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Buckden Roundabout
April 2019
Church News
Weekly Prayer Roster
Each week during the year the Churches, in their prayers, remember the residents of particular streets in the village, those who
work in the parish and village organisations. Those to be remembered this month are:
7th April
Manor Gardens, Manor Close, Glebe Lane, The Grove
14th April
Park Road, Falcon Way, The Marinas, and those who live and work there
21st April
Field Close, Lincoln Close, Silver Street, Beaufort Drive, St Hugh’s Road
28th April
School Lane, Buckden Primary School (pupils, teachers and teaching assistants, governors,
volunteers, midday supervisors, all support staff)
LENT STUDY LUNCHES
12.30 – 2 p.m. 1st and 15th April in the Methodist School room.
Note - no study lunch on 8th April
Everyone is welcome. Soup and bread lunch.
We will be looking at the Beatitudes using a book with the title, 'Life Attitudes".
St. Matthew's Gospel chapter 5 verses 3 – 10.
Each week will have a different focus:
living well, living openly, living purposefully, living lovingly and living differently.
Contact:
Ann Brittain
on
812012
Thought for the Month
Dear Friends,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Some of you may be reading this on Easter Day, and so the
greeting will be natural. However, when you think about it, it
is a valid greeting for Christians at any time, since it always
true. This is the bedrock of our faith, that Christ died and rose
again so that we might die and rise with him.
But resurrection is not restoration of life. The raising of Laza-
rus from death to life is a different kind of event from the res-
urrection of Jesus. In the former case, the implication is that
Lazarus resumed his old life and faced death once more at a
later date.
When Jesus rose it was to a new life; a life which ended not in
death but in his taking his rightful place with God in glory. And
this is the resurrection that we look forward to. New life, a
new heaven and a new earth.
In drawing the distinction so clearly, I am in danger of missing
an important point, however. In a sense, the life of Lazarus
after his death experience will have been a new lease of life,
even if not the freehold. And in some mystical way, our new
life in Christ starts here on earth and runs parallel with the
remnant of our own life. Death then becomes a sort of digni-
fied sloughing off of that remnant, like a snake shedding its
skin, or a butterfly leaving its chrysalis behind. Let us not for-
get that Jesus’ new, resurrected life started here on earth as
well.
This can be true of churches as well as individuals. It is said
that God has no grandchildren. Each generation must find
God for itself, and the church must re-invent itself for each
new generation. This is not a tidy, identifiable event which
occurs according to some timetable, but an organic, continu-
ous dying-and-rising-again.
Sometimes it smacks us in the face — such as when a church
building closes and the congregation start a new lease of life
in a new place. More often, we just notice that lots of things
about the church have changed. Quite often, that noticing
brings with it a certain sadness (or even anger), as we recog-
nise that a kind of death has occurred, and that some grieving
must take place.
It should also be greeted with joy, and the recognition that
some kind of resurrection has also happened.
So this Easter, let us look for the signs of new life, and rejoice!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Paul