Dear friends,
If you are reading this in April, then Easter would already be with us. Happy Easter! I hope that all our celebrations went well and that you were able to reconnect with family and friends and indeed with your church over the Easter breaks.
As I wrote in my sermon on Mothering Sunday, all humans crave connection we are told, but the level of Christian connection to which we are called is extraordinary, because Christ gave us a new commandment to form connection with others in a radical way.
He commanded us to love others as he loved his disciples, as he loves us. And if we look at that love, it’s not a bland, weak, half-hearted desire to do a little good where we can but an utterly radical call to love others. Yes, all others!
Loving one another as Christ commands – and notice this is a commandment and not merely a suggestion - requires an understanding that Jesus welcomed, accepted, and loved all. Romans, lepers, tax collectors, those who were marginalised on the grounds of gender or ethnicity, even those who denied Him, and as the `Easter Story’ has just reminded us, he even loved those who betrayed him.
This love that we’re commanded to show others we’re called to extend even and perhaps especially to those who may not show love to us…to those who are radically different from ourselves: racially different, politically different, economically different, theologically different.
We can of cause love those who are like us too! Just not at the expense of those who differ from us.
As we begin this Easter season once again. Let us remember, as I wrote last month, that we are known by our love. Then let us live as Easter People, people of hope, Easter People who live in the light that only Christ can share, as it is only Christ who offers it.
Stay Connected to Christ, stay connected to His light and stay connected to the love that light reveals.
Happy Easter. Revd. Lee