Continued…
Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.
Finally He will come in Glory. In the meantime He commits to us in many ways, especially in the Scriptures, but above all in the Gospels. The great story at this time is when He joins the disciples on their way to Emmaus. This was read on Tuesday, very appropriately and powerfully by Deacon John at Dorothy Blake’s Requiem Mass. “So he went in to stay with them. Now while He was with them at the table, He took the bread and said the blessing; then He broke it and handed it to them”. Their eyes were opened and they recognised Him but he had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other “did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” Luke 24. 28-30.
For us this is a very special time of opportunity. In our preparations during Lent an obvious point of reference was the Stations of the Cross. This then provided the appropriate background to our experience with the coronavirus and all of life’s journey with its crosses and trials. These are common in every age and an unavoidable part of life. As mentioned before, my grandfather died of the flu which killed millions of people after the first world war. Another event which dramatically brought home to me the fact that in every generation there are hardships in life, due to episodes such as the virus we are enduring today. The threat associated with this virus reminds me of the plight of a family who came to Battle Road, Hailsham at the same time as evacuees like Dorothy, who moved to Hailsham from London. This in turn brought to mind another very difficult illness – tuberculosis. The mother of this family died of it; my own father suffered from it shortly after the war. By the time of his illness a treatment – Penicillin – had been discovered which, as my dad said “for those who were fortunate, this treatment brought them back from the brink of death”. We are fortunate with the vaccination process going so far, so very good – a big thanks to God.
Please God, we will return to a more normal life with its great challenges. This coincides with the resurrection and the new life of the early church. The Stations of the Resurrection which have been recently introduced and particularly encouraged by Peter Robinson, who like many great servants of our community died recently and was a great loss to us, may inspire us with a new lease of life.
We will begin next Sunday with the Stations of the Resurrection. The first one will be ‘Jesus is Risen’. We love you Lord Jesus and we trust in you. For we know you are risen from the dead and live in us.