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Dear Friends
To some it appears odd to celebrate the events of Easter so close to Christmas but then how do you celebrate the events of someone’s life that lasted at least thirty years in a span of 365 days; particularly a life like Jesus’ where so much happened in it.
To the early church the placing of the festivals was not just a matter of chance. The early Christians who set the times and dates of these festivals liked the parallel to be drawn with the season of midwinter and the bleakness of the human condition before the arrival of the Christ child – a theme picked up by the author C S Lewis in his book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. Similarly, the early church saw parallels between the coming of Spring and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Most early Christians were very familiar with the passage of the seasons and many were particularly reliant on the fruits of the Earth as farmers. Therefore, it is no surprise that St Paul talked of the resurrection in terms of a seed dying so that the new plant may grow. For people who lived in communities so closely attached to the land explaining the resurrection of Jesus through the imagery of planting new seeds and of everything coming back to life again after being seemingly dead through the winter months must have been irresistible. It still works for us today.
For Christians nothing truly dies it is transformed. All that is required is to hold it up to the light of Christ and ask his help in seeing what to do. Easter is the time of year when we hold up ourselves, our lives, our families, our communities and our church to the light of Christ and see how they may be transformed by Jesus power to bring new life and to breathe life into what we may have considered to be dead.
As others have said before me. ‘We are an Easter people.’ Let us rise up together.
Yours
Tony
Three Valleys Team Ministry
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A PRAYER FOR ALL THOSE AFFECTED BY CORONAVIRUS
Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy.
Sustain and support the anxious,
be with those who care for the sick,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may find comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from your love
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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For a morning and evening liturgy, published by Lambeth, to be downloaded for use at home,
please click here
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The Reverend Tony Gilbert and his wife Nicola