EASTER DAY

20^th April 2003

HAPPY EASTER

A very happy and blessed Easter to you all from your Clergy, Wardens and Councillors. Welcome to our services today. The order of the Eucharist at all services is from "A Prayer Book for Australia". We like worship to flow, so there are few directions given during the service. Page numbers are given in the printed version of this pew sheet as are the Prayer of the Day, Special Sentences, Readings, and Psalm and Hymns. For those un-familiar with the Prayer Book there is a user-friendly blue card available at St John's with the order of service clearly and simply laid out, if you would like one please ask.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Though the phenomena of the lower world remain the same - the material determinisms, the vicissitudes of chance, the laws of labour, the agitations of men, the footfalls of death - he who dares to believe reaches a sphere of created reality in which things, while retaining their habitual texture, seem to be made out of a different substance. Everything remains the same so far as phenomena are concerned, but at the same time everything becomes luminous, animated, loving..... Teilhard de Chardin

MUSIC

The organist at 9.30am is Marjorie Glanville and the Postlude is the famous Toccata in D Minor by Bach.

PRAYER OF THE WEEK

O Christ, my Lord, you have promised that those who trust in you shall never see death - they will hardly notice it. You have also promised that they shall never taste death - they will hardly feel it, so great will be your life within them that they will take it in their stride. Come within my being, O Lord of life, that I may share your resurrection now.

To renounce all is to gain all; to descend is to rise; to die is to live.

Karl Rahner

TIME JOGS ON

An interstate trucker, travelling form Queensland to Victoria decided to pull his rig over and sleep for a while. Exhausted, he passed out. Only to be awoken by some loud knocks on the window of the cab. It was a jogger wanting to know the time. "Three forty five," grunted the trucker and promptly fell asleep again. Ten minutes later he was woken by another jogger who wanted to know the time. "It is three fifty five," he yelled. Then, determined to get some peace and quiet, he wrote a note and attached it to the door handle of the truck, a bit like a "Do Not Disturb" sign on a hotel door. It read, "I Don't Know The Flaming Time." A little while later another jogger woke him up to say, "It's half-past five."

RESURRECTION

My body is six feet and one inch long, it weighs thirteen stones, is fifty seven years old and something rather less than a perfect specimen of homo sapiens. It looks a lot better clothed than unclothed, and is, of course, in terminal decline.

I am very very fond of it, but not proud of it. As a young man walking down a city street I would surreptitiously peek at it reflected in shop windows, and sometimes be pleasantly surprised. I don't do that now. I met myself unexpectedly in a full-length shop mirror recently, not a memorable or particularly pleasing encounter.

My body provides me with a means of expression, a means of presenting myself to the world. It presents and interprets me to the world. The world apprehends me by way of my body's shape and colour, recorded on retinas, it's strange sounds and noises recorded on ear drums and by its feel, smell and taste. Without my body I cannot be known, but my body isn't me. I am more than my body.

If my arms and my legs were amputated and if the lower half of my body was removed and replaced with a series of bags, tubes and dials, half of my body would have gone, but I remain the same person.

Extract from its skull that part of my body which is my brain, and my body is no longer me, but nor is my brain me. I am dead, gone, but where am I? What has happened to me? What has happened to what animates me, what has happened to what makes me, me, to my mind, which is not the same as my brain, to my personality, spirit, soul, individuality, to my Andrew Neaumness? Has it ceased to exist? Or does it merely lack a means of expression, which in space time, has to be a body?

We Christians believe that our distinctiveness, our individuality, personality, spirit, soul or whatever, when deprived of its temporal and spatial means of expression, continues to live on in the mind and heart and memory

of a personal Creator, God. Who, being a Creator, is able to grant us some other means of being our self, of expressing who we are, that is suitable not only for space and time, as was our body, but for unimaginable eternity.

That is Resurrection. The Resurrection Body is that new means of expression.

Should this Resurrection Body need to be apprehended and known within the here and now, within space/time, then obviously it would have to bear a very close resemblance to, and relationship with the space/time bound body that used to express it. Thus the risen Jesus, to be Jesus in space/time had to bear the wounds of love that Thomas was able to touch, had to re-use, in some way or other, the discarded physical body to be recognisably the Jesus the disciple knew, otherwise he wouldn't have been who he was.

All this to me makes sweet sense, is not at all incredible. It all follows on naturally from a belief in God at all.

And why did God the Creator in Jesus of Nazareth let us in on the Resurrection secret? Because Resurrection is intimately bound up with crucifixion. Existence outside of time/space, depends upon that wonderful spiritual quality made so manifest in the crucifixion, and which so illuminates and makes bearable existence in time and space, namely, sacrificial love. It was the crucified one, the loving one, the one who died to himself, who was vindicated by God, was resurrected.

So the Cross, is the key to the beyond. That is, Love. The Cross, the way of the Cross, the way of sacrificial love was stamped as God's way, by God, in the Resurrection, and so to learn to love sacrificially is life's purpose. Is the guarantee of Resurrection.

We exist, then, to learn to love, which is life's only important purpose. To learn to love sacrificially. To do so, even only in part, is to be like God, and therefore fit company for God, and so when the old space/time body is discarded, when my bald, battered, rat-bag of a shrivelled body dies, if I've learned, while a part of it, to love sufficiently to be able to bear heaven, and the loving company of heaven, I shall be granted a new means of expression. Resurrection.Fr Andrew Neaum

THANK YOU

Thank you to flower arrangers and providers, to servers, choir members and organist, to sacristan, church cleaners, to watchers through the night and church gardeners and to all worshippers over the past week. You have contributed to a memorable and holy Holy Week and Easter.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Betty and Ray Cary who celebrate their wedding anniversary today, Easter day and to Candice Johnson and Dave Gillard who celebrate their birthday likewise today. Also to Margaret Connell who celebrates her birthday on Monday the 21st, Dawn Fraser hers on Tuesday the 22nd and Ann Merbach for Saturday the 26th.

TIME CAPSULE

Emmanuel is seeking contributions towards a fundraising time capsule. The capsule is to be filled and sealed at a special service on Pentecost Sunday, June 8th, as part of Emmanuel's 25th Anniversary Celebrations. We intend it to be opened during our 50th Anniversary celebrations. It is a really good way to show the community of 2028 what is important in our lives today. You might like to submit documents of historical interest, stories about life now, or how you remember it, tickets, letters, shopping lists, to name a few examples. The cost per contribution will be $5. Proceeds to The Meeting Place. For more information, please contact Carolyn Roberts on 60 56 6802.

AN INVITATION

Many of St John's congregation were witnesses to Rebecca Andrews' baptism and confirmation. Dick and Anne invite parishioners to be present at her marriage to Richard Stamp of Lowestoft England on Saturday 26th April at 3.00pm in St John's. They would like all those who are able to stay on afterwards to join them for a quick cuppa in the Narthex.

ABM NEWS

Please return any ABM boxes to Georgina Edgar before May the 4th. Anyone making a donation of $5.00 to the Australian Board of Missions can select a Calico Carry Bag from the Church Stall.See Georgina for details.

SACKAN

Not only sewing and craft. We are presently repairing hymn books. The next meeting will be on the 1st May from 9.30am. Come and join us. BYO lunch.       Julie Skilton 60592093

FRIENDSHIP GROUP

The next meeting will be held in the Narthex this Wednesday, the 23rd of April. The Guest Speaker will be Fr Peter Hayes.

PICNIC

On Sunday 18th May, there is a Picnic especially for the families of the recently baptised and of Children's Church and Children for Christ members. An official invitation will be sent out and the venue will be Willow Park, from 11.30am to 3.00pm. The M.U. would appreciate having some help from men in the Parish and from the Youth Group. Please note the date in your diaries or on your calendars. We look forward to seeing you there.

IMPORTANT DATES

Apr 30th                     2.00pm Pastoral Care Group

May 2-6                      Lay Retreats

May 4th                      Patronal Festival

May 11th                    Murray Conservatorium Choir

May 14th                    MU Coffee Morning

May 18th                    Parish Picnic

May 31st                     Synod

Jun 18th                      Friends of our Lady Eucharist & Coffee Morn

Jun 18th                      2.00pm Pastoral Care Committee

Jun 25th                      2.00pm Pastoral Care Group

July 23rd                     Fish and Chip night

July 27th                     Confirmation Day

Aug 14th-16th            Choral Festival

Aug 20th                     2.00pm Pastoral Care Committee

Aug 24th                     Hall Opening and Thanksgiving Lunch

Aug 27th                     2.00pm Pastoral Care Group

Sep 17th                      Friends of our Lady Eucharist & Coffee Morn

Oct 12th                      St Francistide Pet Service

Oct 22nd                     2.00pm Pastoral Care Committee

Oct 25th                      Flower Show and Fete

Oct 29th                      2.00pm Pastoral Care Group

Nov 23rd                    Bishop's Pastoral Visit

Dec 3rd                       Combined Friends of our Lady & Pastoral Care

            DUTIES up to & including 27th April

Cleaning & Tea                                  Team 10

Readers                                               Marion Ellis, Margaret Andrews, Anne Andrews

Eucharistic Assistant  Hugh Elford

Intercessor                                          Georgina Edgar

Door                                                   Jean Ardern, Anne Merbach, Dianne Smith

Vestry                                                 Peter Young

Mowing                                              Malcolm McRoberts

Narthex                                               Dot & Laurie Anstis

Linen                                                  Margaret Barkley

Welcome Table                                  Laurel Cooper, Val Hill

Servers                                                Caldwell Ryan Paige Candice Daniel Catherine

FOR PRAYER

The Sick

Ed Baumgarten, Eunice Charlton, Sally Craven, Nancy Craig, Joyce Hall, Robert Jones, Lillian Loads, Anja Mosse, Janet Murray, Bobby Nicholson, Thora Pyke, Simone Rattray Reid, Val Saunders, Grant Savage, Andrea Seers, Ray Schmidt, Pam Willoughby, Diane Wood.

Anniversary of Death

Delores Sinclair, Merioneth Elliott, Joan Dare 20th, Frederick Williams, Janet Summerfield, Noel Clark 21st, Ronald Franklin, Jean Petzke, Dudley Polkinghorne 22nd, Albert Pickering 23rd, Albert Huggins 24th, Gilbert Roberts, Joan Carkeek 25th, Ada Grant , Kathleen Sharam, Wilfred Preston 26th.

THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH

            Easter Monday 21st April

 7.45am                        Mattins & Eucharist - St John's

 5.00pm                        Evening Prayer - St John's

             Easter Tuesday 22nd April

  7.15am                       Mattins & Eucharist - St John's

            Clergy Hospital Visits

 4.00pm                        Stewardship Meeting - Parish Office

  5.00pm                       Evening Prayer - St John's

            Easter Wednesday 23rd April

  7.15am                       Morning Prayer - Emmanuel

  9.00am                       Meditation - Narthex

 10.00am                      Eucharist - St John's

 10.00am                      Home Communions

 2.00pm                        Pastoral Care Committee Meeting

  5.00pm                       Evening Prayer - St John's

 7.30pm                        Friendship Group - Narthex

            Easter Thursday 24th April

  7.15am                       Mattins & Eucharist - St John's

 9.30pm                        Bishop in Council - Wangaratta

   5.00pm                      Evening Prayer - St John's

   7.30pm                      Choir Practice - St John's

            ANZAC DAY Friday 25th April Fr Ellis' Day off

  7.15am                       Mattins & Eucharist - St John's

   5.00pm                      Evening Prayer - St John's

   6.00pm                      Wedding Rehearsal - St John's

            Easter Saturday 26th April

  7.45am                       Mattins & Eucharist - St John's

  3.00pm                       Wedding - St. John's

  6.00pm                       Vigil Eucharist - St John's

            SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER April 27th

  7.30am                       Said Eucharist - St John's

  9.00am                       Uniting Church Eucharist - Emmanuel

  9.30am                       Eucharist - St John's

11.00am                      Morning Prayer - Bethanga

11.30am                      Baptism - St John's

  7.00pm                       Evensong - St John's