Friends, A very happy Easter to you all! What a pleasure to be asked to write the opening message for this edition of the church magazine. The last time I found myself in this position was almost exactly a year ago, during Harry Jones' sabbatical. A year which has flown by, but has been filled with memories, and it is in remembering last Easter that I find the inspiration for this article. What was your first perception of Easter, your earliest memory? Back in the "good old days" of my Anglican childhood I recall the excitement of the Easter Sunday service, when we would receive a special Sunday School stamp, a picture of Jesus' tomb - the stone rolled away from the entrance, and three empty crosses in the background. We also received a palm cross - the exact replica of which we all received last week. All but 50 years on, that simple palm cross stirs childhood memories which can make me deliriously happy, monumentally sad and evoke feelings of dramatic loss - of grandparents, parents and friends, so real in memory but just memories, having no solid tangible reality. Forget the modern day trappings, the Easter bunnies, the hollow chocolate eggs with their hollow, meaningless hype. Travel back to your childhood, recall the Easters of those early days. Done that? Now travel back one thousand, nine hundred and sixty seven years, to that first Easter day. Imagine the sorrow of Mary Magdalene, the disbelief of the disciples, the empty tomb, the folded grave clothes, the angels. These are not just things to confine to memory, not just some two thousand year old mystery. Jesus is as alive today, as he was then, when the stone was rolled away. His love is all-encompassing, our sins are still washed clean by his supreme sacrifice. All we need do is reach out and he, in return, will reach out and touch our lives with a richness and fullness that not even a million Easter bunnies, or empty chocolate eggs can. That first Easter-tide, the resurrection was God's greatest gift to all sinners. We can all be forgiven, we can all enter the kingdom of heaven, if we only believe and follow Jesus Christ. As I said at the beginning, a very happy Easter to you all, and may God bless and keep you. Chris Mason |