Momentous LIFE or Death

                I wonder which you think is more powerful life or death. Your answer to that question probably reveals a lot about your personality; optimist or pessimist, jar half full or half empty!  Before you tie yourselves in knots thinking there maybe a definitive answer, we can all agree that both life and its absence are powerful and mysterious.

                The Easter story is precisely about these mysteries and is certainly powerful.  It is fitting that we celebrate in spring when life seems to burst forth from barren ground. At this time of year life seems to conquer death and Easter is no exception. Few would doubt that a man known as Jesus was crucified, dead and buried. The fact that many believe he conquered death and arose to life seems incredulous. Death is death, by ‘nature’ it is the end, we may argue. However when we look a little closer at nature it is not so unreasonable for most endings are really simply new beginnings. The end of a sunset is the beginning of the night, a flower that falls to the ground, is the beginning of the nutrients that are needed to give new life to another flower. 

                Death itself has been fairly well understood for centuries. The people who watched Jesus crucified were no more likely than you or I to expect that he would arise. If you are aware of Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch you must understand that 1^st Century Palestinians would also have known a dead parrot when they saw one!  I however am among those who believe that in this particular death, death itself was mortally wounded. Paul expresses this when he writes:

 ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.
                O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

If Paul is correct the answer to the conundrum with which we begun is simple. Life must be more powerful, for the greater swallows the lesser. So life is more powerful than death….. In Jesus at very least!

                I think the meaning of Easter must come down to this question. If the resurrection of Jesus is real then the power of life, particularly life connected to Jesus Christ is unstoppable.  Again as Paul wrote, ‘nothing not even death can separate us.’ Of course death still remains powerful; all sorts of separations that we experience are real, and especially so if we practically keep ourselves away from God. The ‘glass’ maybe more than half full, it may actually be overflowing and can never run dry. However you and I will remain thirsty if we do not drink it! Easter states that Life is stronger than death, hallelujah, God has done this. It is still though for us to grasp this life, each and every day and to live it and to enjoy it to the full.

Happy Easter everyday

Stephen

Thought for Lent: THE GLORIOUS INEFFICIENCY OF REST

When I hear the words ‘efficiency savings’, I have to admit that my hackles rise. I do not believe that life is meant to be ‘efficient’, it’s meant to be lived. Now you might wonder what this has to do with a ‘thought for Lent.’ I would say a great deal. Lent is a 40 day preparation (excluding Sundays!) for Easter. It’s a time of waiting before in effect the new life of spring and Easter arrives. Waiting is something that we English are very good at: we queue, we sit in traffic jams and we wait for someone human to finally answer the telephone! We are good at it, but by and large we don’t enjoy it. We think that waiting is a waste of time, we become impatient; it’s inefficient we cry.

One problem we have with waiting is that we live in a culture of demands. We expect fast food, superfast internet and instant information from the beloved (if tax avoiding) google! In a perfect mechanised world there would be no waiting… it’d be all arrival. But when life is all about arriving, without any ‘inefficient’ waiting and preparation, few of us seem to realise or indeed appreciate where we actually are.

Nature on the other hand ‘naturally’ makes us wait. One can plant a carrot instantly, but there is little point picking it until it’s grown. One can make a baby fairly quickly but it takes 9 months or indeed a lifetime to become a parent.

There are so many areas of life that this principle applies to. I recently visited Southmead hospital on a Sunday evening. The place was asleep. Oh yes there were staff quietly going about their business of caring for others, but it felt to me as if the whole place was having a rest, taking a breath before the frenetic activity of healthcare resumed on Monday morning. Is this inefficient, or is this a necessary breather for everyone. It reminded me that the God of the Hebrews in his ‘wisdom’ spoke of the need for land, animals and people to have a weekly day of rest. How inefficient: how absolutely delightfully wonderful!

(Ref inefficiency in healthcare… it is salutary to note that according to most doctors I know, the greatest inefficiency is down to not enough beds left for people after treatment. A problem caused by shrinking bed numbers, because this was more ‘efficient!’)

So back to Lent and waiting or preparing for the reminder of new life at Easter. The Christian stream that I now most closely associate with is Celtic. It came to these Islands along the sea channels around 350AD. It didn’t bring Christianity as a religion; it brought a way of life, of love. One idea that I treasure is taken from the tides, the ebb and flow: as the sea rushes in there is great activity, as it ebbs there is a time for rest. This natural rhythm is mirrored each day and each night. I believe it’s there too in the seasonal waiting of lent, which ends of course with a further ‘inefficient’ paradox: the death, the lying ‘resting’ in a tomb of the one I believe is Saviour of the world. In this case just as rest is a prelude to work, so death is a prelude to life: a bursting forth of love that not even ‘inefficient’ death can defeat. So my advice this March is to take some ‘inefficient’ rest, so that you will discover how to truly find a life that is a joy in the living.

This March we celebrate Easter on the 25^th and 27^th. Your local churches would love to welcome you.

Stephen Newell