So it's been a while since I posted here. Some post easter thoughts seemed like as good an excuse than any.

At advent I was pleased with myself that I hadn't got crazy busy with stuff, this was not the case for the Easter weekend. It's wednesday already but fresh in my mind was our sunrise service. After just a couple of hours sleep at the church at a sleep over with the young people we made our way out to one of the country parks.

It was frosty and the ground underfoot was crispy, and it was bright. The sun had already been for a while up so we'd missed greeting the sun on that morning. There was about twenty of us and I asked everyone to stand round the little bench with our humble little meal on it and then we looked out across the fields and back over Billericay. I remember seeing the sun just above the tree line on my right and it hit the tress and the open ground on my left, a pinky glow was filling the sky. There had been such a sense of hopelessness on friday but now I just knew everything would be ok, don't ask me how, but I knew that I knew that I knew. He was back, a dead man walking. I was hopeful for the new day and what God has to bring.

A few hours later it was snowing and as we met in the warmth of church a blanket of snow covered the town, a fresh start.

2008 is definately a first for easter snowmen though.

Here's another thing. I got to thinking when I was hearing that day about the resurrection when people were looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. There we were in church, celebrating and congratulating ourselves that although we didn't deserve it we now had a fresh chance. It was were we expected to see Jesus, but would he really have been there, Church was the obvious place to look, but what about all the unexpected places that we didn't look that morning and s often don't look. In the gospel of Matthew after the account of the resurrection what comes quickly after is the great commission. The other gospel accounts fill in more detail, but thats why I got up easter sunday morning, thats why I get up every day, to find out what the mission might be today, and how I can be involved.

Easter is our big hope and I'm still being changed by the remembering of Jesus' passion, but what's next...