As we gathered this morning at around 5.30am looking out to the North Sea, I asked those gathered what was their earliest Easter memory. It is my hope that for our children, it will be getting up for the sunrise, to look for its coming and then as it appears sharing in words of scripture and faith, and then sharing breakfast. This year, both our children were present for almost all our services - Last Supper meal, 3 hour Good Friday service, Easter sunrise and the later Easter communion service. I'm not suggesting they were dutiful disciples (they are 4 and 1), but hopefully they witnessed something of what it means for their parents, and the church, to be Christian. (Before the comments appear, of course being Christian is much more than attending worship, but I don't think it is less than that). As they grow up with this experience of story and faith, it will, hopefully (again), offer them faith-full and faithful ways of believing, speaking and living Christian.
It might of course work the other way, but to only offer them a sanitized sentimental neutered experience of the gospel (the easter egg hunt with Jesus squeezed in) is to suggest we don't quite believe it ourselves or that we think faith can be something other than cross and resurrection. I love this narrative of Easter morning from Ben Myers, it gives me hope.
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