Easter Sunday, 12th March 2020

From the clergy...Dear all,

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! Whilst our celebration of Easter will be somewhat muted this year, perhaps it is precisely in times such as these that we need to be reminded of the promise of resurrection and renewal which lies at the heart of our faith.

Last week at St John's, we began establishing a slightly (!) more organised way of co-ordinating shopping efforts with our merry band of volunteers. We have also begun picking up requests from the Harvey and Hadleigh doctor's surgeries, via Sue Gowling at the Methodist Church; it is good to be working together so closely at this time.

We have also continued experimenting with different ways of offering worship, and hope that you have all been able to engage with the journey through Holy Week, in one way or another. We would love to see photographs of any 'Gethesemanes' you might have made at home for Maundy Thursday! One of the highlights of our week involved making a short service about the cross for Good Friday with other ministers from Churches Together in Broadstone. Again, it was wonderful to be able to offer a shared witness during this time, and to remember the relationships which continue to sustain us. The service itself can still be found on St John's YouTube channel.

Ahead of the Chrism Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, Bishop Nicholas confirmed that ordinations have been rescheduled for September 26th. All being well, Rev Lyndon will be priested that morning, and preside at his first Eucharist on the 27th. Corvid-19 allowing, you are all heartily welcome at both occasions, not to mention the celebration lunch on Sunday 27th. Please do keep all those waiting to be ordained this year in your prayers, especially those in the year below Rev Lyndon who are unable to start their curacies as planned.

Finally, Rev Lyndon will be taking a few days off this week, so please direct messages to Rev Helen, who will be working as usual (whatever that means at the moment!).

With that, we wish you all a blessed Easter, as sad as it is that we cannot celebrate together this year. Despite the current circumstances, we hope and pray that the joy of this season will find its way to you, and that you will all find ways of keeping the feast at home.

With continued love and blessings,

Rev Helen and Rev Lyndon

WorshipYou can view this Sunday's service in full here:  https://youtu.be/uMBJVxBnx98

or just watch Helen's sermon here (full text included below):  https://youtu.be/n7w_d9co4_c

THIS SUNDAY'S GOSPEL: John 20.1-18

THE COLLECT FOR EASTER SUNDAYGod of glory,by the raising of your Sonyou have broken the chains of death and hell:fill your Church with faith and hope;for a new day has dawnedand the way to life stands openin our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

A prayer from St Anthony's for Churches Together in Broadstone this week: We pray that the joy of Easter may be felt in our hearts and help to calm our anxiety at this difficult time. May we never forget that God loves us. Christ died for us and rose again.

News✣ Sadly, Hilma Fisher died on the morning of Holy Saturday, 11th April. Many of you will know Hilma from the Mothers' Union, as well as from church. Rev Helen will be taking the funeral in due course. Please keep Hilma and all who mourn her in your prayers.

✣ Edward Smith's funeral will take place on Tuesday 14th April at 3pm. Only immediate relations may attend, but please keep Wiebke and the family in your prayers at this time.

✣ Each week, we continue to pray for a group of people from our electoral roll. These names come out in the email which accompanies this update. Please don't be concerned when you see them! St John's congregation are not falling ill in alphabetical order; we are simply giving you all an opportunity to hold and be held by the community in prayer over this strange time.

The Good NewsLast week, the people of Wuhan were allowed out of lockdown for the first time in 76 days. Whilst the UK is still far from lifting restrictions, Wuhan's example reminds us that this too shall pass.

At Home Last WeekMany thanks for all who are continuing to send in beautiful pictures of spring at home, and an especial thank you to Ava and Arthur for the photo of their Palm Sunday crosses from our virtual 'Bitesize' Breakfast Church!

The answers to last week's quiz are as follows, courtesy of Mike:

1. Corfe Castle 6. Old Harry Rocks2. Durdle Door 7. Sherborne Abbey 3. Kingston Lacy 8. Milton Abbas 4. Poole & Bournemouth College at the Lansdowne 9. Shaftesbury Town Hall5. The Great Globe at Durlston 10. The Cob at Lyme Regis

At Home This Week Many thanks to everyone sending in quizzes and puzzles for the update; please do keep them coming, even if it takes us a while to include all of them!

This week's quiz comes from Paul and Val: can you guess the flower names behind each clue?

1 A stringed instrument

2 A thickening agent

3 Capital group of lions

4 Cathedral chimes

5 Evergreen wine

6 Foggy romance

7 Got up

8 I eat dog, though in mixture

9 Wed precious metal

10 Little Christine & a parent

11 Pudding Bill

12 Say hallo to this girl

13 Sounds as if it would turn you to ice

14 Not a girl of the mountain

15 Vegetable for afters

16 Winter precipitation

17 Goes with lock & barrel

18 Sheep found in these

19 Sought here & there in France

20 Remember the setter

And this week, two fiendish extra puzzles from Joyce Hull:

1. Can you decode the following message, where each letter of the alphabet has been substituted for another?

CLM  CNQM  TMDPQNM  KY  D  TDH  JP  LKO  LM  CNMDCP  PKTMKHM  OLK  FDH  VK  LJT  DSPKGQCMGZ  HK  AKKV.

2. Can you draw the layout of the garden bed which would allow me to plant 21 lettuces in 10 rows of 5 and 5 rows of 3?

This Week's SermonRevd Helen BaileyIn different ways, we stand on a threshold this morning. Many church services hold their first Easter service on the threshold of dawn. Waking this morning we stood on the threshold between the events of Holy Week and Easter Day. And Mary, in our reading, stands on the threshold of the tomb, peering in, whilst it is still dark. A threshold of night and day, of death and life.

This year we have had to keep Holy Week like no other. The nation is poised on a threshold too. With very real hopes that lockdown is working, we know too the peak is yet to come, in a week or so, when we hope beyond that, the tide will turn, and the numbers of those dying from Coronavirus will start to fall.

Our journey may lag slightly behind Mary’s, and the other disciples, yet maybe their role in the story this morning, is to lead us through a difficult time. For our journey mirrors Mary’s own confronting of events that first Easter Morning. Peering into a dark unknown, full of anxiety. Not knowing how things are about to turn. I imagine the disciples Peter and John, entering the tomb, facing their darkest fears. And as their eyes adjust to the dimness, they make out the stone ledge where the body would have lain. Instead linen cloths, in which the body would have been wrapped, are neatly folded. Just like the birds who start singing before the dawn breaks, they are another sign that something new is dawning.

Because this is what the Easter story and the resurrection are trying to teach us. Not just that death doesn’t have the last word, and God opens up eternal life for us too. But it’s the promise that Christ’s resurrection changes everything, including in the here and now. It is re-creation on a par with the first creation. The breaking open of the tomb breaks open the world we thought we knew. God’s world breaking in on our tired and weary world, breathing new life and possibility into it.

I think that’s a message we need to hear. The pandemic we are experiencing isn’t some mystical visitation of a divine catastrophe upon us: that would be to make a scapegoat of God, just as we did to Jesus when we hanged him on the cross.

It is simply the consequence of how we’ve been living carelessly for some time. We haven’t been responsible in how we’ve kept livestock and food items separate in order to prevent something like this happening. And I’m not sure we can just blame one nation for that, because in truth, all nations have become a bit blasé, a bit careless about how we do things, a bit lazy about making good and ethical choices over the most convenient ones. A bit arrogant that we could live how we wanted and not expect repercussions. And whilst globalisation is and can be a good thing, it does mean such things spread so much more easily.

My prayer is that as human-beings we learn to live differently, when we emerge from this. Because Resurrection tells us transformation is possible, that this is just what Christ came to usher in. A new creation, a new way of being. I hope and pray that the good things society is relearning in this period are brought out with us. I hope we bring with us renewed and restored sense of community; a greater understanding of the consequences of how we

trade, make choices, a greater simplicity about our lives, a remembering of what is really important, and what isn’t necessary to happiness.

I hope globalisation starts spreading those things as a blessing around our world, and that human love and kindness will prove to be as infectious as the pandemic we are living through. What a resurrection and new creation that would be! What restoring of life and heart and soul to our planet. Our turning around, and looking in a different direction from where we were looking before.

I imagine the disciples, having gone inside the tomb, turning around, looking back out of the entrance, dazzled by early light streaming through. I picture Mary, turning around in her distress, and finding herself gazing into the loving eyes of her Lord.

A former Archdeacon of mine tells a story of how a friend of hers went up a mountain to watch for the dawn. She’d been told there were beautiful sunrises from there. She waited and waited, but only experienced intense disappointment when all that happened was the sky got a bit lighter. Nothing more dramatic. Eventually deciding it was a waste of time, she stood up to go, and turning around, saw the most beautiful reds, golds and orange filling the sky and spilling over the mountainside. She had been looking the wrong way.

If we have anything to learn it is that we have been looking the wrong way. We are standing in the darkness of the tomb, not looking in, but peering out; invited to walk across a threshold, a doorway, into light. Rowan Williams says through this doorway is, ‘a world drenched with light, God’s beauty shining through it; yet it is our own world we are seeing, seeing it as God made it to be, seeing ourselves as God made us to be.’ For the world is more than we’ve thought; we are more than we’ve thought.

Easter tells us to take courage, and in a few weeks’ time, when once again we step out, we do so with eagerness to take up the divine challenge resurrection holds out to us: to live as part of a new creation, a new dawn of hope and possibility, where people love each other and treat creation kindly.

And may we find the whole of life, this world and the next, shot through with the shining, redeeming, sparkling, dancing light of God’s love. Alleluia!

ContactsVicarRev'd Helen Bailey 01202 691 484 revdhelenbailey@gmail.com

Assistant Curate Rev'd Lyndon Webb 07872 651 981 revlyndonwebb@gmail.com

Parish Office 01202 697 641 office@stjohnschurchbroadstone.org.uk