The Paper March 2014
Building Bridges
When in an argument with friends or family, and maybe you are right
but the other party does not want to give in, the old adage says – “do you want
to be right, or do you want to be happy?” There is a turning point between
justice and grace – between holding-on and giving-in! Justice demands that the “right” answer is
acknowledged by all parties – grace allows that one party might give in for the
sake of peace. Relationships thrive not
because the guilty are punished, but because the innocent are merciful. Bridges are built when both parties reach out
towards the middle; they are generally not just built from one side. If a bridge is to be built the offending
party needs to acknowledge the offence that has been committed, and the
offended party needs to forgive.
Here it is Easter again.
Easter is the holiday at the tail-end of summer - the last break before
the winter starts to set in. As such many
try to get away and enjoy a few days off from normal routine. To many people these days Easter is the Season
of the chocolate eggs – a figure of new beginning; and we think of fertility (again
new life and opportunities) through the Easter Bunny – all of which are more
akin to the emerging spring of the Northern Hemisphere than the encroaching
winter in the south. But the thoughts
are still there!
To Christians Easter is a time of building bridges. In the Christian faith it was the time when
God reached out to forgive people for the wrongs they have committed either by
choice or through human frailty. He has
given us a framework of right and wrong in Life’s Handbook – the Bible. Those who acknowledge that their life is not
as it ought to be, and seek reconciliation with God, will start building from
the other side. In our life situations
it is the strong who must make the first move to build the bridge, so too it
was the Creator who made the first move at the first Easter.
Easter is a core time in the Christian Faith. It is the time when Christians believe that Jesus
was crucified and rose again. There is a
large volume of secular evidence to support this claim, but predominantly
Christians believe it because it is in the Word of God. Easter is the time when
Christians think about the fact that God reached out to build a bridge so that
we can communicate with Him. We don’t
know exactly the process of how this works, but the bridge is there for us to seek
to complete from our side. Those who are
Christians have experienced in their everyday lives an inward conviction and
feeling that the things recorded in the Scriptures, which have been believed
for generations and handed down to us in our society, are true. For sure we have the right to question the
events and the process, but it would seem that today many people dismiss the
authenticity of the importance of the original Easter on the grounds of
thinking that we in our generation are more enlightened than those of the past,
and think that we may know better. But
the process of Easter is about building bridges and reconciliation – this has
not and will not change.
The content of being a Christian may change from generation to
generation but the process remains the same – putting faith and trust in
something that we believe is bigger than ourselves, and which is by nature
beyond our comprehension.
We would like to invite you to visit us, or a Church in your local
Community, to reflect on the events of Easter and to think about how something
that happened almost 2,000 years ago is still important today. See Church Notices in this Paper for times of
Meetings at the Christian Israelite Church at 196 Campbell Street – we have
been in continuous service there since 1853 meeting the needs of people in a
changing society.
Rodney
Gray – Pastor Christian Israelite Church, 196 Campbell Street, Sydney (www.cichurch.com or visit
cichurch.blogspot.com.au)
