This weekend is Easter weekend. The weekend which celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter is big festival for Christians so we thought that we would ask some of our congregation members what Easter meant to them.
Laura
One of the few things that the Covid-19 pandemic won't have changed for me this year is celebrating Easter away from church. Traditionally Easter has been a time when I've been on holiday, and as a child was always spent visiting my grandparents in Aberystwyth. One particularly fond memory is the annual Easter egg hunt my Gu and Taid put on for us, which seemed all the more exciting for not taking place in my own garden—and don't we relate to that right now!
Although on the surface not an especially religious activity, it strikes me now that in fact there's an obvious parallel in faith: as I embraced the thrill of the hunt for a chocolate egg, rejoicing when I found one, so I embrace as an adult—fortified in particular this year by my lovely Lent study group—the search for Jesus, celebrating the miracle of finding him risen on Easter Sunday, and rejoicing in the hope of salvation this brings. And, just as with the hunt for chocolate eggs, isn't the search for Christ just as joyful as the reward? Each time we seek God out in prayer, or in worship, or in song, we receive the rich spiritual gift we celebrate in particular this season.
Ken
I have a deep rooted objection to being asked my favourite book or town etc .because it all depends on the time, situation or our mood when we visited it. In some ways this is similar. I can remember more than eight decades of Easters and “what they mean to me" includes them all.
As a child we didn’t have a profusion of chocolate eggs, just a special egg, boiled and sometimes coloured. As a teenager it was war time but Good Friday was then a bank holiday and my over- riding memory was father’s dilemma, it wasn’t a Sunday, yet he couldn’t do his usual job or work so every year on that day we planted potatoes in the garden after church in the morning. In college and, being a Local Preacher in training, I began to examine the Gospels account of the horror of Easter week and recognise the confusion of the disciples after Easter Sunday. I also learned that Easter with all its twists and turns became from the very beginning the core of the Christian Church ‘s faith.
Over the years I have found there is always something new in such an old story and if we take the trouble look, all the worlds’ problems and hopes. .I have yet to find a human situation or emotion where Jesus cannot say to us “I know how you feel I have been there”
Naomi
I love Easter. It's never been a time for Easter egg hunts, or chocolate - although chocolate has always been a feature. Easter has always been a weekend spent at church, preparing for services, at services.
My favourite thing when I was younger at church was Good Friday because of all the Hot Cross Buns. My mum didn't let us have Hot Cross Buns before Good Friday so the service on Good Friday which was followed by Hot Cross Buns was always very exciting. Now I'm older, although I still love eating Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday I value the service and the parade with churches together so much more.
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