He is Risen

There I’m stood, waiting, in a crowd, a wide space open before us, a few women talk animatedly in the open. But we can’t hear everything they’re saying, and as their voices disappear a wave of quiet falls over us all. My friend turns to look the other way, I begin to follow her gaze and see, like the gentle movement of water, the faces of those surrounding me turning with  hers, their eyes focusing on one central point. But what are they looking at? What can they see?

And then the same vision that holds their gaze fills my own. I see him. In clothing of vibrant white, stood calm and triumphant, I see him risen. I reach out for the attention of another friend and I point towards the scene. I see in his face the same wonder that I felt on my own. I am part of the crowd, we are the audience, and the wide space is the stage, the actors before us recall the profound moments of Christ’s resurrection in ‘The Passion of Jesus‘.

‘What would I write about?’ This was my thought as my mum suggested that I began a blog. And I searched my experience for what I could talk about that would truly be relevant to other peoples lives. I love to read and I love to write. I love Harry Potter. But where would I begin? And yet, of course, I was forgetting what was most important to me, my faith. This is where I must begin. ‘When would I begin?’ I wondered next. In summer, when I was back home from University, with more time than I have yet planned what to do with? But I was doing it again, I was pushing away from me something that I wished to share.

It was Easter Weekend when I was reminded of how wonderful it would be to share my experience of God in my life. Amongst celebrations, with a Good Friday service, the performance of ‘The Passion of Jesus’ and delicious roast dinners, I was asked to give my testimony. I was asked to share the story of my faith with my church during our Easter Sunday service.

‘How do you feel?’ ‘Scared.’ Why was I scared? I was sharing my own experience, no one would be testing me. Perhaps because I knew how important this was, perhaps I was scared that I wouldn’t do my testimony justice. And yet, I knew all along that it didn’t matter how I felt, because when it came to it, I did not have to depend upon myself for my words, I could depend upon God. And that was what happened. Up to the moment before I was called forward I was nervous, but as I spoke I was calm, I said what I had wanted to say, my words were brought together more smoothly than I could have planned. And whatever I was feeling, I knew that God was with me.

Did you hear about Christianity growing up?

Whilst my family did not view Christianity as relevant to their lives, there was, in our house, one Bible tucked away on our bookshelf downstairs, and for a long time it stayed there. I went to a Church of England school and I had a close Christian friend. However, at that time I still believed the Christian message to be that one could be saved and receive eternal life by their good works, rather than, as I came to realise, that one can be saved through putting their trust in the fact that when Christ died on the cross, he took on our sins so that we may receive freedom and be without sin in God’s eyes. I see now that my eyes had not yet been opened. An important change came when  me and my Christian friend, moved school in sixth year to join her best friend from church. As the three of us became close, I was blessed with a way to find out more about their beliefs; I began to become more intrigued by the Christian faith.

How did you hear about Jesus? What did you think?

With my two closest friends following Jesus, Christianity became very present in conversation. I see now God’s will in the fact that everything at the time seemed to contain some consideration of religion, my subjects at school for example. In a way, we were given prompts that led to conversations about what my friends believed and what it meant to be Christian. I began to hope that it would come up in conversation more often, I became increasingly intrigued and wanted to know more and more about who Jesus was. I knew then that I had to read the gospels myself, to find out not just who Jesus was to my friends, but who Jesus was to me. And so, on Christmas Day 2014, I took the Bible that had sat on our bookshelf for years, and I began to read.

And, without telling my friends, across half a year, I read the Gospel of Mathew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. I began to read and I did not stop, I wanted to find out more and more about what Jesus did and his unfailing love for this world. My understanding changed greatly, I began to realise what trusting in Jesus meant and I saw how Jesus reached out to everyone, no matter who they were in society and no matter what they had done. I knew then, that the gospel was not something for me to read in secret and to have only a surface understanding. And so, in the summer following that Christmas, I wrote a letter to my friends, perhaps out of fear of bringing up something so important in conversation, telling them that I had read the gospels.

At that point I didn’t realise how important it was to them that I showed a wish to explore Jesus and Christianity. They asked if I wanted to read Uncover Luke with the. Uncover Luke is a copy of Luke’s gospel that provides a selection of Bible studies, allowing those who are new to the Bible to explore the character of Jesus and what he did in an accessible and illuminating way. Uncover was a wonderful opportunity for me. I began to really understand the deeper meaning behind certain passages in the Bible.

I saw the love and the forgiveness of Jesus and I began to understand more and more of who Jesus was to me, and who I was in relation to Him.

Hearing the personal testimony of my friends and their families allowed me to see Christ within an individual’s and a family’s life. This brought me to reflect on the impact that following Jesus could have on my life.

What difference did that first term at University and The Globe Church make?

As I began to question who Jesus was to me, I looked ahead at my first term of University. At this time, me and my friend had applied to do English at the same University, Kings College London. However, A Levels proved to be a very hard time for me and I had little confidence that I would ever achieve the grades that I needed to get to where I wanted to be. I was scared that, if I didn’t go to this University, I wouldn’t have the courage to find a church or go to Christian Union myself. I felt that I needed someone to guide me into exploring Christianity further. And actually, when it came to it, I didn’t get the grades, I fell short. But, by what I now view to be God’s will, I was still accepted into Kings and, not only was I to live in the same building as my friend, but, without our influence, in the exact same flat. I felt secure in knowing that I had a friend beside me in a time when the idea of faith was becoming ever more important to me.

And so, on our first full day of living in London, my friend and her parents invited me to come with them to the Sunday service of a new church plant nearby. The Globe Church was a blessing to me as I began University. From the first weekend I was given a sense of security in how The Globe had welcomed us into the church family and how in the first sermon alone I was brought to understand a great deal more about who Jesus was to me, and who I was to God.

As we travelled through the gospel of Mark in our Sunday services I was again and again stimulated and inspired to look at what God had done for me and the impact that Jesus has in my life. And as we looked at the Character of God in our Wednesday bible studies, I became more and more certain of the truth of God’s presence and of His love, sacrifice and grace.

It’s Easter Sunday – what does Jesus’s death and resurrection mean to you?

I know that the answer I give here cannot encompass everything I feel. I suppose my first thought is that I am so very grateful. I deserve nothing, I do not deserve the grace and mercy of God, and yet when Jesus died on the cross, he died to save me, to save everyone. And through Jesus’ sacrifice, every day, with every sin I commit, I am forgiven, because Jesus took on my sins so that I could be seen as pure in God’s eyes. And in Christ’s resurrection, he defeated death and in doing so gave us the way to eternal life with our saviour and king.

Now that you follow Jesus, what kind of difference does that make to your life?

Knowing that I can depend upon God has been an amazing change in my life. Before I followed Jesus, I was easily overcome by stress, anxiety and despair. These things haven’t disappeared, but I do know now I know that my faith is the most important thing to me and that whatever I am going through I can rely on the fact that it is part of God’s plan. I hope, also, that I have been able to show Christ’s love to others, and that through my faith people may be able to see the truth and the glory of the suffering and sacrifice that Jesus experienced for us.