The minister writes… from our April 2025 newsletter
Dear friends,
Imagine, if you will, that you are one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Maybe you are one of the women, making your cheerless way to the tomb in the first splinters of dawn, carrying spices with which to anoint the dead body of Jesus, wondering what you will do about the large stone sealing the grave. You arrive to find it rolled back, to be greeted by angels, to be told the impossible, astonishing, wonderful news that he is not dead but lives! You’re scared; you’re bewildered but deep inside you a thrill is growing.
Or perhaps you are Mary Magdalene, gone to the garden to weep, the one thing you thought you could do for your Lord denied you, his body moved or stolen. Only to be greeted through a mist of tears by his beloved voice speaking your name. Told by him to go back with a message for the disciples you become the ‘apostle to the apostles.’
Maybe you are Peter or John, hearing the testimony of Mary and the other women, uncertain, disbelieving, yet knowing you must see for yourselves. You run to the tomb and there is the rolled-away stone, there are the discarded grave clothes. What can this mean? The truth stirs and awakens your grief-numbed hearts.
Or perhaps you are Thomas on that first Sunday evening, returning from your errand to a roomful of friends clamouring to tell you that they have seen Jesus. Oh, the bitterness of not having been there. Bitterness that becomes denial – it can’t be true, they’re wrong. Unless I see him for myself and touch his wounds, I won’t believe! Given just that opportunity a week later, you fall to your knees and from your lips comes the first proclamation of faith that will be echoed by millions of believers down the centuries: ‘My Lord and my God!’
We can’t be those witnesses for that was then, but we can still be witnesses. For we know the same truth that they learned that first Easter day – that the grave couldn’t hold him, that death was defeated by him, that the shackles of sin have been burst apart by Love. The first alleluias of Easter morning 2025 will sound from our lips as we come to worship and as we sing those uplifting hymns……. but don’t let them stay confined to the church. For the astonishing, soul-gladdening news of the Resurrection is not for us alone to rejoice in – it is for us to share. It is the Good News that distinguishes Christianity from every other faith, and it is news that can move hearts and transform lives. Let us make it count in our lives and in the lives of all we meet.
He is not dead, he is alive! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Yours in Christ,
Sharon