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A towel and a basin? – Marjorie Dobson’s hymn for Maundy Thursday

1	A towel and a basin?
	This caused them great unease.
	Their Master, now a servant?
	The Christ upon his knees?
	In washing feet made dirty 
	out on the city street, 
	he showed the power of action 
	where love and duty meet.

2	Yet Peter made his protest 
	and missed the point again, 
	till Jesus told him gently 
	that he must share his pain.
	They hardly understood him, 
	although his words were clear 
	and soon his wise example 
	would be wiped out by fear.

3	But later they remembered 
	and took his words to heart: 
	in sacrifice and service 
	they gave the church its start,
	and we who follow after 
	take up the task today, 
	to show, in love and service, 
	we also walk Christ's way.

Marjorie Dobson (born 1940)
Words © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . 
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
Metre: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: PASSION CHORALE

This hymn is available in Marjorie's most recent collection of worship items: Unravelling the Mysteries and also Hymns of Hope and Healing, both available from Stainer & Bell Ltd - click here 

More of Marjorie's hymns will follow here.

Lent & Holy Week – Looking ahead – A calendar will call us…other hymns will follow on this blog

A calendar will call us to share with Christ in Lent,
to walk within the darkness: some drawn, yet others sent; 
and here we sense contrition, an ashen cross we bear, 
reminder that the fire of love of God is everywhere.

In many different places God’s people bear the strain
of human expectation as cruel norms constrain;
for each convention sealing another person’s fate,
forgive, release, give freedom before it is too late.

We witness acts of hatred dressed up as self-defence, 
where vengeance is the motive hid deep in self-pretence; 
great God, forgive those moments, when hate and human pride 
lead to the domination of those we might deride.

As Christ you suffered torment, the torture and the hate,
yet on the cross forgave them, the ones who sealed your fate, 
so as we kneel confessing complicity, we pray, 
great God, forgive humanity when selfishness holds sway.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
METRE: 13 13 13 13
Tune: CRUGER

Toward Ascension

The 9th May, 2024 is Ascension Day. That takes my memory back to school days going to, what would now be seen as, a very old-fashioned boys grammar school. On this day we were marched in the morning to a local church for a service. Other than having a morning off from lessons, I remember little of this and grasped nothing of its significance. It makes me wonder what we make of this today, if anything.

Easter was early this year. Then it was over. What then? Actually, in terms of the church calendar, it’s not over until Ascension. So what do we do in these weeks?

Over recent Sundays we have been recounting stories of resurrection. Outside the world moves toward the next commercial opportunity for retailers and hospitality. As to Ascension, what’s that? Good question.

Let’s take it literally from the point of view of the disciples. They had witnessed crucifixion. Then Jesus was back with them. Forgiveness was given, peace proffered. Back to normal. Remember when the lockdown of Covid was lifted. Back to normal, yes. But I’ve recently had another vaccination. Not all is ‘normal’. We have adjusted. I think the disciples experienced a similar rhythm. Jesus death left them orphaned. But Jesus was back. Then this ascension took him away again – ‘Handed over to orphaned, comforted, now comfort less…lost, bereft, as now he leaves them, homeless, friendless, scarred, unblessed’…as a hymn puts it. The gospel according to Matthew says, ‘and some doubted’.

Once beyond this moment what was the new normal for them? Perhaps it can teach us something. Firstly, they had to recognise that Jesus really was dead, not there. Gradually the way beyond this realisation was that the old normal was not coming back. They had to think and act for themselves. This was not just trusting for life after death, but for living life before death.

Without the Ascension they would never have reached this point. Realising this they needed a real new normal. This involved repentance for real. A total and complete change of mind. Following Covid the so called ‘new normal’ drifted back to business as usual. If we have grasped the intention of Ascension there are choices to be made, a new mindset to be adopted and a new life to be lived for real, no drifting back. That new life, for the disciples, began to express the very spirit of Jesus.

So this time coming up to Ascension what are we going to do? A time for reflection? What real new normal do we need to embody that we, you and I, might see Christ in others and they might see Christ in us – that same Spirit of Jesus?

Buzzard; Copyright Andrew Pratt 2024

Easter Day

Easter

Rainbow Cross

Suffocating night 
smothering, 
obliterating
the broken bloody body 
hammered hard, 
staining scarlet 
that cross 
of rough-cut wood

and thunder crashed 
the doom of death.

Then darkness fractured, 
light splintered, 
fragments of colour 
shot out into the brilliance 
of a multi-coloured Easter morning 
in a green garden.

And an empty cross 
rainbow-wrapped, 
images the promise 
of the death-defying dawn 
of new hope.

Marjorie Dobson © 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk. Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019.

Quite early one morning © Andrew Pratt

A strange new day

This is the day
when perfume remained unopened,
spices were no longer needed,
cloths and sponges were unused.

This is the day
when stone was no barrier,
soldiers abandoned guard duty,
grave clothes and tomb were empty.

This is the day
when the unexpected became reality,
a man asked awkward questions,
uttered unlikely proclamations.

This is the day
when bewilderment ruled,
fear was ever-present,
obedience the only option.

This is the day
when women left hurriedly,
uncertain and warily,
to tell a strange story
to an unbelieving audience,

For they did not know it,
but this is the day
when everything changed:
death was defeated,
new life was beginning,
hope overwhelming despair.

This is the day
of resurrection.

Marjorie Dobson © 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk. Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019.

Come in the morning

Come in the morning.
Come see the dawning.
Come to the garden –
life has broken through.

Jesus, dead and buried.
To his grave they hurried.
Anxious women found that
life had broken through.
Chorus

Soldiers could not keep him
for they were found sleepiing
and the tomb was open –
life had broken through.
Chorus

Peter, unbelieving,
left, still full of grieving.
Nothing would convince him
life had broken through.
Chorus

Mary, greatly shaken,
thought he had been taken.
Heard his voice that told her
life had broken through.
Chorus

Where there was despairing,
grief and horror sharing,
now there is a rumour
life has broken through.
Chorus

So God’s word is spoken,
when our hearts are broken
there will come a time when
new life will break through.
Chorus

Mary Magdalene

My name is Mary,
common enough in my time
to need to be identified by place, or family.
Mine is such a name.
They call me the Magdalene.

People call me other names.
Some claim I was a prostitute,
perhaps because the town whose name I bear
is famous for that trade.

Others question my sanity
and ask why it was necessary for that exorcism
of troubling devils to be performed.
They probably call me mad.

The other followers, male, of course,
know me as ‘one of the women’,
useful for everyday tasks, but mainly disregarded.

So on that day -
when all hope had drained after his execution,
the future seemed bleak and empty
and even the tomb appeared to have been raided
and his body stolen –
it was hardly surprising that the men ignored me,
ran back to the city and left me to weep alone.

The voice was kind and questioning
and I sobbed my story, not expecting help.
But it came, in one word.
‘Mary,’
from one who spoke my name as if it mattered.

My name is Mary.
His name was and is and always will be,
Jesus.

Safe, locked inside that upper room

Safe, locked inside that upper room,
too scared to let the truth be known,
disciples had to see their Lord
before that truth could be their own.

And Thomas, still so full of doubt,
would not believe the tales they told
till Christ appeared, to show his wounds -
then his conviction made him bold.

Yet doubts and fears returned again.
Once more they locked themselves away
until the Holy Spirit came
on that inspiring, vital day.

The truth is now a living fact.
The love of God can never die.
So bold apostles stood their ground –
their living Lord is not a lie.

We have not seen, but we believe
and we must witness by our faith
to living truth we have received,
awakened by the Spirit’s breath.

Poem: When what we thought was mystery

When what we thought was mystery
is rooted in the common place,
and God is found in those who love,
and those we love by grace;
then we have grasped the Christmas story,
reached its heart, beheld its glory.

When scourge and cross are recognised
in images from round the earth.
When we admit complicity
and gauge compassions' dearth;
then we have grasped the Easter story,
reached its heart, and felt its glory.

When love and justice magnify
and even mercy has no end;
when hostages find liberty
and enemies are friends;
then we have grasped the Spirit's story,
reached its heart, expressed its glory.

Andrew Pratt © 2004 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk. Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Easter Eve – Saturday – Vigil

Easter Eve – Saturday

Grey skies like molten lead… © Andrew Pratt

Infinite disappointment?

Infinite disappointment
for only rain comes
from grey skies
like molten lead.
And it seems
that hope is dead
until that metal,
soft,
is knife-cut
and a sheen shines out,
like light
slant through cloud
making it seem
that hope might
just
be
possible…

Poem: On that day

On that day,
between death
and the dawn of new hope,
there was despair and dread
from those who had heard his predictions,
but discarded them
as doom-laden prophecies
not to be fulfilled in their time.

On that day,
between victory
and defeat,
there was triumph and rejoicing
from those who had plotted to kill
another dangerous, psuedo-Messiah,
and no premonition
that they could possibly be wrong.

On that day,
between the burial
and the anointing,
the women wept
because they had been prevented
from performing their ritual caring
for the body of a Son,
a Master and a Lord.,
by those who feared
that the body would be taken
and the authorities made to look like fools.

On that day,
creation held its breath
and all was still.

But, the next morning …
what a difference!

How can God, condemned, be hanging?

How can God, condemned, be hanging?
False messiahs meet such ends,
and the ones then testifying,
have no need to make amends.
Educated folk were laughing,
they foresaw what was to come,
saw disciples hiding, crying,
feeling both distraught and numb.

But that early Easter morning
brought another scene to bear,
Jesus mission had not ended,
he was risen, standing there.
Still the story, more than foolish
soon gave rise to talk and doubt.
'Surely God could never suffer?'
taunting people tease and shout.

Signs and wisdom are confounded
by that stumbling block, the cross.
Things that we once saw as wisdom
now dismissed as foolish dross.
God had shown such strength in weakness.
Those who shared Christ's dying breath
now at last could claim dominion,
love defeating hate and death.

Words: Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 8 7 8 7 D
Tune: CALON LAN