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Message from the Minister
Dear Friends,
Easter challenges us to explore Jesus' resurrection in relation to his execution, since the resurrection is God's response
not simply to death and dying, but to the cutting off of Jesus' life. Three hallmarks of the crucifixion dominated
the thinking of the Roman and Jerusalem Temple authorities as they looked for a way to handle Jesus, hallmarks
which were diametrically opposed to the Jesus' own life and work. First, the authorities saw life in terms or winning
and losing, of beating the opposition, of feeling threatened by somebody who might destablise their control of society.
Second, they believed that the best way to prevent matters getting too far out of hand was to isolate the leader in the expectation that his followers would drift away
in disillusionment. Third, they promulgated the myth of scarcity, the notion that there are not enough resources
to go round, when in fact there are more than sufficient, the problem being that those in power have difficulties
when it comes to just and fair distribution and sharing.
The trouble for the authorities was that Jesus offered the opposite perspective to these hallmarks and risked
undermining their control of people, religion, land and wealth. In response to a predominantly competitive attitude to life, Jesus
refused to see others as opposition. For him it was not a question of winning or losing but of living in community and valuing otherness.
In response to the goal of isolating those who were different Jesus integrated and reintegrated those deemed to be
on the periphery: the unclean, the outcasts, the rejected. In response to the notion that resources were limited he made
his protest with the multiplication of bread and fish and the outcome of abundance.
If crucifixion was the attempt to smother the Jesus perspective and erase this from the memories and minds of the people, then
one means of understanding the resurrection is the way in which the threads of Jesus' stance of life are picked up again in the Easter
experience. In their different ways disciples, old and new, began to reflect the attitude of Jesus as understood in the last paragraph, and our evidence
for this is what we read in Acts of the Apostles, Luke's sequel to his Gospel. There too we find followers disengaging from the notions of victory
and conquest as they are put in prison, persecuted or even killed. There too we find boundaries collapsing and new integration occurring, this time
particularly in relation to the Jews and Gentiles. There too we find that people have enough to live on because the community shares what it has. The early
post-Easter community picks up the threads of Jesus' life values and begins to make a far reaching impact on those whom it encounters.
Why not take some time this Eastertide to read through Acts
keeping an eye out for those threads that are being taken forward
and developed as part of the resurrection life of those new communities
of disciples? And then we could begin to ask ourselves some deep
and searching questions about how our lives reflect the perspective
of Jesus. Is the resurrection simply something that we believe or
the threads that we live?
Happy Eastertide
David
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Baptisms, weddings and funerals can be arranged through our minister,
Revd David Bidnell.
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