Weekly Update - 1st April
Dear sisters and brothers
As we head into Holy Week I have attached the notices sheet with all of our services and events. A few things to highlight are:
- This Sunday we have Palm Sunday services in Woodhill Court and the Community Centre, followed by a Bring and Share Lunch and a Community Litter Pick.
- On Tuesday we are joining together with our sister churches in New Machar church at 7pm. If you would like a lift please speak to me
- On Thursday we have a Maundy Thursday service in Stocket Grange at 7pm
- On Sunday after our Easter Service there is a bring and share picnic in Victoria Park
As well as the notices I have attached some news from around the church which mentions a new policy on challenging behaviour which the Kirk Session have adopted. It too is attached.
One of the things that I personally enjoy about the run up to Easter is that I get to spend a lot of time with children. Perhaps even more than in the run up to Christmas I am invited to school classes and assemblies and, together with other local churches and Christian organisations, we run a programme called Easter Journey which is a fun and interactive retelling of the Easter story for children. You never quite know what children are going to come out with or ask and it certainly keeps me on my toes. One of the questions I’m regularly asked, however, is why Good Friday is called “Good” when it is the day Jesus died.
Children have a tendency to think in very black and white terms –a thing is either good or it is bad. As we get older we realise that there are subtleties to life. A child won’t take a medicine that tastes bad whilst we know that the medicine is good for them. Yet we don’t fully shake our childish ways even as we grow and we still have a tendency to put people, things, experiences, and what we are going through in the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ camp. Doing this can be a barrier to trusting God.
On that terrible Friday Jesus was betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, unfairly tried, mocked, beaten, spat upon, flogged, unjustly sentenced to death and cruelly nailed to a cross. Nothing about any of that is good. And yet on that most holy of days the Son of God surrendered himself and willingly sacrificed his life so that we might have life with God. He entered into the very depths of human suffering so that humans might know the presence of God in their suffering and the hope of freedom. He was separated from the love of his Father by the weight of our sin which he took upon himself so that we might know the love of our Father and never be separated from it. All of that is good. It was indeed a good Friday because on that day God’s eternal and abundant goodness did what is good for us. And we know that all this is true because three days later God raised Jesus from the dead in power.
When we look at the world around us we might see the flowers begin to bloom, the sun becoming warmer, the kindness of people, and the innocence of children – and we might call it all good. Equally we might see the poverty and pain, the wars and environmental destruction, the carelessness and meanness of people – and we would be right to call these things bad. When the ‘bad’ outweighs the ‘good’ in our estimation we can wonder where God is in it all. The same is true of the circumstances of our own lives. But when we look to the cross and the resurrection beyond it, we see the depth of God’s goodness and that, at all times and in every circumstance, God is working for our good because God is good. Not only do we then trust in God in all circumstances but we begin to see the world in a different way. In fact, this is Christian maturity: growing up in our faith.
This Holy Week and Easter, therefore, I pray that you would take time to think about the love of God for you revealed on the cross and you would know the goodness of God. Please use this time well, by joining us for our daily prayers and services that are listed in the enclosed notice sheet, and by spending time giving thanks to God.
With love from Sarah and myself,
Rev. Ian Aitken
52 Ashgrove Road West
ABERDEEN
AB16 5EE
Tel. 01224 686929
iaitken@churchofscotland.org.uk
www.stockethillchurch.org.uk
Aberdeen: Stockethill Church of Scotland
Scottish Charity Number - SC030587