Stoke Holy Cross Church
Stoke Holy Cross Church meets every week (in 2 different places), but there is loads happening throughout the village all through the week, as we try to follow Jesus together with all of our lives. You can find out more about our different services and groups for people of all ages in other sections of the website, but we would love to either have you come and visit us on a Sunday or at a midweek group, or contact us if you would like us to come and visit you instead! There are some contact details for key people in this church on the left of this page - otherwise you can click on the Who's Who section at the top of this website...
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Rob's message for April
Posted: Wed, 17 Apr, 2024 (3 days ago) by Rob
Hello everyone!
Our wonderful deliverers are often very prompt in getting round, so it is quite likely that you are reading this not long after Easter, hopefully with that weekend still very much in mind.
Back in March we were talking about the Easter story in our school assembly, and I was very encouraged to hear that even in this age of endless streaming services and online games and everything else our young people enjoy, there is still room for the Mr Men and Little Misses. For some reason I got thinking about what the Easter story would sound like if I filled it with names of Mr Men and Little Misses. The first time I miscounted, but in the end I got 27 in there, I think. How many can you find?
The night Jesus died, he had dinner with his friends. The greedy ones were probably very happy. Jesus’s friends were in a bit of a muddle. He seemed to be saying that he was going to die, and not be with them any more, which sounded like nonsense. Of course that wasn’t going to happen.
But as Jesus spoke more about it, everything got more and more quiet. People tried to be brave, and strong, and they said they would not be forgetful about who Jesus was, and what he had done for them, but even Jesus’s best friend was quite quick to say he didn’t know who he was.
The next day, God’s perfect son Jesus died on the cross. He did it to sort out everything that had gone wrong. All the things in life that are messy, all the mischief we get into, all the things that are naughty or mean, all the times we are stubborn and try to do our own thing. Everything that makes us worry about what God might think about us.
Two days later, in the garden where they had buried Jesus, there was sunshine. Some of Jesus’s helpful friends went to the place where they had buried him, to make sure everything was neat and tidy. But something funny had happened: the stone had rolled away and Jesus’s body wasn’t there. Were they too late? Was it some sort of magic trick?
But then the impossible happened. They saw an angel, who told them that Jesus was alive! They were so cheerful.
“Hurry” they said. “Let’s rush and tell the others.”
Did you find them all? There are lots of places online you can find a list of all the Mr Men and Little Misses if you would like to check your answers. But maybe a more important question than these is the one which I asked the children at the end. When you hear the Easter story, which Mr Man or Little Miss are you? Are you Nonsense or Wrong – it just doesn’t make sense to you? Or do you go Quiet or start to Worry as you think about what it all means? Or maybe you are just Happy or Cheerful because you realise what Jesus has done for you? I’d love to hear from you about how you respond to the Easter story.
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