Grammar Central Commentary Corner Reverend Christopher Welsh At the Foot of the Cross
| At the Foot of the Cross |
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Some years ago, when I lived in Sydney, a friend of mine was moving to Melbourne. He was not looking forward to cleaning out the garage, not because he is a revhead with lots of bits of car to sort out, or a handyman with tools and timber and so on. He was a priest, an academic, with boxes and boxes of paper work and old books. I offered to give him a hand, not that I knew what to keep and what to throw away. It was more a question of companionship, conversation and encouragement to keep him on the task. As is often the case, I probably was much more of a hindrance than a help. The day came and when he opened the garage doors I could see the size of the problem. We got to work and I dragged in a couple of very large, empty wheelie bins. We decided he would sort and make decisions, and I would fetch and carry. Time and again he would thrust piles of stuff into my arms to throw away and I would heave it decisively to its penultimate resting place. The stuff to be retained I stacked carefully in clean removal cartons. Every time he gave me something for the bin, he would say, 'Well, that can go to God ' or 'You can give that to God.' After a while, I was becoming a little unsettled. I said, 'Don't you think that is a bit irreverent? I mean, why does God get all the rubbish?' Well, that put an end to the work for at least an hour or two. We sat down on a couple of packing cases among the debris of his life, amidst the chaos of the garage and entered into a long theological discussion about what we give to God and what we don't. The lesson of Easter is that we don't need to be consumed by those things that sit heavily in our hearts. What we often call sin met its own death on the cross. Those things that get in the way of our relationship with each other and our relationship with God, need not consume us because they have been consumed in the fire of Easter. We all need to find a way to give to God, to put at the foot of the Cross, lingering hurts and memories which we no longer wish to be a part of ourselves. Those things that stand in the way of our peace of mind can be gone. They need not stay with you; this is an experience of forgiveness, of God's grace and of new life. But my friend and I did agree that it can be a pity if we only think of taking the ugly things to God. So we have another opportunity, that of offering to God our heartfelt thanks and profound gratitude for the abundance of good things that sit alongside the stumbling blocks. Towards the end of a busy term, it is a time for us all to look back, to shed whatever might impede the road forward if we hang on to it. A time of reflection and review, symbolised by reports and parent interviews, undertaken properly, thoroughly and in a true spirit of openness to change, can help to make the road ahead a much smoother path. |
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