Christ Has Died – Christ Is Risen

We are now in the middle of the most momentous week of the Church’s year as we remember the most momentous week of Christ’s life. We started, yesterday, as we remembered the way in which Christ, as a good Jew, celebrated the Passover meal – the Seder. And we commemorated the way in which Jesus made it special as he took the bread, broke it and said: “this is my body which is broken for you. Do this as a memory of me” And as we celebrated Communion, we did exactly that. We also remembered the way that Christ served humankind, especially as he washed the disciples' feet, as Steve washed the feet of 12 members of the congregation.

Today, Good Friday, many of us joined together at the Methodist Church for the Churches Together in Oadby joint service as we remembered that Christ was indeed “broken” on the cross for us. Many went on to join the “Christ in the Centre” Passion Play, while in the evening we held a meditative service of Scripture readings, prose, poetry and hymns relating to Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross, to forgive us our sins.

And now, we anticipate Sunday, when the astonished disciples found Christ’s grave empty. His offering of himself had been accepted. He had conquered death. We will be celebrating this with a Sunrise (whether or not the sun is visible!) Service in Brocks Hill Park at 6.30 a.m. BST, followed by bacon sandwiches and we move on to our main 10.0 a.m. family Communion Service. Hopefully, losing an hour’s sleep due to the clocks going forward will not discourage our enthusiasm!