Church News – April 2025

Easter Miracles

Spring is in the air, Holy Week is on the horizon and it is a time for hope and miracles. For those of you who are not football fans, you might want to skim the next bit. I’ve been a fan of Newcastle United since I became interested in football in 1994. It seems a strange choice of a team for a boy living in Bradford at the time although there is a good reason but it’s too boring to put here. I’ve supported them through the highs but more often the lows; through painful defeats, baffling management and ownership, relegation and humiliation. On Sunday 16th March we finally won something! After 70 years of getting to finals and coming away empty handed, we won the Carabao Cup (or as it was known in the past the League Cup) at Wembley overturning the odds and beating Liverpool by 2 goals to 1. The stadium, the streets and inside my parent’s house, went crazy. Myself and Edward jumping around the room with tears in our eyes and it still feels a bit like a dream.

Hope is one of the core messages in the Bible and must form a large part of our faith and life. Hope that through God, all things are possible and that even death itself is not the end. This is the message of Easter that this month we will celebrate. But hope can be a fickle thing. It’s easy to have hope when things are going well and all is in your favour, but true, deep, powerful hope, comes from those times when things are hard.

Following the crucifixion of their friend and saviour Jesus Christ, the disciples gather in a locked room. They are scared, lost and hopeless. All they had thought and known was thrown out the window, so they gathered together for strength and comfort. Against all the odds, when all hope had seemingly gone, they discovered it was not the end, but a new beginning as Jesus had risen from the dead and entrusted them to carry on the work He started and He filled them with the Holy Spirit and sent them out to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age ” Matthew 28:19-20

 I know that we live in uncertain times. Both in the world and in the church but there is always hope. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was once quoted saying, “ I’m not an optimist. I’m a prisoner of hope.” Being a prisoner of hope means we simply cannot avoid hope; we are trapped by it and there we cannot escape it. This must be our position as Christians. To have hope in all things because we believe in incredible things. That “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

So in this season of hope, in these troubled and worrying times, may you find your way to become a prisoner of hope and know that in God and through Christ, all things are possible. 

God bless,  James

NEWS

At the time of writing this, we have no further news on the future of our ministry at Dukinfield, but IF this is the last time we will receive input from Br James, can I say, on behalf of us all, what a breath of fresh air his presence has brought us.  We appreciate all he have done for us since January.  We know it can’t have been easy travelling “o’er t’hills” and his last service with us will be on Easter Sunday morning.   Thank you, James!

As Easter approaches, we need to let you know that the Passion Week readings for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be held, as in the past, in the schoolroom at 7.30 p.m. but our Maundy Thursday service will be held at Fairfield and will be led by Br Peter.  We hope that as many of us as possible will be able to attend at 7 p.m.  We are grateful to everyone who has stepped forward, especially at this busy time, to take services. 

We are hoping that local schools will visit us shortly for a ‘mini-service’.  We have had one positive response from Cromwell School but this is something we would like to repeat for Yew Tree and Broadbent Fold.  Please pray that seeds may be planted in young minds at these services.

That’s quite a record for a woman who, the Gospels tell us, had been delivered by Jesus from ‘seven devils’ – New Testament language for some dark and horrible affliction of body, mind or spirit. As a result, her devotion to Him was total and her grief at His death overwhelming.

In church history Mary Magdalene became the ‘fallen woman’ a harlot who was rescued and forgiven by Jesus but there is no evidence to prove she was a ‘fallen woman’ but the contrast is sublime, Mary the virgin mother, the symbol of purity. Mary Magdalene, the scarlet woman who was saved and forgiven, the symbol of redemption. Surely, we all fall somewhere between those two extremes.

The dark cloud from which she was delivered may have been sexual, we are not told. What we do know is that the two Marys stood together at the cross, the Blessed Virgin and the woman rescued from who knows what darkness and despair.

The second great moment for her was as unexpected as it was momentous. She had gone with other women to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty. An angelic figure told them that Jesus was not there, He had risen – and the others drifted off. But Mary stayed, reluctant to leave it like that. She became aware of a man nearby, whom she took to be the gardener. She explained to him that the body of ‘her Lord’ had been taken away and she didn’t know where to find Him. 

The man simply said her name ‘Mary’ and she instantly realised it was Jesus. She made to hug Him, but He told her not to touch Him because His resurrection was not yet complete. She was, however, to go to the disciples and tell them she had met Him. She did – but they wouldn’t believe her.

Her words – ‘I have seen the Lord’ – echo down the centuries, the very beating heart of the Christian gospel.

Prayer for April 2025

Living Lord Jesus,  We, your Easter People of today, thank You for the Easter People of the Gospel accounts.

For the women, who loved You so much that they went to the tomb, early in the morning, while it was still dark. Thank you especially for Mary, who wept, then rejoiced, then ran to tell the others, “I have seen the Lord!”

Thank you for Thomas, who doubted, then devoted his life to You, his Lord and his God; for the disciples who ate breakfast on the beach with You; for Peter, who was forgiven and re-commissioned by You.

Thank You for them and Your witnesses through all generations.

Thank you for Your true and living written Word, proclaiming You, our true and living Lord, who lived and died and rose again to offer us forgiveness and  life.

Thank you, Lord that because You live, we have hope and assurance, whatever challenges the world might bring.

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again

Hallelujah!

On the first day of the week, in the evening       (John 20: 19-23)

Locked in, afraid,

Uncertain, even after Mary’s story, even after that behind closed doors seemed safest,

on the first day of the week, in the evening.

And then, the world changed.

He was with us! Suddenly and wonderfully with us.

Jesus, our Lord, alive and with us in a new and completing way,

to bless us with His Peace, to send us out to witness

in the power of His own Spirit breathed into us.

What a day!

The day of our risen Lord.

The first day of the week, In the evening,

Hallelujah!

By Daphne Kitching