Greetings
Rev. Ian Faulkner.
If you would prefer to read words along with or instead of the video:
Kia ora mai koutou katoa; Talofa lava; Malo e lelei; Noa’ia e mauri; Ni sa bula vinaka; Namaste; greetings to all who have tuned in to today’s Methodist Central Parish Virtual Church for our Easter Day service.
We are in a different space today. I was expecting to be in the grand heritage-listed Wesleyan space at Pitt Street. We are all in much simpler space – in our home bubbles practicing social isolation.
My bubble contains four people – three adults and a child - with two other adults in semi-isolation living in another part of the house. I can only imagine the exact shape of your bubbles, and pray that you are safe and secure in your spaces.
I have had the privilege on many Easter Days to confidently proclaim in a Church building ‘Christ is Risen!’ and to have had the assembled congregation respond: “Hallelujah. He’s risen indeed!’ This ritual is part of our tradition: a tradition that is being revised today. Once more I do proclaim in my bubble: ‘Christ is Risen!’ I will not be able to hear the responses that come back from your bubbles.
I will imagine the response.
In this service we will engage with a well-known passage from Matthew’s Gospel, and poetry, song, and music linked with Easter Day, that will open us to pondering on what the Gospel writer’s startling news means in our twenty-first century world: ‘He is not here, he’s gone ahead of you into Galilee’. Please join in as you are able.
May God bless you and keep you; and may you know that God’s face is shining upon you this day. We remember the voice of hope – a message spoken to the Commonwealth by Queen Elizabeth on the 6th of April - “we will be with our friends again, we will be with our families again, we will meet again.”
So be it!
“Sharing of the Peace”
Regularly in our services we have a time to share the Peace, to say to others in the Church, “the Peace of Christ be with you”. Today we invite you to contact someone outside of your bubble and greet them with a “Happy Easter” or similar word of encouragement.