Easter 2025 – Why Timing Matters
To be honest, it’s been a really busy week and so I asked myself, “Why not just use an old Easter post for resurrection Sunday? After all, it’s not as though the message of Easter 2025 is different to Easter 2024 or Easter 1924.” At a certain level that is entirely true – and at another level, entirely false. To some extent it depends on if you view Easter as primarily a comfort, or as a challenge. If you see Easter as essentially a comfort, there is a timelessness about the message. Easter is the reminder that even death by crucifixion could not destroy Jesus....
Read MoreOn Turning 67: Numbering our Days…
Psalm 90:10 makes the sobering claim that “The length of our days is seventy years.” That’s mildly alarming if, like me, you’ve just turned 67. What – only 3 years to go? True, the Psalmist goes on to note that we might reach 80, but warns that “their span is but trouble and sorrow”, before advising us “to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” OK – so what does this have to say to those who, like me, are in striking distance of some of those numbers, and does it also have something for those who haven’t...
Read MoreThe power of “yet” and “not yet”…
They can be two such frustrating words. You hear the question:”Have you figured out how that new app works?” or “Have you worked out how to put that IKEA chair together?” You know the answer will be those two words: “Not yet!” They can be even more worrying: “Have you got the new job you’re looking for?” “Not yet.” Perhaps its even worse, “Is your relationship any better?” or “Is the chemo starting to work?” And you hear the sobering response: “Not yet.” The first word is a negative...
Read MoreWho would have thought? When change is possible…
Ever had one of those “who would have thought” moments? I’m thinking of those in the positive category – when you are delighted that something has unexpectedly come off, or you are so pleased that someone you underestimated has hit a six. True, we also have dismal and disappointed “who would have thought” nightmares when things don’t go at all to plan – but this is not the place for those. I’m writing this just a short while after Easter. Easter Sunday was history’s greatest “who would have thought” moment. Who would...
Read MoreJust Another Sunday?
Don’t know about you, but Easter has snuck up on me unexpected. In my head I think of it as an April thing, but of course it’s on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the Spring equinox, and sometimes that’s in March. It’s so much easier to remember Christmas with its solid 25 December location (unless you are part of the Orthodox tradition, in which case it is 7 January). Ah well, what’s it about dates and remembering? For most Easter will be just another Sunday. Except it isn’t. Those who think that Easter has nothing to do with them...
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