E NEWS 22 MARCH 2024
This was solemn week with the funeral of Susan Cook on Tuesday the church was full and she had a lovely send off.
I have been reflecting on our Congregational Conversations on Sunday after coffee. There was a proposal that we stop the bi-monthly lunches because we do not have the people power to clean up the dishes, tables and chairs afterwards. We voted and it was agreed that we continue to have these lunches but see how we go for volunteer helpers afterwards over the rest of this year. I was feeling quite sad that we are having to have these types of conversations because of the senior ages of our congregation. Pam Fuller is wanting more volunteers to come forward to help out with the different rosters each week. If you are not rostered or volunteering to do anything and you would like to help out then please let Pam know of your availability. This also includes prayers for others, bible readings, family time, offering etc.
I was asked by a couple of people whether we were having the Passover/Last Supper meal this Maundy Thursday like we did last year. I did contemplate it, but I had not received any feedback from last year’s event, so I assumed it wasn’t very popular. Mind you, I was pre-occupied with that homeless woman who I hosted last year who appeared at our Passover and had nowhere to go. I’ve come to the conclusion that we will celebrate the Passover meal every alternate Easter when we have the Stations of the Cross on display. So definitely next year we will have this meal on Maundy Thursday.
Our inner city ministers had our first get-together on Thursday afternoon to catch up with one another. It is always good to find out what is happening around the churches each month.
This Sunday our theme is “Peace & Palms” as we are commemorating the 40 years that SAOTT has been a Nuclear Weapon Free Church. These two themes will be woven into our liturgy and Paul Barber and myself will share the reflection (time permitting).
So far for Good Friday I have secured two people to help out in the service by way of a song and a poem. Impromptu volunteers will be invited to come forward and read excerpts from the Passion Narrative for Good Friday. After each reading, we will snuff out a candle until they are all out.
On Easter Sunday we will celebrate communion and afterwards at coffee it would be nice to have Hot Cross Buns. If you would like to bring some home-made or bought, we could have a tasting competition to see who has the tastiest hot cross bun.
The Hutt City Cluster group is making plans to meet after Easter over a meal at the Cunningham’s for dinner. Hope this gets the other Cluster groups thinking about planning a meeting soon also. It is a great way to catch up and keep in touch and just check in with one another. I always look forward to these meetings.
Update on my dog Snoopy. He had his first full 3 day week at The Dog Garden in Lower Hutt, they pick up and drop off from home, so it is very convenient. I thought I would share a photo of him with his new friends. He is the white and beige (ears) Shitzu dog in the centre with the sad eyes and the underbite.
Have a blessed weekend as we approach Holy week next week. Faafetai, Fei
I leave you with the following Easter Message from our Presbyterian Moderator the Right Rev Rose Luxford.
Resurrection Hope
I have been in ministry for 26 years now, and every Easter, I find myself experiencing the same dynamic. I cannot begin to write my Easter Day sermon until I have led/attended the Good Friday service. I need to first go through the Good Friday experience. It is a process of following the story, and not engaging with the resurrection account until after the crucifixion. Without reflecting on the events of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion, we cannot fully appreciate the joy and significance of the resurrection.
Easter is at the heart of our faith. And the narrative it brings to us – that life is stronger than death, that hope is stronger than despair, that the light is stronger than the darkness – makes us an Easter people. People of the resurrection. That large narrative provides a framework in which we live out our lives.
When we have those times of ‘walking through the valley of death’, we carry with us a sense of that overarching hope. When we are racked with grief, we have the inherent hope that healing and wholeness will come. And through the cross of Jesus Christ, we have the assurance of coming into deep relationship with God our Creator. There is a reuniting, a reintegration of that which has been torn asunder.
The word salvation comes from the Latin root of salus or salvus, which can be translated as health. To be whole, to be integrated. Reintegrating, reuniting from what we were estranged from, equipping us for the kind of life our Creator intended us to have.
Resurrection is mystery and promise, reality and hope.
The dimension of hope was fundamental to the thinking of the New Testament writers. The suffering of Christ and the suffering Christians were undergoing were the birth pangs of a new age. In Christ, God had begun to move with power. Christian faith was faith in one who had raised Christ from the dead and therefore they could persevere with hope and confidence, joy and expectation.
And that continues to speak to us today. The resurrection event of Easter is not just something we remember as a past event, it is a continuing reality which gives us hope today. We live in a world that is in real need of a sense of hope. Individuals, communities, countries alike. There are many who are feeling disconnected, isolated, overwhelmed with the pressures around them and the polarization of society. The Easter narrative has something important to offer in this space. A word of hope into situations of despair. A promise of reintegration after brokenness. A sense of ‘gathering in’ as opposed to separating out. Relationship with the Risen Christ who connects with us on this journey of life and holds out the promise of fullness of life. In Christ all things are made new.
This Easter may we all experience afresh the life-giving joy of being people of the resurrection, and may that be something we in turn live out in our communities.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!
Rose
Right Rev Rose Luxford
Moderator Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
moderator@presbyterian.org.nz
You can read the full E-news here: https://mailchi.mp/408504ee4cb4/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-9442543
