Easter Services at St. John’s 2013.

     On Maundy Thursday evening a small group of parishioners gathered at 7.30pm to begin the Easter Services with a short said Holy Communion service.  This was followed by hot cross buns, tea and coffee kindly provided by Joyce.

     On Good Friday we joined with Liverpool Road Methodist Church at 10.45am for a meditative service of around one hour.  This was well attended and very well received by those who were there.  The service was a combination of hymns, readings, prayers and drama, the latter involving members of the congregation to be the crowd or particular characters in the telling of the Crucifixion.  We all then emerged into a bright but bitterly cold day with the sun shining on the early spring flowers which had survived the cold and arctic winds.

     To arrive at church on Easter Sunday morning was to be greeted with beautiful floral displays, put together by Cath and her team of flower arrangers, and the cross at the front of the church decorated with fabric, lilies and the crown of thorns.  The names of those who had died and whose friends and relatives wished to have them remembered were displayed around the Lord’s table – all making a dramatic change to the starkness of the church during Lent.

     Easter Sunday at St. John’s involved two services as usual; the 9.00am Holy Communion service and then a Family Service with Communion at 10.30am.  The family service was a joyful occasion attended by a good number of people.  

     During the service Jeremy used visual aids to explain that the only viable explanation to the events of the first Easter Day was that Jesus really did rise from the dead.  He considered other options put forward by sceptics or non-believers to explain away the empty tomb such as it being the work of body-snatchers (but then who would have been able to carry that out?  The disciples were hiding in fear, and the authorities would have been only too ready to produce the body to quash this new belief.)  Could it have been a mistake, and the women had gone to the wrong tomb?  Again, the authorities would have been very quick to point out the correct tomb complete with corpse.  Could the disciples have been hallucinating or making it all up?  The argument against that is that the disciples changed from fearful men in hiding to men who were prepared to face persecution and death rather than deny the reality of the risen Christ.  No one will do that for something they know to be untrue.  And finally there is the Bible itself.  The writers were not paid for what they wrote and faced persecution for expressing their beliefs.  So, when all is considered, only the fact of Jesus rising from the grave supplies the answer.  

Halleluiah! He is risen indeed!

     During the service anyone who did not receive Communion was invited to come to the Lord’s table for a blessing and then to receive an Easter Egg on their way back to their seat, and after the service all children aged between 0 and 100 years were invited to join in an Easter Egg hunt around the church.  This invitation was enthusiastically received and there were more than enough eggs for everyone.

     Every person who attended either service also received a small box in which was a small egg and a request to enjoy the egg and then fill the box with silver coins to bring back to the summer fair on 29^th June – if anyone went home from church without a supply of chocolate it was no one’s fault but their own!  We should now probably think about joining Weight Watchers!

Thank you to Christine for writing this for the blog.