He is Risen!

2019-04 - HTA - Trinity Life -
We have this wonderful mystery to proclaim: Christ is Risen! The only way that this message can be truly joyful is if we have died with Christ. To die with Christ is to accept that he is our saviour. To die with Christ is to lay down our old life. To die with Christ means becoming a living sacrifice. 

Jesus has taken our place. He has taken the punishment that we deserve. This is the offence of the Cross: everyone one of us needs salvation. None of us is good enough. None of us can save ourselves. We, those who believe, are those who have died with Christ Jesus. We have accepted that our best efforts are no-where near good enough. We have owned the name sinner. 

What comes next?

Alongside the instant gift of justification - becoming 'just-as-if' we had never sinned, there is the ongoing process of sanctification - becoming holy. This process of becoming those who do not sin, those who do not even want to sin, takes a lifetime. We still sin. We still get it wrong: the sacrifice that is pleasing to God is a broken and contrite heart. 

This is what it means (in part) to die with him, to have a humble and contrite heart. To be those who accept we need our saviour, that we need his love and forgiveness. We need his light and his life. We are lost without him. This is death to ourselves and resurrection with him. 

Please come and join us in celebrating this world changing message, this Easter Sunday. We will be having the second of our Deeper services, which will be shorter and will include communion. Again, you can read the bible passage we will be focussing on, see (and sing) the songs we will be using and consider our focal question in the weeks leading up to our All Age Easter Service. You can see all the details at trinityashby.net/deeper. 

Please also join us in honouring our town and Mayor at our All Age Civic Service on Sunday 14 April at 10:30 a.m. when I will be interviewing our outgoing Mayor Councillor Roger Bayliss as well as welcoming the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire to worship our saviour with us.

With love in Christ

Tim