View from the Vicarage

Good News to Share- “Christ is Risen”

If you were an advertiser, and you wanted to get your message across to everyone in the world, how would you start? A huge neon sign? Advertisements in all the major newspapers? A series of TV commercials? A flight of aircraft trailing sky-signs? For a start, you would have a tremendous problem with languages, because a high proportion of those who saw your ads wouldn’t be able to read them. Second, no matter how eye catching they are, most of those who look at advertisements don’t notice them or buy the product.

So, can I suggest a more effective way of communicating? Choose a small group of people and get them really enthusiastic about your product. Then motivate them to go out and tell their friends and neighbours. It would take time, but the other methods of advertising would take forever and still not reach many of the huge world population. Now put yourself in God’s place, if that isn’t too much of a presumption.

What message does God want to get across? Suppose the message is simple three word one: “God loves you”, “Christ is Risen” or “Jesus is Lord”. God chose not to use an advertising company but a group of his friends to share this simple message. Friends who knew him, trusted him and believed in him. The Son of God chose disciples to live close to him and hear what he had to say about God as a loving Father. Then he was crucified, and rose again that first Easter Day, to show them what eternal life is like. He told them to share what they had learnt with the whole world. God trusted those few disciples to spread the Easter message to their neighbours and friends.

Thank God, that’s what those first Christians did. And others after them, who, like Saint Augustine, Hild, Cuthbert, Oswald, Aidan and Bede brought the good news of the resurrection to our land and indeed to our region of Northumberland. And their successors, who preached to our hard-hearted ancestors. And to those ancestors, when they accepted the message, passed it on to their successors, who passed it on to our parents and teachers, who passed it on to us.

Now we seek to do likewise.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Happy Easter.