Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!! Alleluia! Alleluia!
The earliness of Easter this year has tied in with the joy of the stirrings of Spring. The themes of new life and rebirth are perfectly illustrated by what we can see around us as nature seems to wake up and we can feel the vibrancy of spring in the air.
This very action surrounds us with beautiful transformation. The longer days, feeling of warmth and the sight of blossom give us real joy after the darkness and cold of winter. It is the very essence of new life, rebirth, creation and recreation, a tangible signpost to the greater transformation and resurrection of Jesus.
Nature has not vanished, but has subdued itself, become hidden. Now it is re-emerging. The working out of nature directs us to God and this rebirth of Jesus, helping us to process it and recognise it, placing it within the natural world but at the same time emphasising that it is beyond the natural world-like Jesus himself there is the natural and the divine.
In Sunday’s Gospel reading from Luke we encounter a very present, very physical Jesus. He encourages the disciples to touch him to verify his physicality. This is the Jesus of creation, physical like the physical world around us. Yet his body is changed. To underline his physicality he eats with them. This is our embodied Jesus, human and divine, and his divinity shines forth when he teaches the disciples about the meaning of his Messiahship and all that they have experienced.
Our services this Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Easter:
8.00 – Holy Communion at All Saints
10.00 – Holy Communion at St. Marys
10.30 – Messy Muddy Church at All Saints
19.15 – Generations Youth Group at All Saints
The Week Ahead
Monday 15th April.
10.30 Tiny Tots All Saints
Wednesday 17th April
9.00 Celtic Morning Prayer All Saints
Thursday 18th April
10.00 Holy Communion St. Marys
Friday 19th April
11.00. Living after Loss. St. Marys
Saturday 20th April
12.00 Saturday Lunches St. Marys
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen
Blessings
Revd Kester de Oliveira
St Mary's, Fishponds 