From the Curate…

Easter

Lent is over and Christ is Risen! Happy Easter! Rip open the chocolate eggs and carve the leg of lamb. Is that all that Easter is now? Just a 2000 year old quaint story – a myth that has little meaning. Obviously, given my profession, I don’t think that is all it is. The eggs, family meals and lamb are all an added bonus.

However, what we celebrate today is the single most important date in history. In short it is a game changer. It is what we celebrate in the baptisms of Renex, Noah, Stanley and Lucy and with Alex, Christian, Lily and Andy taking their first bread and wine at the Eucharist. For in Baptism and the Eucharist we enter into a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ who was the game changer.

Humanity is built with an awareness that it is cut off somehow from God through its ability to continually mess up and every other religious code starts from a position that humanity will try to bridge the gap to God in its own efforts. Christianity rather looks to God to help bridge the troublesome chasm between humanity and God. God bridged the gap by sending his only begotten Son because he loved the world so much – who opened his arms on the cross and breached the gap between us and God – then, now and forever. That is what we celebrate. Happy Easter

Steve

One Parish or Two?

Pewsheets

“One parish or two” is one of the questions raised about Worth Parish in the recent Crawley Review.  We currently have two churches in the parish – St Barnabas’, Pound Hill, and St Nicholas’, Worth.

We’d like your views on whether we should split the parish or remain as one.  This page details all the ways you can contact us and please give us your views by 22 April.

The April/May edition of the Parish Magazine will have a short piece on arguments for and against splitting into two.  There will be a report back to the annual meeting on 27 April and the responses will inform discussion at the Away Day on 7 May, to which all are invited.

Correction to Service Times/Venues

Pewsheets

Please note that the Dawn Eucharist at Worth Park Lake on Easter Sunday (27th March) Morning will begin at 6am not 5.30am as was previously advertised in the magazine, and will be followed at am by a breakfast at St Barnabas’.

Also that the 3 hour meditations will be held on Good Friday from 12-3pm at St Nicholas’, not St Barnabas’ as was erroneously stated in the magazine.

The Rector Writes…

Pewsheets

Palm Sunday has a bitter-sweet atmosphere. The crowds welcome Jesus into Jerusalem with the kind of fanfare we can expect for the English rugby team after their Gland Slam victory last night.

The Gospel from the Liturgy of the Palms makes it clear that Jesus no longer tells his disciples to remain silent – the time for decision has come: Jerusalem must crown or crucify her king.  And we know, as we continue through Passiontide into the events of Holy Week recounted in the Passion gospel, that that crucifixion awaits.

In our common life we have a bitter-sweet time after the Nic’s service when the regulars (all welcome to join in!) have a (possibly indoor) picnic to say goodbye to the Moulder family as they make final preparations for a move to Africa.  We wish them the very best and look forward to their return.  May we, with them and, indeed, St Paul strive to confess in word and deed, that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. Luke’s account of the Passion offers us a catalogue of those who avoid or deny this truth and condemn Jesus to a horrid death.  Time and again Jesus is let down, but even in the bitterness of his death we are able to keep an eye on the good news of what that death means for us. Nothing less than our salvation.

Have a blesséd walk with Jesus as you share again in Holy Week .

Anthony

Pewsheet for week beginning 20th March 2016, Palm Sunday

Pewsheets

Click here for the pewsheet for the week beginning Sunday 20th March 2016, Palm Sunday.

Tip: If this, or any other, PDF document opens at too large a size, here’s what you do:

  1. Open Adobe Reader, for example, by opening a *.pdf document you have on your computer.
  2. From the Edit menu, click Preferences.
  3. With Page Display selected in the left hand list of Categories, on the right hand side of the window, choose a Page Layout and Zoom level that suits you, for example Single Page and Fit Page.
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From the Curate

Pewsheets

Here are my credentials of faith; I was baptised on the day of my birth and was married in a Church; I did my first Alpha (over ten years ago) and went to a Free Church in London; I made a commitment to Christ and was baptised in a full immersion ceremony.  I then started going to a rural Anglican Church and was then confirmed in the Anglican faith by Bishop Mark; I ran the youth group for several years, ran a home group, led Alpha Courses, went to study at Cambridge for two years, and was then ordained deacon and then priest.

Does any of that mean anything to God? Of course, yes – they are important markers on the way – but what matters most to God is none of this.  I am equal to every single human being, for what matters is my response to the Gospel.

Is it, like Judas, where the Gospel does not penetrate the heart or is it from the heart, like Martha, who cannot help but show her love in anointing Christ with perfume?  What matters to God is that we know with all our heart, soul and mind that Christ made us his own and from that we are to press on in our relationship with Him.  From this knowledge we can then look forward with firm foundations at what God might be calling Worth Parish to do in the coming years.

Steve

Feb/March Parish Magazine Crossword Answers

Pewsheets
Answers
Across 1. Belloc 5. Easter 8. Opus 9. Moccasin 10. Ritenuto 11. Leek 12. Adonai 14. Edward 16. Balm 18. Noontide 20. Handmaid 21. Away 22. Parcel 23. Rialto
Down 2. Emptied 3. Lisle 4. Communion Rail 5. Enclosed Order 6. Swallow 7. Exile 13. Nomadic 15. Radiant 17. Asama 19. Tiara