John writes:
Implicit through the sermon at the 10.30 service and through the quotations read earlier at Dore beach were two related thoughts arising from the fact of the resurrection.

Resurrection life in the everyday

Firstly – for those who entrust themselves to Jesus, resurrection life is not simply hope for beyond death. For the living Jesus is alive within each one of us, and we will be working out the implications of this for the rest of our lives (and being gentle on ourselves as God is gentle when we fail).

Wrote theologian N. T. Wright ‘The resurrection is not only the promise of life after death, but the power of life before death.’

And here’s a lovely quote from J. R. R. Tolkien: ‘Easter is the triumph of light over darkness, and the great hope that even the smallest of actions can make all the difference.’

In what small (and larger) actions can our lives make a Christ-prompted difference today?

Robert Flatt has said ‘The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no matter what my circumstances.’

There is always hope of new beginnings, small changes, fresh insights into the way ahead, answers to tough questions as we seek to think the thoughts of the living Jesus within us.

Resurrection means there is always hope

‘Do not abandon yourselves to despair’ said Pope John Paul II. ‘We are an Easter people and Hallelujah is our song.’

And novelist Frederick Buechner wrote ‘Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.’ I don’t know if he only had death in mind here, with the hope of resurrection lying beyond.

But there are worse things in life than death, and what he seems to be saying is that regardless of the awfulness we face in life there is always still hope – either for this life, or for life beyond the grave. That’s why Pope John Paul urged us not to ‘abandon yourselves to despair.’

And that’s why Tim Keller noted “Easter means that no matter what is happening in your life, no matter how dark it seems, God can always bring new life, joy, and hope.”

We are so fragile and prone to negativity, and these may come as hard words to us in terrible life situations. It can never be right to criticise those who are struggling because they don’t have more Easter positivity, but we can simply encourage them to hold on, to believe themselves immeasurably cherished by God in the darkness.

And then the day comes when the stone is rolled away, and we step out into the garden, blinking in the early morning sunlight, and find we are not alone.

At Dores beach, Duncan quoted 1 Peter 1:3: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’ ... See MoreSee Less

Through the hymns, reading, and sermon at this morning's 10.30 service we entered into something of the amazement and sheer bemused joy of three of the disciples on realising that the Jesus who had been so very dead after his crucifixion was (and is) alive.

The greatest distinctive of Christian faith is this conviction – that Jesus was raised to life physically by God. This, as Duncan said, is the basis of our belief that we shall live embodied lives beyond our physical deaths. In Christ’s resurrection, Duncan said, ‘God is recreating and beginning something entirely new through Jesus.’

The reading was John 20:1-18 and Duncan reminded us of St John’s purpose in writing:

that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:21)

The challenge is to place our faith in this Jesus, and then to ‘go and tell’ what we have seen.

(The Disciples Peter and John running to the sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection, 1889 by Eugène Burnand (Public Domain)) ... See MoreSee Less