Happy Easter!!!

The other day Florajean and I had the opportunity to visit a young couple with a new baby, 2 months old, as cute as can be, and parents filled with joy and pride. As we chatted, we joked a bit about winning the 40 million dollar lottery, or even being happy to take the smaller $20 million, or as the young father said, even $5,000 would make a difference at this point. Truth is that we all stand in need at different points in our lives, and we often have the sense that with just a little more, things would be so different.

As I looked at the baby and the parents, crowding together on the couch for a family photo, and being a grand- parent myself, I was struck by the image of God that flowed towards me at that moment. Each of us comes into the world, helpless, dependent, needing the care and protection of those around us. None of us can survive long without the love and comfort that one can give to another. We are told in the book of Genesis that we have been created in the image of God which means that we have been created to reach out one to another, to love, to comfort and protect. The love of the parent for an infant is a wondrous thing to behold and highlights that image. The number of times that we walk the floors to soothe, or agonize over the proper diet, or worry about temperature variation, or indeed anything that can affect the health and happiness of an infant, is beyond counting, and continues through a lifetime.

Being a parent may well be the closest that we will ever come to playing God in any meaningful way. Not only are we actively involved in the act of creation itself, in the carrying and birthing of a child, but then we strive through loving acts to support and nurture that infant. When a child soils its diaper, it is the parent who cleans it up. When the child falls and bumps its head, it is the parent or caregiver who holds and comforts, and when the child strikes out on its own, it is the parents, the family, the friends, who worry still, who pray and try to guide a life into something wholesome and Godly. Good and loving parents try their utmost to provide clean, wholesome environments for their babies to grow in and strive, to the best of their ability, to demonstrate God’s love, compassion and wisdom as a child grows.

Easter brings us close to both the parent and the child, for we are indeed both. Our God created a world of natural wonder and beauty that often takes the breath away, and yet, through a willful self interest and a disobedient attitude towards God’s creation, that world is often ravaged and destroyed by men and women who turn their backs on the image in which they have been created, and abuse, not only the land, but all who live upon it. They cease to be good caregivers, one for the other, and become predators. The joy and wonder of Godly love is belittled, and the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, without care or concern for others becomes their creed.

Like any parent, our God hurts when his children hurt, and strives throughout our lives, to bring us home to him. How many times have I been the child who is in need, often willful and disobedient, often unthinking in my own wants and desires? How many times has God cleaned up my messes, healed my aching body and soul, only to have me accept those gifts as my right and privilege? How many times have I experienced God’s love in the love of others and still failed to act as I know that God would want me to act? How many times have I heard the call of those in need, and stood in silence, either uncaring, or simply not noticing the opportunities to reach out to others in love. How many times have I been a bad parent to those who surround me? God eventually looked down upon a world in chaos, where the joys of his image were being squandered and decided to enter into the fray himself, sending his son, to teach and encourage, to soothe and to heal, to demonstrate the love that is God himself.

And yet the world resisted. Even the love of God in the person of Jesus was too much, or not enough. Jesus was soon caught up in the hurts and pains that infected the rest of the world and God watched with the same hurt that he feels with each and every wrong done to one of his creation. Jesus, whose major crime was to call us to love one another, to live in God’s image, and to reach out and respond in love, was too radical for the world. Jesus, the Son of God, abused, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on a cross. And all the hosts of heaven wept, not just for the death of Jesus, but for the failure of humankind to live up to their calling. This is the pain of the parent who watches a son or daughter draw back from family and friends, put themselves at risk, and walk in unhealthy and ungodly paths.

We gather at Easter, as both the adult who needs help living the image of God, and as the child who needs his own life cleansed, his own hurts soothed, and his failures redeemed. Our God, the parent, the creator, grieves for us as we turn from him and reaches out his hand of love. Jesus Christ, died on the cross that you and I might find our way back to the Father’s love, for through his death and resurrection, our God is willing to clean us up, forgive our sins, and welcome us home.

We gather at Easter to rejoin the family. We gather to be enfolded in the loving arms of God himself and no matter our situation, we have already won the lottery for we are loved by God! We pledge ourselves once more into his service, striving to live lives that honour him and witness to his love. We remember that Jesus died for us as the price of our redemption and that by his blood, we are washed clean and presented whole before the Father. We gather to trust ourselves, our families and those we love into his unending care.

Jesus Christ is risen today, Halleluia! Jesus Christ calls us home to him, Halleluia! Jesus Christ, the son of God, has taken away the sins of the world, Halleluia!! Won’t you join us this Easter as we come together to rest in the arms of the Father, to honour the Son, and to pray for the loving touch of the Holy Spirit as we strive to honour him.

JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD AND HE IS LORD!!!

God Bless You this Joyous Eastertide
The Rev. John Phillips