Binbrook Group of Parishes

Service Times April 2013

Binbrook

Ludford

Wold Newton

Swinhope

CONFESSIONS

After any Weekday Service or by appointment.

BAPTISMS, CHURCHINGS, WEDDINGS, & FUNERALS

By arrangement with the Rector

The Rector's Letter for the current month:

The Rectory, Binbrook  

Dear Friends,

On June 4th 1989, tanks filled Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Thousands of students had been engaged in peaceful marches protesting against the oppressive regime in China, but the Chinese Government lost patience with the students. They ordered the People's Army to turn their weapons on the people, and many students were massacred.

The abiding image which astonished and gripped the world, was the sight of a lone student standing in front of the tanks, stopping their progress. It was a futile gesture, fraught with hazard, and indeed, no trace has since been found of that young student, Wang Weilin. But it was a gesture of immense courage, which has been remembered ever since.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus didn't search wildly round for the easiest means of escape. He didn't even allow his friends to defend him, but accepted his betrayal and walked quietly forward, offering himself to those who were about to destroy him. The soldiers were only obeying orders, just doing their job.

Was it worth it? Wouldn't it have been better for Jesus to have avoided arrest and all that followed, and to have gone on to live to a ripe old age? Had he done so, we might have had years more of his teaching and preaching and healing. What was the point of dying an agonising and gruesome death at such a young age? Perhaps such courageous and noble gestures are never futile, for Jesus' death on the cross still brings people to their knees in astonished admiration.

His own integrity and his love for God and human beings, were so important to him that he faced his own terror and dared to enter the darkness of death itself, where at one point he felt that even God had deserted him. It seemed to be the end, a futile gesture ending in inevitable death. But as we discover on Easter Sunday, it wasn't the end at all, but a gateway into a glorious and unexpected resurrection.

            And this is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Jesus faced pain and suffering and terror, the fear of which so often leads us into sin, and overcame them. His body was horrifically damaged and died in the process, but he himself – the real Jesus, not only remained alive, but reached a new and glorious life in the heavenly kingdom. 

            And he promised the same for all of us. That if we face our own particular blackness, whatever it might be, we too will reach resurrection. And after the final death of our bodies, we too will experience a wonderful new life in that heavenly kingdom. "Who is it you want?" asks Jesus. We're free to choose, but only he offers us the chance to take up our cross and follow him - and so gain real life.

                                                             Yours sincerely,

                Father Walker.

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