Christ Church Moreton Hall

I am very pleased to see that next to the car park opposite the church the Borough have inserted a new tarmac path.  This means that parents who park their cars to unload their children and then walk to Sebert Wood School no longer have to walk in the car park.  This is a wise and necessary decision by the Borough and I am very pleased they have done it in a time of such hard financial stringency. 

Paths and roadways have been uppermost in my mind.  By the time this goes to print we will be very close to the Passion Play in Bury St. Edmunds.  Once again thousands will line the streets to see the procession go by.  What a pity that changes in the local law mean that we now have to pay a private stewarding company to allow us to walk in the streets – something we have done free of charge for as long as I have been alive. 

                           I am very grateful to the Borough for all the assistance they have given us, not least with the cost of doing the event this year.  However, having to find an addition £890 for a one hour celebration has been a hard burden to bear and I thank all the people who have given so generously to make this happen.  The budget this year for the Passion Play exceeded £2500.  

In Lent we think not just about the approach of Easter, but Jesus Christ’s pathway through life and latterly through Israel to His cross, humiliation and ultimate resurrection.  John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus, talked about making a way through the desert creating a new roadway or path so that Christ could come.  There is a double meaning here.  On the one hand what sort of path does God have to beat or make to get close to us?  Are we far from Him?  Or are we close to Him but there are some very high boundaries between us and Him?   

The second is what pathway are we on ourselves?  For years we have pursued the pathway of prosperity only to find we have been unable to afford it.  With that pathway has come the assumption that as long as we have all the material goods we desire all will be well in our lives.  Talking to teachers in Sebert Wood School I find that while the children have Gameboys they do not know basic fairy stories, they do not know how to use their imaginations and worse, they do not know the stories of the Bible or the stories of our nation.  While they may learn them later, they have already missed out on the magic that such stories bring to childhood and in the same way they are missing out on the journey of faith which the stories from the Bible tell.   

So the logical question is this.  What pathway are we on?  Is it the easy pathway which has been made for us by others and which leads us away from God and an authentic life?  Or are we on the harder path, perhaps one which twists and turns through the mountains and perhaps even risks danger, but on the other hand leads us back to God to peace, contentment and faith?  Jesus Christ beat a pathway through all the harsh mountains of rejection, humiliation, torture and death so that we could have a way back to the heavenly Father.  Perhaps the time has come to consider whether the pathway we are on now is leading us in the right direction?  Or are we on a pathway that will lead us to our eternal home? To find out more why not join us over Easter? 

With every good wish, 

Yours sincerely, 

Revd. Canon Jonathan Ford.

Minister Christ Church Moreton Hall