From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

May 2025 How will you vote?

On May 1st, many regions across the UK, including our local area, will be electing new councillors. As I write this, I have already had leaflets though my letterbox trying to convince me why I should vote for particular candidates.

I am sure you will have heard the view that religion and politics should not be mixed, but this is a view that I disagree with. Underpinning all of Christianity is Jesus’ teaching about how to live well in community with one another. Even though the power of elected councillors is less than that of national government, they still have the ability to influence much that happens across local areas. The work of our elected representatives affects the lives of us all, and so I believe that all people of goodwill should seek to be aware of the work of our councillors and politicians, and should use their influence in legitimate ways where they can.

Christianity has always taught that ‘loving our neighbour as ourselves’ means acting in support of those who are treated unjustly, and speaking out on behalf of those unable to speak for themselves. How we use our vote is one of the ways in which we can do that. Of course, Christians will still end up supporting different political parties, as Christians will have different views about how the needs of all are best met, but I believe that Christian faith calls us not only to vote when we can but also to vote, not for the candidates that we believe will be ‘best for us personally,’ but for the candidates who will do most to create the kind of communities where all can flourish.

So my prayer is that we will not succumb to voter fatigue, but will treat our opportunity to vote as a responsibility and a privilege rather than a chore. I pray that each of us will use our vote in whatever way we believe will best build up our common life together, remembering our neighbours both local and far away and yet to be born, rather than focusing on ourselves alone. And I pray too that our councillors will use wisely the power they are given, seeking to work well with those they agree with and those they don’t, for the good of those who voted for them, and those who didn’t. Above all, I pray for justice and generosity in all our dealings with one another and the world around us.

If you would like to sign up to receive a weekly reflection, or to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups across Hope Valley, please go to https://mailchi.mp/2c07821b33f6/sign-up-for-ponder-and-pray or https://mailchi.mp/cbb9a512a36e/hope-valley-christians-newsletter or email me on [email protected] and I can sign you up.

April 2025 Holy Week and Easter

As I write this, we are just beginning the Church’s season of Lent, and by the time you read this we will be fast approaching Holy Week, the final week before Easter Day. I have been a Christian for many decades now, yet Holy Week and Easter still have the capacity to fill me with awe and wonder and worship.

I grew up in a nominally Christian household, but as a child, I mostly thought of Easter in terms of chocolate Easter eggs, made more attractive by the fact that we had usually given up chocolate during Lent! As a teenager, I began to explore and question, making a lifelong commitment to Christ when I was at university. I quickly came to realise that for Christians Easter is the most important time in the year. Christmas, the birth of the baby Jesus, is only important because of who Jesus grew up to be, and what he achieved by his death on the Cross and his resurrection.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, when the Church remembers what is often called Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Cheering crowds greeted Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey; crowds who hoped that he was going to lead a successful revolt against the occupying Roman forces. They rapidly became disillusioned when it became clear that this was not Jesus’ intention, joining the Jewish religion leaders’ calls for Jesus’ crucifixion, on trumped-up charges of calling himself ‘king of the Jews;’ blasphemy to the religious leaders, and political insurrection to the Romans. Early on Good Friday, Jesus was crucified, dying later that day.

Over the years, I have asked myself often, ‘Where would I have been in that crowd in Jerusalem? How would I have responded?’ A church I belonged to many, many years ago used to put up a large wooden cross during Holy Week. I remember realising one year, as I gazed at that cross big enough to crucify someone on, that the attitudes (the sins) that led to Jesus’ crucifixion, are my attitudes, my sins.

On Holy Saturday (the day between Good Friday and Easter Day), I always feel strongly as if I am waiting; waiting in the emptiness, as Jesus’ first disciples must have done, as they reeled from the shock of his arrest and death. The gospels tell us that Jesus’ resurrection, his rising from the dead, was discovered at dawn on Easter Day, as his followers went to retrieve his body to give it a decent burial. For decades, greeting the Easter dawn with worship, with the Christian cry of ‘He is risen!’ has been one of the most special moments of the year for me.

A question I have been asked many times over the years is, ‘Why do you believe in Jesus’ resurrection? Why do you believe the unbelievable?’ The answer, for me, has always been simply that it seems far more likely than the alternative. The nature of the gospel accounts, the evident change in the disciples, the change in the way death was talked about, all contribute to convincing me that something very momentous had happened. Something that changed lives then, and has continued to change lives ever since. Including mine. And I ‘feel’ it to be true. But the very nature of faith means that I cannot prove it.

So my prayer for us all this year, is that whatever our beliefs, Easter will provide opportunities for reflection, and mean something more to us than simply chocolate eggs – nice though they are!

March 2025 Darkness

I am one of those people who really appreciate the mornings and evenings gradually getting lighter at this time of year. Before Christmas I regularly find myself counting the weeks, and then the days, until we are past the shortest day. And as we move towards Spring, I find myself saying to myself, ‘Soon it will be light at …..’

Yet, unless I am driving, I actually rather enjoy the dark. At one of the places we used to live, a deeply treasured activity was to walk our dog to the next village, and then turn off my headtorch and walk the mile or so back home along the river bank in the dark, with just enough starlight to make the slightly lighter path show up, so that I didn’t fall in the river! And most of my favourite places are places far from artificial lights; places where the nights are dark enough to really see the stars; places where I can gaze upwards for ages, with more and more stars becoming visible as my eyes adjust, places where the Milky Way really shows up as a broad, lighter stripe across the night sky.

When the biblical writers searched for ways to describe the indescribable, when they tried to find ways to say what God is like, what Jesus is like, one of the images they chose was light. St John, for example, wrote: ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ [1 John 1: 5]. That imagery of light being associated with goodness and hope, and darkness being associated with badness or difficulty has become rooted in Christian culture and tradition.

Fortunately there are also many places in the Bible that remind us that the common biblical imagery of light and darkness is just that; just imagery. And imagery is good when it works for us, good when it helps us understand more about God, but best ignored if we don’t find it helpful. I can imagine the writer of Psalm 139, for example, sitting in the quietness of night time, gazing at the myriad of stars, reflecting on the God who created all, and writing, ‘Even darkness is no darkness with you; darkness and light to you are both alike.’ [Psalm 139: 12] The psalmist understood that we can seek and know God’s presence in the stillness of night, just as readily as in the brightness of day. Indeed, the gospels tell us of many occasions when Jesus went out to meet with God in prayer during the night.

So my prayer for us all is that as the seasons turn, as the nights grow shorter, but also warmer, we find moments to wait for God in the dark stillness and beauty of the night.