Dear friends,

Happy Easter!

This weekend we gather to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ - we very much hope you’ll join us at one of our services to celebrate. We start on Sunday morning with a Dawn Communion service around the outdoor cross in Basildon at 6.30am - with a fire, singing and bacon rolls too! Then there are family friendly services in each of our beautiful churches at 10am all which will host much singing and joy!

One of the things I really enjoy about Easter is that our services often contain wonderful moments of lightheartedness and fun. From children hunting for Easter eggs with unbridled enthusiasm to church members trying to contain their excitement during the service, singing “Alleluia!” with gusto! There is a sense of lightness in the air. Much needed, I think, in the midst of sadness around our villages, and indeed world. The Easter Joy comes at such a special time after the long winter and season of Lent, and, as we’ve reflected in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Easter Sunday brings us a gift to be cherished as a day of new beginnings, a day of joy and new life.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Love,

Revd Grant

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Poetry Corner

Easter

On Easter Day the lilies bloom,
Triumphant, risen from their tomb;
Their bulbs have undergone rebirth,
Born from the silence of the earth
Symbolically, to tell all men
That Christ, the Saviour, lives again.
The angels, pure and white as they,
Have come and rolled the stone away
And with the lifting of the stone,
The shadow of the cross is gone!

• June Masters Bacher