Easter Saturday is one of the holy nights – following the Jewish Custom of a day starting when the sun set, so Christians throughout the world gather to light ‘Easter Fire’s’ either on the night before Easter Sunday or the morning of it. This is a traditional service, interweaved with the thoughts, patterns and practices of many centuries of Christians who have gone before us. But it’s also strikingly challenging and modern as it helps us to remember the hope that we have that is at the centre of our lives – a hope that keeps burning regardless of what life throws at us.Our fire certainly burned well – made from the remains of our Christmas Tree we certainly were not cold! From there, we moved into church to renew our baptism vows and celebrate Christ’s rising.Then at the end, we gathered around the Easter fire, enjoying the company of one another as the sun finally set (and a few marshmallows too!).And then it was off to get 400 balloons up into the rafters ready for Easter Sunday….!
Thank you to everyone who came to our Easter Crafts and lunch today – it was, quite simply, fantastic! And that blue sky…..!There were craft stations both inside and outside the church – from origami, to stained glass crosses, a Easter Sunday scene made up of chocolate and biscuits, not to mention a weaving cross, an Easter Garden and some stone decoration too! On top of that there were the lovely grounds to play an impromptu game of football too!We’ll definitiely be doing it again!Then it was just to get those 400 balloons up in the rafters & those hundreds of eggs hidden ready for Sunday morning….
We were joined by Ricky the donkey who, as ever, was perfectly behaved. We started off at the Cross outside the Orange Tree pub. There we blessed our palms (which many of us will keep until Ash Wednesday next year). Then, singing away we walked down the main road, up Townfield Road and into Church Walk.Ricky and Donkey wasn’t completely convinced about going into church after having such a good walk, but soon happily walked down and enjoyed the rest of the service in centre stage.It was particularly wonderful having so many children – as ever, they were wonderfully behaved and many enjoyed giving the donkey a stroke and then following on behind.After all this excitement it was then time to gather for lunch – so many people stayed behind, it was wonderful! Such was our hunger (and such was the food in front of us) that we failed to get any pictures and instead spent the time eating and chatting, so our apologies!
We are gathering together today to say goodbye to one of our much loved members of our communities.One of the things he is remembered for is his ability to make anything work and build things out of stuff others might throw away. Pictured above is ‘Burt’s Cross’ – made out of the left over nails after we made the steeple safe some time ago, they are still lovingly used by many of our congregation.As we move into Holy Week, we can’t think of a more fitting or poignant way to remember him.
