Minister’s Letter – April 2018

³⁰Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹But these are written 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: 30-31 NIVUK)

²⁵Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25 NIVUK)

Holy Week is a special time for me, and not just because it centres around the vital moments of our faith! With worship occurring almost daily, and with regular opportunities to share the message of Jesus in other settings (e.g. school assemblies), I must, out of necessity, set aside some of the other aspects of full-time ministry and focus on these times.

I am grateful to those who helped and supported in the leading of our Holy Week services, and I give them my thanks. Even so, I find I still need to pour a great deal of time and energy into these times of worship, and it is liberating to do so. I personally find it an enriching experience.

I hope that you had a blessed Holy Week, and through it you were able to reconnect with the central moments of our faith; namely the death and resurrection of Christ. I hope this because this is one of the reasons behind Holy Week: to allow Christians and the Church to get back to our foundation, to reorient ourselves around Jesus’ death and resurrection, and prepare to go back out into the world, proclaiming His love and Kingdom.

Holy Week reminds us that Jesus truly was the Messiah, the Son of God. This was also part of the reason John wrote his Gospel: in the first quotation above, he makes it clear that he has written that his readers might believe Jesus is the one who brings salvation to our world, and that through Him we might receive life. The experience of Holy Week helps us to believe that Jesus is our saviour.

The second quotation helps us to understand what we are to do now that Holy Week is over. While I doubt this was John’s thinking, I tend to think that part of the reason Jesus complete work cannot be contained within books is because He is still working today. If we were to try and write it all down, we’d never finish, because He is still working; through the Holy Spirit and through the Church, calling people back to Himself and God.

As a congregation, this is our calling: to respond to God’s call to work for Him, retelling the message of Holy Week, reaching out in love with the Gospel. I’ll be giving you more information soon, about how I hope we can ALL be encouraged to participate in God’s work. For now, I hope we can take the message of Holy Week to heart and be ready to respond when God calls.

May God bless you
Stuart