Dear All,

Do you remember the days when queues for certain events were disorganised rabbles?  Maybe a museum opening involved the lifting of a barrier, then a stampede to the ticket booth.  These days, thankfully, there is more organisation and decorum.  However security checks and ‘being let through’ can nevertheless be a rather impersonal experience.

I hope and expect that our release from lockdown will be a measured and controlled one.  Even so, it is possible we may feel the impersonality of these times.  I wonder if God will be remembered by each of us, as we rejoin a physical human society?  And if so, how will God be called to mind?

Will God be blamed for the virus? Will the slowness of our ability to contain it be seen to reflect God’s incapacity and the Church’s irrelevance?  Has God been in the picture for you over these months of testing times?  If we have been humbled and have placed ourselves in His hands, will we remain in that attitude?  Will we give thanks to Him for our lives and the renewal of society and commerce?

This morning, a touching thing happened for our household.  Our dog’s tag was found by a member of the public, and we received a text message to inform us where we could collect it from.  It was a little action, but it could have been a very saving action, had we not owned a spare tag.  As I go to collect it this afternoon, I shall anticipate with a warm heart, that where I had vainly searched in a muddy field a week ago, somebody else has seen a glint of metal, unearthed it, and taken the trouble to contact its owner.

If I feel that thankful and personally blessed by someone’s simple action, how much more should I take Easter as a special, personal message from God?  He has invited me to come through the gates of death, following Him, hand in hand.  He offers each of us the saving action of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection as a personal gift – with your and my name on it!

Rev Charles.