Thought for the Week

So Easter is past and spring is well and truly here.

As I write the temperature is still in single figures and there is snow on high ground so my opening statement may seem a tad optimistic – but we live in hope!

Nevertheless it seems very easy to move beyond Easter and relegate it to a distant memory.

Christians maybe shouldn’t move on quite as easily if we are serious in our belief that Jesus rose from the dead and that that changes everything.

Jesus’ first followers certainly couldn’t move on in the way we might expect.

The early days following that resurrection morning don’t seem to have been marked by rejoicing but rather by uncertainty and some degree of fear.

They were still scared about what the authorities who had executed Jesus might do to them.

They were probably also trying to come to terms with what had just happened – whatever their expectations had been of Jesus they hadn’t expected this.

That’s one more wonderful lesson from Easter.

Jesus confounds expectations and refuses to be tied to our agenda.

As spiritual descendants of those early disciples Christians cannot leave Easter behind – instead we are shaped by the events of that resurrection morning which we now celebrate as Easter.

The Easter eggs may all be finished by now but I hope that you are still being shaped by Easter in surprising ways.

Allow God to surprise you still just as He surprised the disciples centuries ago. Rev William Wilson Burnside Blairbeth Church