At the time of writing this, winter is still around. When you read it, spring may have arrived. In the country the seasons are more tangible than in the town. Spring means so much & you can’t miss it with the fresh green curtain on the trees & hedges, with daffodils in their startling colours & bluebells imperceptibly taking over the woods. It is a time of hope, joy, new beginnings; a time to lift the spirit, to be thankful & to look forward.
But what to do about the past? Do we put it behind & attempt to draw proverbial lines? Some things need to be remembered & must not be allowed to be lost. The first things that come to mind here are the worst – the Holocaust, 9/11, the genocide of the 20th & 21st centuries, & now Boxing Day 2004. What about the good? Harder to think of these. Perhaps the moon landing? Concorde? What would be on your list? Probably many of the best things would be personal, perhaps the birth of a child.
At a personal level, perhaps some things from the past are needed to teach us to live or think better; may be some things give us confidence to go on; some things may need to be consciously put behind.
Easter is concerned with these things. There was Good Friday but that was the prelude to Easter Day. One is not meaningful without the other. In Jesus God was reconciling the world to Himself, dealing with the past & giving hope for the future. As a result of Jesus’ work on the cross, God has chosen deliberately to remember our sins no more. This is not the same as forgetting them; forgetting, as many of us will know, is something we do unconsciously & unintentionally. In God’s mind the past can be forgiven & closed because a once for all transaction dealing with sin has taken place. This needs to be received. Because Jesus rose from the dead, it is possible to have hope, confidence & new life. Perpetual Spring? No one would promise that but Winter could be past.
John King, Churchwarden