Daily Archive for March 23rd, 2008

Churches Together

Published
by
Graeme
on March 23, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
. 1 Comment

He is risen!

One of the things I love most about being here in Godalming is the way the various denominations work together. This weekend we have come together for a Good Friday walk of witness and for a sunrise service this morning. Both of these have been excellently attended with between 120-150 people at each of them. It seems though every time that the churches join together in this way people turn out in good numbers to spend time with each other. I also always see people from various denominations chatting and laughing together!

For both of these events the weather stayed perfect! About 5 minutes after we got home on Friday the weather turned from bright and sunny to a torrential hailstorm, and then this morning within about 20 minutes of getting home it started to snow! God certainly seemed to keep the weather at bay so that these celebrations could go ahead!

This morning I had the privilege of being asked to share an Easter morning reflection. The post just below this one is the text of my thought. One of the joys of this role as an Envoy in The Salvation Army is get an opportunity to do this sort of thing and it is a great honour!

Well this is a bit of rambling post! If anyone bothers to read it, then I pray that you have had a really good Easter Day with plenty of chance to reflect on the wonderful events that happened 2000 years ago, yet still have a great significance for this dark world today!

Dawn of a new day

Published
by
Graeme
on March 23, 2008
in Faith
. 0 Comments

In his book on Christian Community, “Life Together” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words:

“The Old Testament day begins at evening and ends with the going down of the sun. It is the time of expectation. The day of the New Testament church begins with the break of day and ends with the dawning light of the next morning. It is the time of fulfilment, the resurrection of the Lord. At night Christ was born, a light in the darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the Cross. But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave.”

At dawn on that first Easter morning, almost 2000 years ago, there was no hope; there was only desolation in the hearts of that handful of women who made their way to the garden tomb to anoint the body held within. It must have been a sombre and soul-destroying walk from their rented rooms to that borrowed grave.

Imagine for a moment the horror there must have been when they saw the tomb lying open. Surely it must have brought into their minds the ultimate finale to the events they had witnessed. Not only had Jesus been brutally flogged; not only had he been nailed to a cross; but now his burial place had been desecrated. How much more were they doing to have to bear?

But then, as they peered through the entrance to see the damage they feared had been done, they saw an angel; an angel who pronounced that Jesus was no longer there but had risen to life again.

This is the message that is the centre of our hope; this is the message that forms the centre of the gospel which we are called to proclaim!

This was no ordinary resurrection, if there can be such a thing. This was not the sort that we read of in the Old Testament or even like those in Jesus’ miracles. No this resurrection was unlike any ever witnessed, either before or since, for Jesus died full of our sin but rose empty of it. He took our sins to hell and then left them there so that we could stand blameless before our God.

This is the hope of this morning’s dawn; this is the hope of Easter; this is the hope of the gospel; that Jesus died and rose again, so that all who declare Jesus as Lord may not only live in eternity with him, but may also be signposts of that hope in this dark world.