I h
ave just been watching the BBC programme Every Parents Nightmare, in which Rev Julie Nicholson reflects upon the comfort and inspiration the Passion of Christ might bring to parents in difficult times.
She grieves the fact that she was not able to cradle her own daughter or offer her any support or comfort before she died senselessly in the terrorist attacks in London last year.
She spoke openly and vulnerably about how she is unable (at present ) to forgive those responsible, and yet is seeking a way forward...
In an earlier interview she stated ;
“It’s very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist, the Communion, and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself. So, for the time being, that wound in me is having to heal.”
An image that has helped Julie on her pathway to healing has been the Pieta- the picture of Mary cradling the broken body of Jesus. To see your child broken is indeed Every Parents Nightmare.
One mother interviewed this evening had a daughter born with severe cerebral palsy, at eight she has a limited life expectancy...her mother spoke of living with grief for what might have been...she also spoke of the joy that they had received from this broken little girl, and how the image of God was clearer in vulnerable brokenness than in our own apparent wholeness.
My own experience of this has been with my 20 year old son Chris, who was born with a major congenital heart condition. Chris has undergone open heart surgery several times, twice being admitted to the intensive care unit for 6 weeks, During that time all I could do was watch, feeling helpless. Brushing his hair or sponging out his mouth were token gestures...I prayed prayers with no words. Prayers of deep longing and pain...yet at the bottom of it all I knew, as has been said before, that this was all as it was, and that in spite of how things might look that all would be well...that is not to say that I knew that Chris would be healed, simply that all would be well.
God was powerfully present at those times, just as he was powerfully present when my daughter Sarah stillborn was placed into my arms ...strangely the memory of that time has enabled me to sit with Chris through his time in intensive care in a way that may not have been possible before. For we knew that Sarah had died, and we also knew that all was well, that she was with God, and that he was with us, and through the pain and the mystery of that time came new life.
God is big enough to take our pain and our questions and patient to sit with us whilst we work our way through the pain and the questions. There were three days between the death and Resurrection of Jesus, Julie says that she is working her way through that in between time...she is coping with and learning to cope with the pain and the questions. Her faith has not deserted her, she simply feels unable at this present time to forgive the suicide bombers....like Mary she is cradling her child, her broken child, but as she has no body to hold she is holding that brokenness in her heart...
And right now the embrace, the mothers love and longing is unable to let go to settle to forgive and to move on...
My heart empathises and aches for Julie, I believe passionately that God is with her, he will help her to move forward...
Right now Julie is working with young people in a theatre project, the vibrancy and life of these young people speaks to her of life of Resurrection...here is church she says, just as relevant if not more so than when I am wearing my robes and standing behind the altar.
As we enter Holy week I believe her story challenges us...for Jesus did not go lightly to death...
