the Person behind the person

We had two and a half hours with the Primary 7s this morning, working through what Easter's all about.

They're an amazing group of children. Good fun, well-behaved, pleasant, polite and always so ready to learn. It's an absolute pleasure to work through the Easter presentation with a group like that.

Not that I think it's meant to go on quite that long. It's a Scripture Union highly inter-active sort of presentation, and it's meant to be maybe an hour and a half at most. But the teachers were far from complaining - and the pupils coped just fine.

What a privilege again to work through the last week of Jesus' earthly life - and to see the effect that it has. They listened with rapt attention when we got to the bit about the crucifixion. it's a powerful, compelling narrative. And the chance to run through the whole thing at length with them all is, as I say, a great and wonderful privilege.

We have a brilliant team of leaders here as well. There were seven or eight besides myself involved, and they all of them bring their different gifts and they're all of them just so good with the children too.

And then, of course, there's the kitchen staff too, finding time in the midst of serving the folk who come in for their teas and their coffees each day, to provide all the children with gallons of juice and whole trayfuls of biscuits as well.

They're busy folk, all of the folk who've been helping today, with all sorts of things they're involved in most days of their lives - and it's just great the way they put themselves out and give of their time like this, so that together we're able to share the good news of Jesus with the growing generation in our midst.

Mornings like this I'm aware how important it is that the message which anyone hears is always truly complemented, too, by what that person is experiencing. The 'feel' of the whole thing being real: that sense of authenticity, as they catch the whiff of Jesus in the way his people are.

That's why, always, relationships are crucial. That's why we work at them so much.

It's not just at the level of the mind that truth takes root, though that is plainly pivotal. We know things through a far more complex spectrum of antennae than the intellect itself can ever give.

And therefore if we're ever going to get across the message of the gospel to this growing generation it must be, of course, through God's own Holy Spirit's mighty power: but it must also be through something far more comprehensive than a merely intellectual sort of way.

There's intellectual content - sure. But it's a Person we are commending. And that Person is mostly revealed by the Lord in the personal realm of relationship, welcome and love.

That's partly why I'm in at the school so much. A lot of the time there's not all that much that I'm giving which has any intellectual content. I'm just there. In person.

These children today have grown up with my being there among them at school. They know me for the person that I am. And on days like this, it's our prayer that they catch just a glimpse of the Person behind the person they've always been seeing.

That's got to be true for us all, in all of our walks of life.