Easter Sunday 2025
Reflecting on the week
It has been a different week. Over the last 25 years, Holy Week has become important to me. It began while I was waiting for my daughter to be born. I was anxious about whether I would meet what is required to be a father. She was born in April; Easter Sunday was 23rd April. Somehow, the story of Jesus’ fate and resurrection seemed to be something for me to latch onto as I awaited the birth of my daughter. Like if he could get through that, I could also walk through my fears and come out the other side.
Ever since Holy Week reminds me of that time, of facing my fears and getting through them.
So on Monday night, I joined the congregation at the Abbey. But something different was stirring. I wondered if I had become religious in my yearly observance. I watched Tuesday’s service on YouTube. I then thought about some writing I had done seven years ago during Holy Week. It was followed by a further idea that I could read them and place them on YouTube.
Each night, I recorded the story relevant to the day (I had a little bit of catching up to do). I think doing that placed me firmly in the events of the week and activated something in me.
By Thursday, my daughter asked if I wanted to attend her church on Good Friday. I pondered the invite. By Friday, I was going. I felt I should try something new and also take an interest in her community.
The service was within the Pentecostal, Charismatic tradition, so quite a contrast to both my usual Quaker meeting and the Abbey’s Holy Week services. I was also reading the Gospel of John.
By Saturday afternoon, I was sitting contemplating the week with a readiness to hear from God.
During that time, I was taken to a well-known Quaker saying, “What canst thou say?” My response came in the form of the story below.
In writing my response, I felt an excitement in my faith encouraged by how the one called Jesus had impacted my life.
I rose before 6 o’clock this morning and felt connected to the power of this story of resurrection.
I was reminded that there is a power that people can experience in this story of Jesus, but how can they hear without a preacher? I was brought back to feeling that I was becoming religious with Holy Week and that Jesus and George Fox were disruptors of the status quo. They wanted, through at times dramatic actions, to bring us back to the source and collapse our religiosity.
If there is a power in Quakerism, it is that it waits to hear from God fresh. But even we can take on a form of waiting that results in silence rather than the still, small voice.
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