Remembrance Sunday

It is days like Remembrance Sunday which remind me that people still have a need for God!

This year, I widened our church service into a remembrance for all who have loved and lost - in other words, all of us. Having taken quite a few funerals in the past couple of years (for a Baptist, anyway!), I invited the relatives to come back to church for the occasion. About a dozen extra folk came along, which was great. A few backed out at the last moment because the grief, for them, was too raw.

We reflected on the nature of loss and the hope of resurrection, making sure that the service was as user-friendly as possible to a group of people who were not used to church. We concluded our service with an opportunity for people to come and light a candle for those they have loved and lost. About half of the congregation came out to do so, including those who were specially invited.

It was a moving way to remember that we all experience loss, and that God grieves with us whilst holding out the hope of life to come.

Time to begin again?

This is a copy of my article for our April Church Magazine

At the time of writing, I have just been looking at our church’s Easter publicity material. It includes a photograph of a beautiful butterfly, with the words ‘Time to begin again.’

Together, the image and the words give us a good description of what Easter is all about.

Of course, we know about butterflies and where they come from. They begin with eggs that hatch into caterpillars – quite ugly in my opinion, but you may beg to differ! They go through a process of metamorphosis, from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. In other words, the caterpillar is completely transformed into something new!

Good Friday is the day on which we remember the death of Jesus. He took upon himself the ugliness of our sin. When he had died, he was taken down from the cross, his body bound in strips of cloth and laid in a tomb. On Easter Sunday, we remember the resurrection of our Lord. Those who were first at the tomb were dumb-founded to find the body gone, but they did see the strips of cloth that had wrapped it. It was as if a chrysalis remained, from which a transformed Christ had emerged, victorious over death.

The point is this: ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). From sin and death, Jesus was raised to life and because of this, all people may begin again.

Is it time for you to begin again? With Christ, your life can be transformed into a thing of beauty, like the butterfly that comes from the caterpillar.

If you have already made that new beginning, Easter is a time to be reminded that whatever you feel about yourself, you are new creation in Christ!

Yours in the Name of the One who brings life from death!