Easter Sunday Service

Happy Easter!

Christ is Risen - He is Risen Indeed!

Our Lenten cross has been transformed thanks to the artwork of the kids (scanned in and then emailed to Jessica to collate!)

Pam Grayling has sent us a picture of her transformed Palm Crosses.

We hope this service meets you well, and you may feel a sense of community as we watch it together, in our separate homes.

Please give the video chance to load and then press the play button. If it doesn't work for you contact Jessica and she can send you the youtube link.

Please take a look at this offering from Betty Grimley. Because of copyright laws we are unable to put into our own video recordings of music done by other people that we do not have permission from, however you are still able to enjoy it and continue your worship using it directly from youtube. Thank you Betty.

A huge thank you to Andrew Hudson and Steve Pickering for collating all of the music entries for Thine Be the Glory and for putting it together. Isn't it great to feel as though we are worshipping together.

Easter Message from Rev John Rowe

A few years ago I was directed to a website which encourages visitors to the site to post a personal six word memoir. It is an interesting, if a somewhat challenging, exercise to try and distil our lives in this way - to condense what we believe is interesting or important to us and about us, into just six words.

The nature of the memoirs on the website, are varied. Some are humorous like the one which claimed: I’m more Clark Kent than Superman!

Being a person of diminutive stature, my personal favourite was one that suggested:

“I’m not short, I’m fun size!”

As you would imagine other postings are far more poignant and thought provoking – As you would find out if you were to Google the words ‘six word memoir’ or ‘six word story’.

Of course on Easter Sunday we are reminded that the Christian faith itself has a six word story to tell the world and that story is this:

Jesus is risen from the dead.

These are the words that the breathless women carried from the empty tomb back to the other disciples. These are the words that have been passed from person to person, from community to community, every day since that first Easter Sunday.

Indeed, these six words have took a lost and broken small group of people, and made them into the largest religion in the world. These are the words which have come to countless men and women whose lives were broken by pain and suffering, by sin and darkness, death and grief and given them new life. Jesus is risen from the dead.

These are the words whispered at bedsides, shouted from rooftops and declared at gravesides. These are the words that have been forbidden by governments both ancient and modern and yet somehow they are still spoken, still shared two thousand years after they were first uttered.

Jesus is risen from the dead.

These are the words that the martyrs sang as they were being burned at the stake and fed to the lions. These are the words that continue to inspire hope in all Christians today.

Jesus is risen from the dead.

It is today, good to hear these six words again. Particularly, in our current context, where the Coronavirus, has entombed vast numbers of the world’s population in their homes, heightening fear for our personal safety, those we love and not least for those to whom we owe so much who remain on the frontline of the battle against Covid-19.

For, these six words are the story of how God’s love for us is stronger than death. That pain and suffering do not and will not have the last word. In raising Jesus, we are assured that the final word in each of our lives belongs to God. As the apostle Paul says in his letter to the Christians in Rome, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because:

Jesus is risen from the dead.

So like those women at the tomb that first Easter Sunday, do indeed continue to share with others what you’ve heard. And by all means use as many words as you want – but six is all you need!

Jesus is risen from the dead

Keep hoping and believing in God

….and of course, in one another.

Christ is risen – He is risen Indeed – Alleluia - Amen

May God bless you all on this glorious day. A reminder of new life in Christ Jesus our risen Lord.

Alleluia!