Posted Friday 1 April 2011
I don’t know about you but by the time we get to the fourth Sunday of Lent I’m practically on my knees. It’s usually due to a combination of factors, the effects of a long dark winter, the extra activities associated with Lent and the impact of the time change on my body clock. For some reason it just seems harder now than it used to be. This may be because I am getting older and that many things are now much more of an effort than they used to be, or it may be that I still have to do a bit more to do on the work life balance that we’re all now supposed to give attention to. Whatever it is I am looking forward to the spring with a longing that is almost tangible. With spring comes the light, the warmth and the prospect of summer – a chance for release from captivity and the possibility of a new start.
For Christian people the culmination of the spring is Easter when we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness. Despite the fact that I have been observing this the greatest of all festivals for over fifty years it has never lost its appeal nor its sparkle, for it speaks to me ever more powerfully of God’s love for us and of his ability to transform our lives even when we are tempted to be overcome with despair.
It is not only the winter, nor the lack of light, nor the relentlessness of things that threatens to do us in, but the constant trauma of disaster presented to us night after night on our television screens. To this constant round of despair comes the promise of hope in the new life we observe all around us in the spring and more particularly in the reality that is the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
The Scriptures testify to the fact that his resurrection was transformative in the lives of the first disciples. They who had been completely traumatised and broken by witnessing his brutal death and subsequent entombment were given a whole new perspective after they witnessed his resurrection. Their trauma was addressed, their despair done away, their faith restored and renewed and they broken, hurting, still human were given the strength to witness to the resurrection with a vigour that was to transform and renew the whole of the known world.
I believe that their experience can be ours. Our despair and hopelessness can be done away if we are open to the reality of Easter, to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He who transformed the lives of the first disciples can transform our lives if we are open to him. If we are willing like Thomas to proclaim, ‘My lord and my God ‘.
So may I encourage you wherever you are or whatever stage you are on, in your Christian journey not to despair or lose heart. Don’t give up nor give in but put your trust in the one who puts his trust in you and allow him through the resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ to transform your life and make you whole, that you too may witness to the resurrection and be a sign wherever you are of the coming of his kingdom, that walking in the Light may point to the One True Light even God’s only Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
May the Lord be with you and may his peace be yours today
Category: Thought for the Month
