City United Reformed Church, Cardiff

A Moment with our Ministers

Do you know Gladys? She was a long term member of her local church, but she changed her membership one year after Easter. She arrived at her church ready to hear the message of resurrection. Instead, she reported that the nice young minister talked about spring, bunnies, and new life without any reference to Jesus. This, it seems, was the last straw for Gladys. She decided to move her membership to another church.
Gladys came to church expecting to hear a certain message at Easter. What do you come to church to hear at Easter?
The secular message is something about eggs and chocolate. It is certainly okay to have both at Easter, especially if you have given up chocolate for Lent!
Gladys is correct though that there is more to the message than these images.  Even ‘new life’ in spring with lovely new lambs is not the essence of the message.  The signs of spring in our gardens are always hopeful. The lovely yellow flowers brighten the grey spring mornings, but our hope does not rest in the cycles of nature. Our hope rests in God’s work through Jesus.
Watching Jesus journey to Jerusalem may be difficult. We know what is to come–betrayal, arrest, mockery, violence, abandonment, death. If we have experienced any of this, we know how difficult and emotionally painful these experiences are. Jesus experienced all of them. Yet he did not turn from the way of love set before him. He kept moving toward his death.
It was not just Jesus experiencing the pain of death. Imagine the trauma and bewilderment, the grief and paralysis the disciples must have felt following his death. What hope did they have?
But God did something unheard of and brought Jesus to life–a tragic and traumatic event became a life-giving new way. Perhaps this is what Gladys wanted to hear. Maybe she had a terrible year, losing her husband. Maybe she was made redundant and had trouble feeding her kids or paying her mortgage. Maybe her beloved brother was imprisoned. Maybe . . . well, you can imagine some other tragic event. Or perhaps seeing the political landscape shifting, she was afraid that her work at the food bank, providing mental health support, or protesting at climate crisis events was in vain. She needed a glimpse of the hope in the resurrection even more that year than on previous Easters. She didn’t hear it.
Perhaps she needed to hear that God is present in our tragic and traumatic events. While God doesn’t stop any of them from happening, through Christ our pain is known and can be healed. God is in the midst of our lives. God does not abandon us to our own crosses. The resurrection is a powerful reminder that love overcomes the sin and brokenness of the world.
Maybe she needed a reminder that her work was important, even if she couldn’t see the ‘results.’ The message of the resurrection was a reminder that God was working through her. Resurrection hope could give her the drive to continue her work in the name of Christ.
We don’t know what message you need to hear this Easter. Maybe it is simply
this:
‘This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed. . . God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.’ John 3.16,17 The Message
We hope the love expressed in Easter is a glimmer of hope for you.
Peace, Martha and David