Hey I’m back! In fact we have been back just over a month from our travels to Australia and New Zealand. You will be hearing about our trip – plenty of interesting things to talk about. But those who have been following my blog will realise that it was no mean feat that we managed to get on the right plane on the right day at the right time!
Back at Scargill , we have just said goodbye to our Easter houseparty. An amazing week where we journeyed with Jesus through Holy Week to the joy of Easter Sunday.
One of the things that struck me is how Jesus went out of his way to show people who he was through his actions. A good example of this is Palm Sunday where Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on a donkey, and the significance of entering the city from the Mount of Olives. Jesus didn’t speak a word yet he was saying so much through his actions. He was saying, ‘Look, I’m your King!’. And, of course, the Resurrection is the amazing sign of who Jesus is and what he came to do, but yet even though some his closest friends didn’t get it. Just look at Luke 24 and the story on the road to Emmaus.
So some of the questions I have been asking myself are, “how do I recognise Jesus today?” and “is my life dulled to the presence of Jesus or preoccupied with self-interest ?”
On another point on the same subject, I challenged the Community recently to think how people could recognise Jesus just through our actions, through the way we treat and serve people? Loving actions, a welcoming smile, to be kind, a willingness to say ‘yes’, to go the extra mile can say much more about God’s love than words that are divorced from action. And, of course, Jesus longs to show his love through us even though we are weak and fragile. St Paul reminds us: ‘But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.’ 2 Corinthians 4: 7
I heard a lovely story about Rowan Williams when after they had walked the stations of the cross he rhetorically asked the question, ‘Why is there no stations of the resurrection?’, which he answered, ‘we are the living stations of the resurrection’.
So, how do people recognise Jesus? Through you and me.
