He Has Risen

I really like Easter.

I think I would even say that it is my favourite time of the year - yep even more so than Christmas!

I had quite an odd conception of the period of time between Christmas and Easter when I was younger. It was like we prepared for Christs birth in December and then all of Jesus' 33 years and the entire gospel message fit in to 3 or 4 months depending on when Easter fell. After that there was some kind of Summer-y abyss when nothing happened!!

I guess in a way that is where we are in present days...in that summer-y abyss but we live in hope, hope of the return of the one Who Has Risen and it is only because of that fact we have any hope at all.

So yeh, Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday is my favourite week of the year and it was celebrated wonderfully this year throughout the Lisburn circuit. It was particularly interesting to be part of a Passover/Seder meal on Maundy Thursday when all of the elements of the meal and their significance were explained as we shared in it together, this was significantly brought to a close by sharing in communion together, the Christian Eucharist or Love Feast which Jesus asks us to do in remembrance of Him and which He shared with the 12 disciples at his final Passover meal.

Good Friday seen the carrying of the cross up Bow Street by the leaders of the main city centre churches. I had intended to get some pictures of this but as soon as the procession led by the cross began to move the heavens opened soaking everyone but the message of the cross was still proclaimed and celebrated.

The celebration that I look forward to most of all is the dawn rise service at Hillsborough Lake. As much as it may surprise many people I enjoy getting up really early to go and worship the risen Lord as the sun rises up over the lake. It may be cold, it may be damp and there may be lots of little flies eating you for breakfast but for me there's just something really special about being there to greet Easter morning and I don't think my Easter would be the same without it.

Then there was our Easter celebration service, a service full of life and Joy as well as a few surprises - especially for the young boy who had an egg smashed over his head by Rev Brian!!! Fair enough it was an empty shell but i'd have loved to have seen his face if it hadn't been - he was surprised enough as it was!!!

Brian shared a wonderful poem with us that really captures the essence of Easter....

Because He is Risen

Because he is risen
Spring is possible I
n all the cold hard places
Gripped by winter
And freedom jumps the queue
To take fear’s place as our focus
Because he is risen

Because he is risen
My future is an epic novel
Where once it was a mere short story
My contract on life is renewed in perpetuity
My options are open-ended
My travel plans are cosmic
Because he is risen

Because he is risen
Healing is on order and assured
And every disability will bow
Before the endless dance of his ability
And my grave too will open
When my life is restored
For this frail and fragile body
Will not be the final word on my condition
Because he is risen

Because he is risen
Hunger will go begging in the streets
For want of a home
And selfishness will have a shortened shelf-life
And we will throng to the funeral of famine
And dance on the callous grave of war
And poverty will be history
In our history
Because he is risen

And because he is risen
A fire burns in my bones
And my eyes see possibilities
And my heart hears hope
Like a whisper on the wind
And the song that rises in me
Will not be silenced
As life disrupts
This shadowed place of death
Like a butterfly under the skin
And death itself
Runs terrified to hide
Because he is risen

By Gerard Kelly

All of this is possible because He is Risen...because Christ died for each of us...but rose again conquering the grave. The service was closed in sharing the Eucharist and a rousing version of 'Thine Be the Glory' (prompting another childhood memory for me. My Nanny would have taken me to Newcastle Methodist on the odd occasion during 'caravan season' and i have a distinct memory of singing this song one Sunday morning after they had shared communion and I was convinced in my innocence and naivety that the words were 'Risen Concrete Sun'!!!) but there seemed to be a real sense of pure worship and expectancy and so may we take that attitude of worship and expectancy out in to the 'summer-y abyss' knowing our Risen Lord walking by our side.

All for love...

We have been following a series on Grace and Gideon in our evening services over the past couple of weeks which Ive really been enjoying or perhaps to put it a better way Ive got a lot out of it and learnt a lot.Something that just seems to keep popping up for me at the minute is just how incomprehensible God is. From studying Job who's suffering is inflicted by the Satan with God's approval. But suffering is not the only topic to be found in Job but also the journey that Job takes with God coming to the point of submission because he will never understand God's ways or means. Then there is the divine name of God...'I AM who I AM'. This is something that has always intrigued me...there is just so much meaning in those 2 very small words I AM. 2 words that sum up the essence of my God who was, is and evermore shall be...transcending all space and time...any wonder we could never possibly understand all that He is.

This was the conclusion I had come up with regarding the sacred name for my Old Testament exam but never got to use...but that's a whole other story!!!

In the diverse cameos which emerge in an attempt to unravel the complexity of the origin, meaning and significance of the sacred name YHWH, a rich tapestry of challenging ideas can be taken for our worship today. When we enter God’s presence is there the same echo of excitement which evokes an ecstatic cry from the depths of our being as we reflect on the otherness and greatness of God in creation and all of life. We often have a casual familiarity which can easily degenerate into a performance. But as it is revealed in the culmination of the passage in Exodus in which God’s name is revealed, Yahweh’s name and nature exists in all time, in all directions, for ever and for all generations. God is essentially the God of presence in every conceivable experience that life throws at us demonstrating that the unpronounceable I AM speaks in the life death and resurrection of the One who claimed in John 8:58 – ‘before Abraham was , I AM’.

It can really be quite mind bending stuff which i guess for me is where faith comes in...He is the great God...Yahweh...I AM...and He cares about me...how awesome is that. The creator of the universe who breathed life itself wants to know about me...even though He already knows everything about me, He still wants me to chat to Him about it!

And it was this I was thinking about as we thought a little more about grace and prepared for communion on Sunday night and there was a verse that kept running through my head...

May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:19

How can we understand a love that is prepared to die for us...a stranger...but that's just it...we aren't strangers as God knows every little intimate detail about us and just loves us that much.

shell club update....

Check out the update on what the Shell Club have been learning about this year on the Seymour Street Blog :)

He's all you need

This is one of those videos doing the rounds at the moment and most people have probably seen it and indeed I had seen it before tonight. But Brian used it tonight as part of his talk to SNASS and as we were sitting huddled around the laptop (yep techno probs with the data projector!!) I felt like I was seeing it for the first time, indeed understanding the message for the first time and yes it gave me goose pimples!!

It has such a powerful and real message and I would recommend watching it if you've got 5mins to spare it may well help you see an old message with new eyes too.