April 2, 2021
WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE
GATHERING
“Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline:
the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance
decays toward winter’s death. Faced with this inevitable winter,
what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring
—she scatters them with amazing abandon”
(Parker Palmer)
PROCESSIONAL HYMN HIOS 8 ‘Autumn comes in all its fullness’
Words and Music: William L. Wallace Arr: Barry Brinson
© New Zealand hymnbook trust 2009
Reprinted with permission under One License A-623996. All rights reserved
1. Autumn comes in all its fullness
harvesting both land and hearts.
Autumn has its birth in winter
in the stillness where life starts.
Every death brings hope of birthing,
every birth enfolds life’s end,
for the seasons of our living
mirror patterns nature penned.
2. Autumn gives us time for choosing
seeds which bear the richest fruits,
fragile life which we can nurture
into just or vain pursuits.
3. Buried in autumnal endings
lies the shoot that bursts the tomb,
for the letting go in autumn
sows the seed that births the bloom.
WELCOME
OPENING WORDS
Help us to see in the groaning of creation
not death throes but birth pangs;
help us to see in suffering a promise for the future,
because it is a cry against the inhumanity of the present.
Help us to glimpse in protest the dawn of justice,
in the Cross the pathway to resurrection,
and in suffering the seeds of joy.
Rubem Alves, Brazil (from All Year Round, British Council of Churches, 1987)
CANDLE LIGHTING TO REMEMBER THOSE AFFECTED BY COVID 19
You are invited to come forward to the front of the church and light a candle to remember those affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic……
This could be those who are sick, or who have died, people who are lonely or sad in isolation or confined to their home…….
Maybe you would like to remember your relatives in other parts of the world, or mourn the loss of a planned visit or family celebration…..
Or perhaps you would like to light a candle to mark the efforts of essential workers, border control staff or healthcare personnel…..
PRAYER
Dear God,
Give comfort and peace to those who are separated from loved ones.
May the ache in our hearts be the strengthening of our hearts.
May our longing bring resolve to our lives, conviction and purity to our love. Teach us to embrace our sadness lest it turn to despair.
Transform our yearning into wisdom.
Let our hearts grow fonder.
AMEN Leunig
A time of silence.
Would any who would like to walk round the stations please gather at the front right hand side of the church.
FIRST STATION - Jesus is condemned to death Mark 15: 1-5, 11-15
Graham Howell
Meditation: My thoughts are I wish I was not here, but I am. My orders are to keep the peace and respond to any riots. Damn it, Jesus unless you repent you are likely to cause a riot. You and your followers are a problem and I have to get rid of you. My spies say you a very special man, but I cannot let you remain. My career is at stake, to say nothing of Caesar's Empire.
Prayer: 2,000 years on, oh God, we have still capital punishment. In Christian countries and non-Christian countries and in those who show no allegiances to God. May we reflect on how we punish those who commit crimes, even the most heinous.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response AA50 ‘God of freedom, God of justice’
Words: Shirley Murray vs 1&2
Tune: Picardy, French Traditional carol medley 17th – 18th C
God of freedom, God of justice,
you whose love is strong as death,
you who saw the dark of prison,
you who knew the price of faith,
touch our world of sad oppression,
with your Spirit’s healing breath.
SECOND STATION – Jesus takes up his cross Mark 15: 16-20
Barrie Keenan
Meditation: I contemplate the wood of that cross. I imagine how heavy it is. I reflect upon all it means that Jesus is carrying it. I look into his eyes. It's all there.
.
Prayer: Holy One, as we all make our way through life in this city, give us the will and the strength to help those carrying too big a load.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response
Rid the earth of torture’s terror,
you whose hands were nailed to wood;
hear the cries of pain and protest,
you who shed the tears and blood;
move in us the power of pity
restless for the common good.
THIRD STATION – Jesus falls for the first time Isaiah 53: 2
Paul Franken
Meditation
I like to feel I’m in charge of my life, my emotions, my actions. We barge ahead in life. The first time something really goes wrong we are prepared to give up, try something else - very tempting.
You did not.
We don’t recognise you with failure, yet you showed us that you knew what it is like to be human.
Prayer: Dear God, may we and all the world feel your presence. When we fail, we feel you close, please come closer
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response Words: Fiona McDougal
When in deep despair we have fallen,
you who walked the stony road,
strengthen us to walk one step further,
you who bore a heavy load,
friends and whanau can sustain us,
though for now our head is bowed.
FOURTH STATION – Jesus meets his mother Luke 2: 22, 34, 35
Jenn Keenan
Meditation
We think of mothers and their children and the undying love that goes with them wherever their road leads.
Prayer:
Let love continue into all the dark corners.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response Words: Fiona McDougal vs 1&2
Tune: Affliction, Julian Bray
With mother-love a heart will break
in helplessness and grief
to watch a child who’s suffering
unable to relieve.
FIFTH STATION – Simon helps Jesus to carry his cross Mark 15:21
Linda and Norman Wilkins
Meditation:
There is so much we do not know.
A passer-by who must have looked strong enough to carry the cross.
What happened afterwards so that Mark discovered his name, where he came from, Cyrene in North Africa?
We imagine him to be a black man?
What made his sons Alexander and Rufus significant enough to mention?
How many people we don’t know about bear burdens for us?
Prayer: God, we may never know many of them, but keep us looking out for them.
God bless them and us as we carry burdens for others.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response
Confronted with another’s need
their burden we can share
stand with them in their suffering
by being present there.
SIXTH STATION – Veronica wipes the face of Jesus Matthew 25: 35-36, 40
Wendy Matthews
Meditation:
Veronica wiping the face of Jesus is an act of selfless love.
These verses from Matthew 25 describe acts of kindness to people in need. The king in the last verse is God. By helping those in need we are reaching out to him.
At St Andrews we emphasise the importance of social justice. Our worship on Sunday is worthless if it is not followed up by care for others during the week. Sometimes we respond to an individual’s need. Sometimes we contribute to organisations like Christian World Service or DCM.
In their book “The Last Week”, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan state that Good Friday and Easter address the fundamental human question of egoism, which is the anxious and fearful self, and injustice.
Good Friday and Easter, death and resurrection together are a central image in the New Testament for the path to a transformed self.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response HIOS 106 ‘O God I cry to you in pain’ vs 2 & 4
Words: Shirley Murray
Give me the strength to face my ills
to trust in skill and care
to bless the hands that help me heal
and find your Spirit there.
Within the comfort and the love
that human touch can give,
restore in me a larger sense
of what it is to live.
SEVENTH STATION – Jesus falls the second time Isaiah 53:7
Tony Kirby
Meditation:
Sometimes we find that the words to express injustices we experience just do not come, whether because we cannot or do not utter them.
Jesus remained silent, even though there must be a myriad of things to say in the face of the injustice and cruelty he was experiencing.
Prayer: Help us all to endure the hardships and sometimes overwhelming tasks of life with stoicism where we can, but by reaching out to those who love us when it all becomes too much.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response HIOS 52 ‘God who weeps’ vs 1&2
Words – Marnie Barrell. Tune: Barry Brinson, Lacrimosa
God who weeps when we are weeping
maker, lover, friend of all,
we commit into your keeping
those who suffer, struggle, fall.
Plant the seeds of peace inside us
in these days of fateful choice;
let your word and wisdom guide us
as we listen for your voice.
EIGHTH STATION – Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem Luke 23: 27-28
Laura Hurtado-Roberts
Read by Lois Robertson
Meditation
After hearing the crowd howling for His blood during the morning of Good Friday, what a different experience Jesus might have when He met the mourning daughters of Jerusalem a few heartbeats away from His crucifixion. These group of women stretched out cloths to Him, mourned and expressed pain and sorrow because they knew Jesus was about to die. Women have the experience themselves millions of times of the deep meaning of losing a son, as they are the bearers of life and they know the risks of life and death during labour. At the same time, after they had followed Him during his three years of teaching, they were faithful to Him until the end by being there and witnessed His sacrifice and redemption. He comforted the daughters of Jerusalem with a few words about wiping away their own tears and caring for their children. Understanding children as holding future potential that has not yet grown to fullness, something that still in the process of developing and growing. Listening to His words help them to find consolation and fortitude and to give endurance and faith in the future: Life is after death.
Prayer:
Our Lord, we pray for all women who have suffered loss and mourned the death of their children who may have been stillborn or died by suicide or after a long illness or in accidents, natural disasters, wars, shootings, and attacks; and for women who have encountered abuse at all levels: emotional, verbal, sexual or physical; or have been in any situation of being discriminated against, or who have had their rights unjustly denied them. We pray that they may find refuge in You, in their midst of their pain, and they may forge courage, aroha, acceptance and faith, in order to keep going and to hold on to the certainty that You are with them every step of their way.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response
Christ, enduring hate and violence,
hounded to a martyr’s death
calmly meeting taunts with silence,
speaking peace with your last breath;
peace, courageous and demanding,
binds us as we walk your way.
May our wills, at your commanding
turn to acts of peace today.
NINTH STATION – Jesus falls for the third time Isaiah 53: 7
Tony Pears
Meditation: Jesus is utterly exhausted. He is physically spent. He cannot rise from the ground. The hands of others will take him over now.
He has reached the place of crucifixion.
But the words from Isaiah tell us something different.
Within this suffering is a source of healing and wholeness waiting to be born anew.
This meaning, this truth will be revealed in the fullness of the Easter story.
But this source of wholeness and healing has been on offer to humankind since the first Easter.
And it can be revealed to us and experienced by us any time, even right now.
The source is divine love.
Prayer: We pray for people everywhere who have reached the end of physical endurance and physical suffering.
May they be surrounded by hands which will take them over for good or ill.
Either way, may they receive some intimation of divine love within them, as did Jesus' neighbour on the cross.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know
your presence.
Sung Response:
‘Give Thanks for Life’ vs 2 and 4 AA45
Words: Shirley Murray. Tune: Sine Nomine. WOV384
Give thanks for those
who made their life a light
caught from the Christ-flame,
bursting through the night,
who touched the truth, who
burned for what is right,
Alleluia!
Give thanks for hope,
that like the wheat, the grain
lying in darkness
does its life retain,
in resurrection to grow green again.
Allelulia!
TENTH STATION – Jesus is stripped of his clothes Mark 15: 22-24
Anna Smith
Meditation:
This tenth station presents us with the reality of humiliation and human degradation. Naked, stripped of his clothing, right down to that last undergarment, soldiers gaming for who will take what, Jesus is crucified, stripped of every last vestige of his dignity. The offer of a sponge soaked in wine and bitter myrrh, maybe a sole act of compassion to ease his pain, or is it yet another act of humiliation? We don’t know the true motivation at this remove.
But we do know that he was to be an example to others who dared to stand against the repressive rule of Rome. Like many we can name in our own world: protesters in Myanmar, arrested and tortured for standing against the tyranny of the generals; the Muslim Uyghur minority in China, persecuted and killed for who and what they are; the 230 detainees still held on Nauru Island and the 180 who have been transported from Manus to Papua New Guinea, stripped of their humanity, given over to the control of the system.
In Aotearoa / New Zealand we are not immune. We know about the humiliation and degradation of the homeless, living on the street, in cars and garages. We know about the humiliation and degradation of women suffering the mental and physical effects of domestic violence and sexual abuse. And we know about the degradation and humiliation of those who are forced to work multiple jobs for less than the Living Wage.
How can we claim our common humanity with these people, the humiliated, the degraded and controlled?
Prayer: May we have a profound respect for the vulnerable and oppressed and stand with them against the systems that humiliate and degrade them. We pray for courage to take risks for our fellow human beings.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response COC 4 ‘All who would see God’s Greatness’ vs 1 & 2
Words: Marnie Barrell. Tune: Obeisance, Ian Render
If you would share God’s riches
Draw near, reach out and touch;
God had only love to offer,
Enough for us, and too much.
See now God’s treasure, made so poor,
Naked the God that we adore.
ELEVENTH STATION – Jesus is nailed to the cross Luke 23: 35-38
Sandra Kirby
Meditation:
Were you there when they hung him on the cross?
How many people have been persecuted, prosecuted, tortured and killed as a result of standing up for truth and justice?
How many mothers, fathers, whanau members have watched on and suffered alongside?
How many of them have endured rejection and taunts from their colleagues, friends and others who are too oppressed, too scared or too invested in the current regime to stand up for truth and justice?
Prayer: May we have the courage of our convictions and be prepared to stand up for truth. May we support with words and actions those who follow the Jesus way – despite the personal cost.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response
Stand in the holy silence,
while earth with heaven sings
that here now for our beholding
is love that upholds all things.
Strange is this love that draws us near;
glory of God among us here.
TWELFTH STATION – Jesus dies on the cross Luke 23: 44-46
Ellen Murray
Meditation:
Nothing,
no breath, no life.
Gone.
Prayer:
For all who suffer and cry out.
For those who are tortured.
For those who die in pain.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
SMALL GROUP OF WOMEN APATT 25 ‘Lord Jesus Christ the light you brought us’
Words: Shirley Murray (Altered with permission of author) Music: Julian Bray
Lord Jesus Christ,
the light you brought us
fades in the dark,
with all that you have taught us,
shadows beset
the hope that caught us,
fearful your people now.
Lord Jesus Christ,
our lives reveal us
faithless, afraid
without your strength to steel us,
losing the words
that hold and heal us,
stumbling your people now.
Lord Jesus Christ,
your friends will fail you,
love that betrays
with kiss and sword assail you,
here on a cross
the powers have nailed you,
silent your people now.
Silence
Sung response AA 31 ‘ E te Atua’ Tune Kum Ba Ya Nicola Jansen and Guy Jansen
E te Atua awhina mai, ( trans- O God help us…… forever and ever)
E te Atua awhina mai,
E te Atua awhina mai,
ake, ake tonu e,
ake, ake tonu e.
E te Atua aroha mai……….. (O God love us…. )
THIRTEENTH STATION – Jesus is taken down from the cross Mark 15: 4
Lynne Dovey
Meditation:
We can only imagine the desolation of his friends when they understand that Jesus has actually died, cruelly, hanging on that cross. From the jubilation of his ride into Jerusalem, just a few days earlier, to this finality – it is hard to take in. The snuffing out of the life of someone so young, so charismatic, so vibrant, so full of the spirituality they craved, even if they were frightened by it. What is to become of them? Jesus’ friend Joseph of Arimathea came to his senses, asking for the body of Jesus. We can imagine Joseph taking him down, wrapping him lovingly in a linen cloth and gently laying him in the tomb. The blackness and bleakness of the day was terrible. Jesus was there, in the present with the disciples and then he wasn’t. Everything seemed hopeless and beyond redemption. That is how grief can take us. We ask ourselves how do we cope with this deep sense of loss and grief?
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response AA151 ‘When human voices cannot sing’ vs 1&3
Words: Shirley Murray. Tune: St Columba, Irish traditional
When human voices cannot sing,
and human hearts are breaking,
we bring our grief to you, O God,
who knows our inner aching.
FOURTEENTH STATION – Jesus is laid in the tomb Mark 15;46b-47
Trish McBride
Meditation
The authorities thought they’d silenced the trouble-maker. The age-old violent elimination of those who spoke truth to power happened to the prophets, it happened to Jesus, it happens still. But truth is a phoenix and will not be extinguished. It rises to new life and strength and sings its story to the world. Jesus, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Song is with us still and within us still.
Prayer
We pray for those here and everywhere who work and speak for justice and truth. We remember especially journalists, killed and imprisoned, and the courageous people of Myanmar. We acknowledge all those whose courage has brought them death in its many forms. May we too speak the truth in love.
Compassionate God, may we and all the world know your presence.
Sung Response
Make real for us your holding love,
the love which is your meaning,
the power to move the stone of death,
the hope of Easter morning.
JESUS' PRAYER
Eternal Spirit, Life-giver
Pain-bearer, Love-maker
source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo
through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed
by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace
and freedom come on earth!
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever. Amen.
Please stand
SENDING OUT
We go on our way
and Jesus goes ahead of us
We do not need to be afraid.
God is love
and love is more powerful
than fear or death or evil,
and we are greatly loved.
We go out into the world
in the power of the spirit of Christ
to walk through darkness and uncertainty
towards the joy of Easter Day.
We go in peace.
AROHANUI BLESSING AA 95 ‘May the mystery of God enfold us’
Words: Joy Cowley. Tune: Marlborough Sounds, Ian Render
May the mystery of God enfold us,
May the wisdom of God uphold us,
May the fragrance of God be around us,
May the brightness of God surround us.
May the wonder of God renew us,
May the loving of God flow through us,
May the peace of God deeply move us,
May the moving of God bring us peace.
RECESSIONAL - Solo Jane Keller ‘Something’s dead inside me’
HIOS 123 (i) Words: Joy Cowley. Tune: Rain Dance, Colin Gibson
Something’s dead inside me,
Some yesterday is slain,
My heart is hung upon a cross,
My thoughts are filled with pain
And yet there is within me
A hope I can’t explain
For in the darkness I can see
God dancing in the rain,
God dancing in the rain.
I surrender to the mystery
Of loss that turns to gain,
The little seed of wheat must die
To become a field of grain,
And I know it’s in this time of grief
That Christ is risen again
For in the darkness I can see
God dancing in the rain,
God dancing in the rain,
God dancing in the rain.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the creation of this service. To all who contributed music, meditations and prayers and technical expertise.
Information about Robert Gauldie and the paintings
“Bob Gauldie was an accomplished researcher and academic who built a reputation for pushing boundaries during a career which included more than 150 scientific publications. He was also not afraid of pushing boundaries in his other great love, painting, with one work irking religious traditionalists and coming close to landing him in trouble with the law.
Following an exhibition of his paintings in 1985, Professor Gauldie was asked to paint the Stations of the cross for Wellington Presbyterian Church St Andrew’s on The Terrace. The 14 stations tell the story of Jesus from his death sentence to his entombment, but those painted by Prof Gauldie and first shown at Easter 1987 caused a stir by depicting Christ as a 44-gallon oil drum. The Evening Post newspaper received several letters attacking the work as “blasphemy” and Prof Gauldie recalled how a senior Wellington police officer warned he could be charged with criminal blasphemy, though in the end no action was taken.
Prof Gauldie said using a 44- gallon drum to symbolise Jesus depicted the stations in a way that was “realistic in the religious sense”. “As a symbol they are ubiquitous, loud and associated with trash. They were ideal for my purpose to portray the Stations of the Cross as the brutal murder, the clangorous, violent trashing of Jesus, the reduction of all his teachings to a worthless and brutalised body that was empty of life”.
Robert Gauldie’s obituary in The Dominion Post 18th June 2011.
Available at http://robertgauldie.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/bob_gauldie_obit.pdf