| Mar 2008 | They Met at Calvary |
| Apr 2008 | Keeping the Easter Rumour Alive |
| May 2008 | The Way to Pentecost |
| Jun 2008 | Where our Unity lies |
| Jul 2008 | The Californian Redwood |
| Sep 2008 | "Dwight L. Moody, 1837-99" |
| Oct 2008 | Nine Marks of a Good Church |
| Nov 2008 | Mammon |
| Dec 2008 | Advent and the Evangelists |
| Mar 2009 | A Pattern for Lent |
| Apr 2009 | We have seen His Glory |
| May 2009 | Witnesses To The Resurrection |
| Jun 2009 | The Holy Trinity |
In 1956 W E Sangster published a book with the above title. Each chapter singled out some of those involved in the death of Jesus – the teachers who hated him – the priests who bought him – the traitor who sold him – the crowd who cried ‘Crucify him’, the thieves who died with him - and the people who ministered to him.
There were, of course, many others who have met at Calvary. I single out only two where the gift of a great musician permeated the gift of a great poet. The musician was Fritz Kreisler. The poet was R.S. Thomas.
Fritz Kreisler was an Austrian-born American violinist. He had a Jewish father and a Roman Catholic mother. He died in 1962. His matchless playing of the violin was in the style of pre-war Vienna – sweet in tone and expressive in phrasing. He had a characteristic sound immediately recognizable as his own. His performances were unforgettable. In 1910 Kreisler gave the premiere of Elgar’s Violin Concerto.
Whenever Kreisler played crowds flocked to hear him.
But only a poet of the calibre of the contemporary Welshman and country priest R.S.Thomas could compare the playing of Kreisler to the self-offering of Christ on Calvary.
In his now-celebrated poem this Thomas did to amazing effect:
A memory of Kreisler once:
At some recital in this same city,
The seats all taken, I found myself pushed
On to the stage with a few others,
So near that I could see the toil
Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth
Fluttering under the fine skin
And the indelible veins of his smooth brow.
I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers,
Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis,
As we sat there or warmly applauded
This player who so beautifully suffered
For each of us upon his instrument.
So it must have been on Calvary
In the fiercer light of the thorn’s halo:
The men standing by that one figure,
The hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,
Making such music as lives still.
And no one daring to interrupt
Because it was himself that he played
And closer than all of them the God listened.
The solemn music of Calvary is the passion and agony of Christ’s total self-giving - ‘it was himself that he played’. At Calvary God is totally involved the suffering and redemption of the world he has created.
Norman Wallwork
Copyright ©:2009 Wotton United Church Wotton-under-Edge Gloucestershire