Easter Services
EASTER at West Melbourne Baptist Church . All Are Very Welcome ....
Our Good Friday Service will take place on Friday at 10.30am
Our Easter Sunday Service will be at our usual time, 5.30pm
Lew will be facilitating our Good Friday reflections this Easter. Marian will be facilitating our Easter Sunday Service
Lew writes... ‘I can’t help but feel that I have drawn the most difficult straw and that Marian has got the easier gig … hope, new life, the triumph of death over life, and Easter eggs etc. Engaging with a place of brutal despair, injustice and unimaginable suffering challenges me on every level and to be honest I have some disquiet about our reference to this day as Good Friday. Bad Friday, evil Friday, unjust Friday, the Friday on which it appeared that evil defeated good seem to me to be more accurate descriptors. Given the complex feelings about Good Friday that jostle for ascendancy in my heart and mind I think that it is important for us to lean into all of the awfulness of ‘Good Friday’ to both accord it the respect it deserves and to act as a crucial precursor to our celebration of Easter Sunday’.
A space will be thus created for us to again reflect on the Good Friday narrative that for most of us has been inculcated into our hearts and minds since childhood. Our reflections will however privilege a more contemporary perspective that speaks to our hearts and minds with imagery that is more relevant to our modern day experience. No flowing robes or attire that we have come to associate with Jesus and his followers. In this regard we will view a skit where people who look like us psycho-dramatically take on the personas of the some of the main characters in the Good Friday narrative. Opportunities will also be provided for us to engage quietly and reflectively with some of the story lines embedded in the Good Friday story and distil the relevance of the story to our experience of life circa 2025 .
Consistent with our faith community ethos, but respectful of the foundational importance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday conversation will also be invited on our response to that which occurred more than 2000 years ago.
Hot cross buns and simple refreshments will be served at the conclusion of our Good Friday reflections and Easter eggs will be shared as part of our Easter Sunday Service
Marian’s focus on Easter Sunday will be ‘Christ has Risen’ and our attention will be brought to the new life / new beginnings that Easter promises .We will also share in the Lord’s Supper ( Communion )
All Are Very Welcome.....