THE REVEREND GLENN MARTIN WRITES:
Dear Friends,
By the time this letter arrives on your door it will be nearing Easter time and the beginning of Holy Week. This is of course the highlight of the Christian year - its greatest festival. Many mistakenly think Christmas is the great one but the events of Holy Week leading to Good Friday and Easter Day are the true jewels in the Christian crown.
The sheer drama of the Passion story and the build up to Easter Day are a sumptuous feast of events for the Christian. Every human emotion is encountered during this period of time. We experience deep sadness, pain and agony alongside joy, relief, excitement and eventual ecstasy.
I am sure if you spend a moment in silent or thoughtful reflection on your life thus far you will recall great moments of elation, happiness, peace, joy and contentment. Alongside this you will perhaps recall some pain, hurt, failure or rejection also. Moments perhaps you wish you had not encountered. Moments of woundedness.
I guess the Easter Story helps us through all of this. It speaks of the wounded Christ. Hurt physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually through the desertion of his friends, his trial and eventual crucifixion and then his death. A deeply wounded human being. But thankfully the Easter story doesn't end there. The story goes on to talk of the Resurrection of Christ and his continued appearances to his friends and disciples after his death. Death and misery were not the end for him. Strangely it is through the final experience of woundedness - his death - that Christ triumphs. His woundedness was eventually a gateway and experience leading to the resurrection and a fuller and more loving experience of God. A love and power that death cannot extinguish. Easter is ultimately about an event of triumph and victory. A triumph and victory hard won but nevertheless deeply liberating, powerful, personal and celebratory. It is of course God’s gift to us.
I hope this Easter whatever the trials and tribulations that life can bring you can spend a moment reflecting on the Living Lord who walks with you through the tough times but also is capable of giving you great joy, strength and peace. He can give you a real, deep and life giving experience of what the Love of God and the resurrection in your life can mean and be. It is the real stuff that life is made of!!
God’s richest Easter blessing be upon you.
Revd Glenn
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
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