the minister writes… from our May 2025 newsletter
Everyday mercies and new beginnings
Dear friends,
As I write this, we are still in the first week following Easter and I find myself contemplating the whirlwind of experiences and emotions that the disciples were going through at that time. Most of them had seen the risen Jesus when he appeared to them in a locked room on the first day of the week, but Thomas still had his encounter to come, an experience that would cause him to set aside all doubt and proclaim Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God!’ There would be multiple occasions of Jesus appearing to people over the following weeks until his ascension 40 days after Easter. Then would come the thrilling power and enabling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, 50 days from Easter (counting Easter day as the first day).
So much going on in such a short period of time. It would have been exciting, awesome and dangerous to be a follower of Jesus Christ – but how alive must they have felt?!
For us, two thousand years later, things are somewhat more muted. Yes, we’ve had the joy and celebration of Easter, and we anticipate Pentecost, I hope with at least a frisson of excitement, yet over-familiarity with the Easter story and our preoccupation with the things of everyday life divert our attention and our time and distract us from the spiritual. We take our eyes off God; we stop listening for what he is saying to us. We think on the miraculous but the ‘Wow!’ has died on our lips.
Yet the message of God’s love shouts from the words of Scripture and is seen all around us in the beauty of creation, in May perhaps more than any other month. As nature is renewed, blossoming and flourishing, so we are reminded how God wants to renew us – each and every day. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
It seems to me that this month is an opportune time to think about the new mercies God gives us, the renewal he offers us daily. To give thanks for his steadfast love and, in response, to look for new beginnings in our lives: in relationships, in spiritual habits, in service to others. As we do so, we may find that the ordinary becomes extraordinary, the mundane transforms into the miraculous, and our spirits thrill once again with alleluias.
The words of John Keble’s lovely old hymn better express what I am trying to say. Four of its verses appear below. I invite you to read them, sing them, pray them and live them:
New every morning is the love, our wakening and uprising prove,
through sleep and darkness safely brought, restored to life and power and thought.
New mercies, each returning day, hover around us while we pray;
new perils past, new sins forgiven, new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.
If on our daily course our mind be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price, God will provide for sacrifice.
Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be as more of heaven in each we see;
some softening gleam of love and prayer shall dawn on every cross and care.
With every blessing,
Sharon