Easter's coming

Next week we have the children of Primary 7 from along at the local school coming in for the morning to learn what Easter's about.

It's a great opportunity to work through in a little bit of detail what it actually is that Christians celebrate. A chance to explain the cross. A chance to explain why it is we believe that Jesus is alive.

Easter is the heart of the whole good news. It's largely by-passed, of course, by your average person out there on the street.

Christmas gets more of an airing in the public domain. It's sort of 'safer', I guess. Easier, somehow, to handle.

But Easter? Well, Easter's rather different. It's rather too much 'in-your-face'. Nails getting hammered through flesh. This man being crucified. A cruel and violent world.

A baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying there on a neat little crib of straw seems a lot more cute and sellable (our world always thinks in commercial terms) than a bleeding, bedraggled, tortured man hanging on a stark and very public cross.

And add to that the crazy claim that this man actually - literally, physically - rose from death, and ... well, give me Christmas any day the barons of the world of spin will always say.

But the claim, of course, isn't crazy. And the cross, of course, wasn't vain.

And that's where the trouble lies. It's a little bit too close for comfort - if all of this is true.

The simple implications of it all will turn our lives quite upside down. Inevitably. This is a person you cannot ignore. This is a person you dare not ignore. This is the Lord.

Sin can no longer be pushed to the side. Death is no longer the end.

Easter deals with all the big and pressing issues in our world. And does so in a way that rocks the boat of our complacency and tips us into the sea.

It's a life-transforming message. Challenging. Comforting. Changing a person for ever.

So the chance to be working the whole thing through with the children from the local school is a chance that we're glad to take.

We use material prepared by Scripture Union. We did the same sort of thing last year as well - at Christmas, then at Easter. It works really well. The children and staff are all glad to be coming along.

Even though we don't really duck the issues at all.

Today we had our team meeting. There are eight or so of us working on this, and there are various things to prepare.

It was good to meet. Good to be able to pray. Good to be getting a feel again of just how significant all of it's going to be in the lives of the children who come.

Who knows what a time like that will effect in the hearts and minds of these folk?

For some at least a major revolution may begin!