Church News Volume 4, Issue 6

Dear friends,

Good Friday and Easter Day - the darkness and the dawn that belong to each other. We could not bear the Friday unless we knew that the Sunday was coming. This is why the joy of Faster is different from any other joy in the whole world; it is so magnificently triumphant!

The sufferings of Jesus during Holy Week, and the triumph of Easter reflect something of our own sufferings here and now. Jesus was truly human, flesh and blood just as we are, yet He was also truly God incarnate. His sufferings are like our sufferings. He bled just as we bleed when injured. His heart grieved at the grave of Lazarus His friend, just as we grieve at the loss of a loved one. God knows what it is to be human and to live on earth with the limitations of these human bodies. He lived and breathed, ate and drank, laughed and cried, felt pain and suffering, just as we do. God understands when we call out to Him in pain and despair. He knows. He too has been there.

With the darkness comes the dawn. Jesus conquered pain and death and rose triumphant from the grave. We too shall all go to the grave, but will also share in the triumph of resurrection. The dawn will come for all of us, we shall rise again upon another shore, in the Kingdom of Heaven.

We live in times of darkness. A world of much suffering, violence, despair, death. Threats of weapons of mass destruction and acts of terrorism. Our troops fighting in the alliance against the regime in Iraq. Young men and women injured and killed in war. Innocent civilians suffering caught between the fighting forces.

It is easy in these troubled times to despair and loose hope.

But Easter calls upon us to have courage with hope in our hearts. Life will have dark times, desperate times. limes when we have to suffer with and on behalf of others for what we believe is right. From the darkness will come light. The light of a new dawn. Peace will return, justice will be restored, grief will turn to joy, death will become life. This is the message of Easter.

A HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL

Revd Ian M. Finn

News Letter Archive.