Australian Kairos: 9 April 2009

Hello, all. Again, I'm slow with updating this and I apologize! The past few weeks I have really been enjoying Sydney. I sat in the SECOND ROW at a show at the Opera House (it was called Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, look up the synopsis because it was crazy), went to some new beaches, enjoyed gelato, hung out in Glebe which is the Greenwich Village of Sydney, went to Featherdale Animal Park to see, and pet, wallabies, kangaroos, and koalas along with heaps of other native Australian animals, went to the largest IMAX screen in the world to see Underwater: 3D (and yes, it was amazing!), and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This week is project week, so we have classes off to work on projects and catch up on homework. Next week is our study break and a group of us are going to Magnetic Island in Queensland to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef!

This week is also holy week so we've been enjoying the festivities. Wesley Institute (my university) did a march around Circular Quay on Palm Sunday reenacting when Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey (yes, we had a Jesus and a donkey). Today is Maundy Thursday and we went back to St. James Anglican Church (where I went for the Ash Wednesday Service) for the Liturgy of the Lord's Supper with Footwashing. I am really beginning to love the Anglican Church. It was a very solemn service, with all the normal rituals like purifying the church with incense, but the focus this time was on the new commandment that Jesus gives at the Last Supper: "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another," (John 13:34). In an act to acknowledge his command to love one another and to accept each other with grace and humility, we, as a congregation, washed each other's feet. It was such a great moment of respect and vulnerability to not only wash a complete stranger's foot, but to place your bare foot into the hands of someone you have never met, and wholeheartedly (or timidly) watch as they cleanse it, just as Jesus did to his disciples so many years ago. The bulletin explains this act: "The washing of feet, like the Eucharist, is a revelation of the church to itself, 'If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, then surely you must wash one another's feet,' (John 13:14). Once ministered to by Christ, we are both enabled and impelled to minister to each other. This mutual ministry is the sign that we have been bound to each other by him, and our behavior toward each other will demonstrate our reality as the church -- the body of Christ." It was a humbling experience, but also a uniting moment for the congregation; I would like to see my home church, Hanfield, incorporate this ritual in our yearly Passover meal. After the footwashing, the service became very somber, because we remembered that Jesus washed his disciples feet even though, "he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, 'Not all of you are clean,'" (John 13: 11). At the end of the service, the choir chanted Psalm 22 in the dark (to represent the dispersal of the disciples) and the sanctuary was stripped clean (to represent the betrayal of Jesus). We were to depart the church in silence and silence was kept in and around the church until the Good Friday services began the next day. There was also a Prayer Watch that is kept throughout the night in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. The whole service put me in the proper mindset of what happened this night, and on Good Friday. It is a bittersweet moment, to which Jesus gives his disciples a plan for the future, to love one another, yet also is betrayed and crucified. It gives Easter a deeper meaning and a greater celebration. There is joy in the morning!

I will sadly be traveling on Easter morning (cheaper plane tickets...) but I will hopefully at least attend an evening service in Magnetic Island. I did buy a dark chocolate bunny to save until Easter morning (since I will be without an Easter egg hunt) as they are EVERYWHERE and have been haunting me since I first got here. I will sign off this post with some pictures, since I haven't put any up yet! (Some of these are duplicates from facebook!) Miss you all...