“in Gashonga
archdeaconry. The missionaries are doing well and the church is growing. I have baptised over 100 new members”, our friend Pastor Ephraim 18/5/17
By 6 pm on the
first Good Friday something had changed, in fact the world had changed. Jesus’s
death on the cross had caused the defeat of the Kingdom of this world and the
Kingdom of Jesus Christ had begun (from NT Wright’s book, “The day the
revolution began”).
This powerful and
self-giving event is the powerhouse from which we can work out our mission to
“see lives transformed by the love of Christ”, first in ourselves, then in our
Church community, then outwards into our neighbours in Lewes and on into the
wider world.
On the cross, Jesus’s blood was poured out for
many, for the forgiveness of sins; it was the place where the power of all the
evil forces in the world were destroyed, and it was the place where heaven and
earth were reunited and the rule of the Kingdom of God came with power. He took
on Himself all the power that death could throw at Him: humiliation, rejection,
scorn, pain and the deepest sorrow. Having all this laid upon Him, he
demonstrated His victory as the love and dynamic power of the Father raised Him
to new life, showing that the final enemy, death, had been decisively defeated.
It was the
place where the self-giving love of the Triune God was powerfully demonstrated
by the suffering servant who poured out His blood to purify us from our sins, re-creating
us as His witnesses on earth to proclaim that love, as we allow God’s Holy
Spirit to work in our lives, to remake us in His divine self-sacrificing image.
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