Christmas cactus at Easter!

From the Manse......

Whether it is due to global warming and its associated changes or some more mundane reason the fact is that our Christmas cactus is behaving strangely.

Sitting proudly on the windowsill in our kitchen it is flowering magnificently! The bright pink flowers that bloomed throughout Advent just a few months ago are back once more in timely fashion to accompany us on our journey through Lent towards Easter.

It is a visual reminder of how these two festivals are intimately and inextricably connected, helping to both explain and make sense of one another. Together, they complete our understanding of Jesus.

After all, what is Easter but the fulfilment of the Christmas story and without the message of the incarnation there would be no resurrection.

We are reminded of this fact in Horatius Bonar's Easter hymn "Rejoice and be glad! The redeemer hath come: Go, look on his cradle, his cross and his tomb"

The flowers remind us of the new life that is to be discovered in that which has finished and is all over.

The flowers speak of hope and surprise and in doing so allow us to trust God for the future that is yet to come even as we are taken unawares by him in the present.

The flowers tell us that even as we await the transforming dawn of Easter Day, we are not abandoned in the darkness that surrounds us for even in the messiness of the world there are signs of light, hope, peace and love that we can hold onto.

As this year, we come towards the finish of our Lenten journey prepared to enter into Christ's passion, we are very aware that we living through the darkest times for many an age.

However, the truth of Christmas tells us that even so, we are not alone and that the Christ child is with us, whilst the glory of Easter and resurrection tells us that the Christ light has and never will be extinguished by the darkness of the world.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

With love and God bless 

Keith