Easter messages of hope from Shepparton churches

That special time of year for our local Christian community in Greater Shepparton. Have you ever wondered why Christians seem to get up and about around this time of year?

Here’s why:

● We acknowledge life isn’t easy; and even worse, sometimes most unfair (Jesus was arrested on dubious charges at best).

● We acknowledge humankind can go through the most unimaginable suffering — it’s a reality that sometimes cannot be avoided (Jesus was the subject of brutality from the authorities and the death penalty by means of the horrific execution method of crucifixion — remembered on Good Friday).

● We have a belief that God understands and empathises with human suffering because He has gone through it Himself (His son dying on the cross).

● We understand and believe that great good can come out of the worst situations (Jesus rose from the dead — conquered death and the grave on Easter Sunday).

With this in mind, you can hopefully appreciate why Easter is such a big deal. And this makes extra sense in this season of a worldwide pandemic where every norm seems to have been lost. The Christian believes there is great hope in the current COVID-19 crisis — hope for our precious local community of Greater Shepparton. Easter has proven it.

— Jeremy Rensford of the Shepparton Ministers Association and Shepparton Christian Churches.

St Augustine's Anglican Church Shepparton

Dear Friends,

As we prepare to celebrate Jesus's resurrection on Easter Sunday, I encourage you to receive the words of Jesus to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25).

These words of Jesus are so essential for our Christian and human existence as St Paul affirms this, that if Christ had not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and also our faith. (I Corinthians 1: 15:14).

Friends, our faith and proclamation, we know is not in vain, because the resurrection of Jesus has changed the course of history of humankind.

Nothing remains as it was before, not the lives of those who encountered the empty tomb, not our lives, even, not the lives of those of us who live in fear of the daily headlines and the unknown. Nothing remains the same.

Jesus's death and resurrection makes all things new, it crushes hopelessness and gives hope, it crushes the past and gives the present as new identity, it crushes sin and death and gives new life. A life that we all must embrace, so that we are able to be a new people, people of the resurrection.

Let us today and tomorrow not look “for the living amongst the dead” (Luke 24:5) as we get embroiled in the challenges of life and in that which the unknown offers.

Let us look for life in Jesus, the resurrection and life, as for us as believers Jesus is life itself. When we do this, Easter will come to us in a powerful way and through this, we will know the truth that Christ is risen and we are risen.

As you enjoy your time with family, as you offer essential services, as you recovery in hospital, as you recuperate at home, as you participate in a new way of life, may the risen Christ be a special gift to you as you are a gift to others.

As you enjoy your Easter Egg (a symbol of an empty tomb) may it give you the strength to carry on, living and loving so that together we may be people of the resurrection and life,

A happy and blessed Easter to you.

— Rev Canon Jerome Francis of St Augustine's Anglican Church Shepparton

Shepparton Church of Christ

This world in this moment of 2020 is screaming for hope.

Every day the media are reporting on thousands of deaths around the world and they are proclaiming loudly and daily you need to be fearful for your life. Your hope is being stolen from you day by day.

Hopelessness is like a tomb. In many regards, a person without hope is a person locked in a tomb.

Have you been there? Where do you look for hope?

With Easter approaching I am reminded of the words in 1 Peter 1:3-4: Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope.

The Father who created us has provided a way through Jesus for us to live our lives with a living hope of having the Holy Spirit being our comfort, our guide no matter what this world throws at us and the living hope of eternal life with God.

This Easter I pray that you will come to know the peace and hope that every believer in Jesus Christ comes to know. If you want to know more about this everlasting hope write to me at Pastor@sheppartonchurchofchrist.org.au

— Pastor Barry Hutchings, Shepparton Church of Christ

St Brendan's Catholic Church, Shepparton

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.

Three weeks ago, I was faced with a sad and difficult task. I had to tell people they could not gather for community prayer due to the need to keep people safe through the government mandate of social distancing and reduced contact.

My whole life in ministry has been one of calling people to prayer and celebration of their faith. This has become even more poignant for me as we draw closer to Easter.

Yet, one of the benefits that is emerging from this pandemic is that we are being called to a more reflective life. It is a worthwhile challenge to deal with the many things that emerge when we slow down, things that we sometimes suppress or which we just don’t get around to dealing with.

As I have faced this myself, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the hope that is in my heart and it has made me even more conscious of the importance of my faith, a faith that is founded on Jesus’s death and resurrection.

This faith gives me a sense of who I am; it gives me a sense of purpose in life; it gives me a mission; it gives me a reason to get out of bed each day; but above all, it gives me a deep sense of hope in my life. And now I am blessed to have more time to reflect on these foundational parts of my life.

Without hope in our lives we can feel overstressed, anxious and adrift. To have no hope is very sad. Hopefully, in a few months’ time, this pandemic will be passed and in 10 years it will be a dim, distant memory. Optimistically, we will all be wiser and purified, like gold in the furnace.

May the resurrection of Christ give us hope for here in this life and for eternity.

— Fr Joe Taylor, St Brendan's Catholic Church Shepparton.

Shepparton Uniting Church

The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I believe that this declaration ‘The Lord is Risen’, the affirmation ‘He is risen indeed’ and the response of Alleluia, will be ringing and echoed in hundreds of thousands of homes, if not millions this Easter morning.

It will be proclaimed in lounge rooms and kitchen tables, driveways and garages, from front yards and backyards, in driveways and drive-throughs, and no doubt will be printed and streamed live across our country and the whole world.

There will be solitary figures preaching from their sanctuaries, and pre-recorded music will be played to imagined congregations. Virtual realities become the new reality, and many are experiencing church differently. The church we used to do is now the church we feel!

The circumstances we find ourselves in, due to the global pandemic, is a troubling time indeed. Yet, the message is the same as has been for thousands of years. ‘The Lord is risen!’ The scattered community respond from outside the church walls, but the response is still the same, ‘He is risen indeed!’, and the whole creation burst into songs of Alleluia with their responses.

It is true that troubling times bring both challenges and blessings. Challenges in that we have to learn a new way of being in community, and blessings because it reveals more truth about the Lordship of the risen Christ, God in community. Challenges, in that we try to find our peace of mind in ‘things’, blessings are that we hear ‘The Lord is risen!’ Christ is now Lord of both the living and the dead.

S.M. Lockridge in his own troubling times said this: “People are trying to find their peace of mind in things. We are killing ourselves trying to live. We eat our way into ecstasy and drink our way into pleasure … we try to cook our way into popularity and push our way to power. We try to bully our way to friendship and bomb our way to world peace.”

In our own troubling time, the Easter message still rings true, The Lord is Risen! For whether we live, we live unto the Lord. And if we die, we die unto the Lord. The very reason why Jesus died, that He might be LORD both of the dead and the living. JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!

It is the Lordship of Christ that makes a better world, where evil is being defeated and the dead can be made alive!

May the peace of the Lord be always with you.

— Rev. Loni Vaitohi, Shepparton Uniting Church and Shepparton Rural Congregations.