograph – two mothers set apart by two thousand years grieving the death of their sons at Easter. Mary’s grief on Good Friday had been my grief on Easter Sunday. My joy on Good Friday had been her joy on this upside down Easter Sunday.

Despite the grief, I discovered over time a deeper knowledge of God that was life changing. He was with me, he loved and comforted me; gave me strength to face the world again. He was with me when I packed away the baby clothes and empty crib. He was with me then, he has been so ever since. He helped me to live with the memories of my son whom I loved and nurtured for nine months and three precious days.

I believe that one day we shall be reunited and Matthew and I will see the glory of Jesus, face to face. This is my faith, honed in the toughest of times ever since that life changing, topsy-turvey Easter many years ago.

The post ‘A Topsey-Turvey Easter.’ first appeared on Bryony Wood.

But when the clouds gather, when life hurts, when people we love are struggling, well it’s not so easy. It’s harder to praise God from a place of loneliness or loss, fear or failure. When our prayers appear to be unanswered or we feel like we’re talking to a brick wall rather than the King of Kings. Then it’s harder to feel the joy and certainty of faith. The NIV (UK) version of Psalm 30 puts it this way:

⁶When I felt secure, I said, ‘I shall never be shaken.’
⁷ Lord, when you favoured me, you made my royal mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.

Psalm 30 NiV UK

But look again, the psalm starts with words of faith and praise, (Psalm 30:1-3) ‘I will exalt you’… ‘I called out to you and healed me’. This is a song of faith, a choice to praise God because God has proved faithful. The psalmist is remembering the times when God’s love and presence was tangible

‘ You brought me from the depths…from the grave…and the pit’…’

‘You brought me up…’ rather like a bucket being drawn up from the deepest well; a dark well that is as deep as death itself. This imagery reminds us that God reaches down into the deepest, darkest places to bring us up and out. And until we are standing on the mountaintop again – well, he’s with us every step of the way.

This psalm starts with the cry of faith and a reminder of God’s constant faithfulness before having a wobble! But the wobble in the middle challenges us to remember how it’s the faithfulness of God that is our security not what circumstances we are in. When we are in trouble, in mourning, in distress – in the middle of a wobble, it is God’s faithfulness that will bring us somehow, someday, to the place where we can dance again.

I wanted to share these thoughts with you; I certainly needed to remind myself this week of the truth in God’s word. Perhaps you too are finding this 3rd lockdown especially challenging… My prayer is that the truth of God’s word can encourage you as it does me, especially if you’re having a mid-covid, mid-winter, mid-lockdown, wobble… we are not left alone and God is just as real and present! Amen to that!

The post Lessons from Psalm 30 first appeared on Bryony Wood.

They were right. I do like it… A lot! It arrived on Christmas Day framed and gift wrapped and as they all expected- it brought tears to my eyes as I read it.

In the middle of this dark January; in the middle of lockdown with all its frustrations and fears, limitations and loss I want to share this with you.

The text she gave me was written in glorious multicolour and set out in a most creative way. Below is a simpler text but worded exactly as she wrote last month. This insight of a nine year old mirrors the faith that Jesus commends us all to seek – that of a child. May these words bring you the joy it gives me and may it shine a light for you in this season.

Thank you Sophia, and thank you Jesus!

Him

When I feel warmth in my heart I have one question in my head, can it be him? I already know the answer is yes. I feel my sins and fears are fleeing away from me, or without a doubt, it’s almost like he kindly told them to run away, or he’s turned them into aspirations.

I can already know he’s forgiven me. But sometimes I don’t even need to say sorry to him, THAT’S how amazing he is.

He can be Perfect!!
He can be Astonishing!!

He can be Great!!

But there is no word good enough to say how

Amazing

Forgiving

Powerful     HE IS

I can’t decide if he is great or more. What he is more, more than more, I’ve decided he is my forever friend. I’ve already decided you can never learn too much about him. No-one knows what he looks like. But his book explains, his book paints an image like a hologram. It answers all our questions; it gives us all the advice we need. There is no person better. He is HUMBLE, KIND, POWERFUL, NO WORD CAN EXPLAIN HIM IN; FORGIVING. No.1

He IS JESUS

The photo above is a copyright free stock image and not of Sophia- She might be ready for international fame one day – but not just yet!

The post Him first appeared on Bryony Wood.

‘What if’

This book God, Your inspired, divine Word to us

Your holy Bible, that so often ties me in knots,

Often confusing, challenging, comforting

But what if ….what if… what if…what I read, is true?

What do you need me to know? To discover?

Words can so easily tangle and tease, making truth hard to grasp

But words are all we have,

to shape, to explain….. to understand truth.

These holy words Lord, draw me and dazzle me,

Words announcing truth so astounding,

Truth so astonishing…

That it takes more than plain, human words to blindly believe.

It takes your love God.

Your Spirit to interpret, to colour them in and reveal your reckless plan.

What if…. these words… you’ve given us,

Are the lyrics of your heart?

What if you have been writing a love song over us?

Crafting something so profound, that it emerges through the haze

as I ponder, pray, praise.

listening for those grace notes between the melody

that sing out my name;

God who always was; singing his love song to soothe the jangle of human discord

As the holy child interprets God into the language of flesh and blood.

For if words are all we have, then words will coax us gently

 so that we might come closer and meet Your Living Word

A living, breathing, vulnerable infant.

The Jewish boy who grew up and expressed his love with nails and wood,

into Cross-shaped-words of mercy.

What if…

Your living Word really did step out of scripture?

The supernatural becoming natural.

The unbodied becoming embodied.

God for ‘all time’ becoming God for ‘all people.’

Is this the greatest truth I need to discover?

God with us?  

Christmas, present.

Christmas, real.

Christmas, true, for all those who listen

beyond monochrome words of doubt?

‘The Word became Flesh’.

Written into time and place.

Human and divine DNA bonding in every cell of one tiny baby.

The Word Incarnate. so we might discover just how much we matter.

What if….

God really was born 2000 years ago, in a not-so-far off place?

What if…

the archangel Gabriel really did announce his birth?

What if…

that babe lying in the cattle trough, really was  The King of all Kings?

Then that would explain why angels sang over shepherds,

That would explain why magi recognised planets re-aligning in the night sky

That would explain the unfolding family tree that took root so far back.

That would explain why he was born then and there,

at that time, in that way…

For nothing is impossible with God.

And If this really was true then then it is still true today,

Now, here, for me, for you.

Then our words need to change

from ‘Omygod’

to

O…my…God.

And I need to respond, for a wholly, holy and present King cannot be ignored.

Indifference cannot begin with ‘I’

So this Christmas Lord,

unfold and transform your words in us,

as we pause in front of the crib long enough to hear your living Word whisper to us…

‘I really was born for you’

‘Emmanuel’

God with us

Amen

The post ‘What if…?’ first appeared on Bryony Wood.