The Easter story, upon us quite pacely will hopefully bring a welcome break from the hamster wheel of life. The season brings many challenges to us relating to faith and the attitudes with which we face our lives. Perhaps one or two of you are ‘mature’ enough to remember a Pepsi ad’ with the tag line; ‘Come Alive with Pepsi!’ Apparently when translated into Chinese the interpretation comes out as ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead!’ I wonder how the people in Beijing, passing the billboards with this ad’ on, reacted? Presumably, they had to decide whether the claim was true or not.
How many of us have learnt the hard way that it’s impossible to eat 6 cream crackers in a minute with no water. Some things that seem possible are impossible and, likewise, some things that seem impossible are possible, but unless we witness them first hand we have to decide whether to have the faith in what we’re told about them. Over Easter we celebrate the belief that Jesus died and rose from the dead (without the aid of Pepsi!). Over two billion people on our planet choose to believe this, despite the fact that none of them were there at the time. How far we each believe is our choice… but if we do have faith in the resurrection of Christ, what does it mean for the way we live our lives?
Back to Pepsi… if a Pepsi bottle is full to the half-way point is it half-full or half-empty? Of course, it depends on how you look at it. This is a good image, I think, for how people look at life, and is a recurring theme in many a newsletter: some focus on all the things that are going wrong and wake each day with a sense of dread, while others focus on the things that are going right and give thanks for the things that they are grateful for. It was like this for the characters in the Easter story; as the disciples and followers of Jesus lost hope and saw their world crashing down around them only Jesus could see the positive side of events as they unfolded. He faced his death with serenity because he knew that his suffering was part of a bigger plan and that he would rise again.
We believe that on the first Easter Sunday, Jesus rose again. He came back to life, defying the expectations of his friends and his enemies. We also believe that that in this event good overcame evil, life is stronger than death, light shines through the darkness and the half-full bottle is superior to the half-empty bottle.
And that’s the challenge for us: if we believe in the resurrection we need to take the half-full approach to life. Life undoubtedly has its challenges for each and every one of us but with a belief that the bottle is at least half-full we can tackle those challenges head on and overcome them.
At St George’s, and indeed at Mossy, the Easter story provides us with the hope and inspiration to take a half-full approach to the teaching of your/our children.
I wish you all the love, hope and inspiration of the season…. And may I conclude firstly by quoting with the ancient wisdom of Psalm 121; when faced with a mountain to climb the Psalmist turns to God in prayer: "I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." and of course, by reminding you that….. Other Colas are available.
