Easter Morning early service, God’s Acre,

Moravian Close, King’s Road, Chelsea

Tell of that glorious Easter morn:

Empty the tomb, for he was free.

He broke the power of death and hell

That we might share his victory.

Edward J. Burns

The monthly magazine of the Moravian Church Swindon Congregation

- 2 -

Contents:

p.2 Contents page

p.3 From the Minister’s Study – Cross and Resurrection

p.8 Easter Sunday

p.9 Easter Offering

Provincial Fellowship Day – October 2014

p.10 Easter Quiz

p.11 Easter Wordsearch

p.12 Prayer Notes

p.13 Sharing Quiet Times – Options

p.14 Swindon Congregation Calendar

p.15 Fairtrade Recipe - Fabulous Fairtrade Choca Mocha Cake

The next issue of SHARING TIMES

will be published for MAY 2014

Contributions to Br Newman by Easter Sunday, please

- 3 -

Looking ahead and looking back are the recurring themes of many sermons - not surprising, really,

when we consider how much of our time we spend engaged in those two elements of thought. Looking ahead and looking back.

Looking ahead and thinking of the future is something we often do: in the dark winter months as we look ahead with pleasure to being able to enjoy the longer periods of daylight and warm weather, to summer holidays, to various projects in home and garden.

But we sometimes look ahead with worry, as we wonder how we will cope with changes in life and circumstances - unemployment, retirement, infirmity, changes in family or society.

Looking back and thinking about the past is also something that we often do – I think it is in human nature to reminisce. We think back about past pleasures and happy events, and the interesting things we have done. We also look back to the sadnesses of life, often with melancholy or regret.

Looking back and looking ahead affect us now, in the present. Looking back and looking ahead can lead to us being happy or sad, fearful or expectant; we become contented or worried, grateful or embittered.

Jesus looked ahead to the Cross; two thousand years later, we now look back to the Cross. And the Cross and the ways it is presented can have very great effects on us in the present, in the here and now.

I want us to think about each of these aspects - the Cross ahead, the Cross past, the Cross present.

Jesus looked ahead - ahead to his crucifixion.

He must have known from the rising tide of hostility that his enemies were plotting against him. He must have realised that he would be put to death through the jealousy of the scribes, Pharisees and

- 4 -

chief priests, aided by the weakness of the Roman governor.

We can read in the Gospel accounts how Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was now inevitable.

Jesus knew that this was to happen through his reading of the Old Testament, and in particular through his understanding that the Messiah was bound to suffer; the "suffering servant" foretold by the prophet Isaiah.

"He was despised and afflicted by men, a man of sorrows and afflicted with grief; for our transgressions he was smitten and by his wounds we have been healed."

Jesus looked ahead to his crucifixion - but with courage.

He led the way up to Jerusalem, while the disciples walked behind, afraid.

He saw that his suffering had a place in God's plan – that he could show us how to bear with suffering, that he could show us how God's power is greater than the evil which causes suffering and how God's power is greater than death, and that he could let us share in the saving benefits of his death and resurrection.

Jesus knew that all this was part of God's plan and therefore with courage he went forward, even though he knew that it would lead to death.

Ever since Christ's crucifixion, his followers have looked back to it as being of special significance.

Down through the ages to our own day, people have looked back on the crucifixion as an historical event and as an action in which God was at work, bringing salvation to the world.

Christians have looked back, as we do, on this real event which took place in Palestine, recorded by Tacitus the Roman historian and Josephus the Jewish historian and of course by the writers of the four Gospel accounts and other New Testament witnesses.

But more than this - in Christ's Cross is seen God's saving action. As Paul put it, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself."

The perfect self-sacrifice of Christ's life and death in which man and God were united were for all the world, that all might know of

- 5 -

God's victory in Christ over evil and death.

The victory of Christ's love against evil and the temptation to retaliate was evident, and by the resurrection the conquest of evil and death was shown.

The example of self-sacrificial love showed its results even at the place of crucifixion, with the conversion of the penitent thief..... the forerunner of other conversions as the power of Christ's love became known in the world.

So the New Testament writers looked back to the Cross and Resurrection as events of decisive and continual significance in God's saving activity.

And that is why they were concerned to record these events so that others too, in future generations, might look back to them as being of permanent significance.

The way Christ looked forward to the coming events in Jerusalem and the way we look back to them, are both of vital importance, because of the continuing effects of the Cross and Resurrection on us here and now, in our own day and age.

Effects that come to us in three ways.

First, the Cross and Resurrection save us today.

All around the coastline of Britain, there are valiant crews of lifeboat men and women who save those in danger of drowning on the sea; their rescue journeys are saving events to help others in danger, for which they are rightly praised and thanked.

The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are likewise saving events. They mark the beginning of the New Creation, in which man, nature and God are spiritually united as God originally intended.

They save us from the worry that God is remote from the world's suffering, at this time when we know of so much suffering in the world.

The crucifixion and resurrection save us from fears that evil and death are more predominant than God; they reinforce that goodness and love come from him; the confidence that this brings gives rise to the means by which the world and we ourselves can be renewed

- 6 -

in love. Thus their effects continue today, bringing God's saving power to the world and to us personally.

Secondly, the Cross and resurrection give us guidance as to how to cope with suffering when it lies ahead of us, or when we are in the midst of it.

We see how Christ bore suffering patiently, and then how his patient endurance of suffering and death was followed by his resurrection. The fact that God's power was eventually triumphant gives us confidence that in all the difficulties and times of suffering in our lives, God's power will win through, provided that we are faithful to him.

We see sometimes that suffering and pain are to be endured for a greater good. As a patient endures the pains of surgery but then is happy when healing results, so we can endure for the sake of a greater good.

As reformers like Wilberforce, Oastler and Shaftesbury had a long struggle to pass the bills against slavery and child labour, but then succeeded, so virtually every worthwhile task - visiting the old and infirm, collecting for Christian Aid, packing Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes, coming to church on a cold, rainy or snowy day - involves personal sacrifice or discomfort.

But enduring this is a part of true Christianity; it is something we have to expect as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. Jesus shows us how we must be willing to endure discomfort and suffering - but shows that joy and happiness will follow as the victory over evil is won.

Jesus, then, shows us how to bear with suffering and discomfort for a greater good, as he did upon the Cross.

And thirdly, the Cross helps us in our understanding of the Holy Communion, which focuses on Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection.

The Communion service itself reminds us of, and is a memorial of, Christ's sacrifice. The bread, Christ's body, is broken, as Christ's body was broken on the Cross. The wine is poured out, as Christ's blood was poured out upon the Cross.

Then the power of Christ's sacrifice is taken within us. We receive the broken bread and the sacrificial wine, the tokens of Christ's

- 7 -

broken body and blood; and we symbolically take within us the power of Christ's body and blood. We use these words in the Communion prayer: And here we present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee...

The power of self-sacrifice which Christ showed on the Cross is taken within us. It is not just something we look back to in history, but we become sharers in God's power and sharers in Christ's power of self-sacrifice. We commit ourselves to lives of self-sacrifice. Since we are likely to encounter suffering in the world, we are committing ourselves to meeting it with the power of self-sacrifice taken within us.

The Cross has a dramatic effect through all the ages.

The way Christ looked ahead to the Cross guides us in awaiting times of suffering which we expect ahead in our lives.

By looking back to the Cross and Resurrection we see the events in which God was at work for the salvation of the world.

By the present impact of the Cross and Resurrection, leading us to realize God's saving power in our lives, guiding us when suffering lies ahead or when we are in the midst of suffering, and symbolically taken within us in Holy Communion, we receive the power that enabled Christ's self-sacrifice.

The Cross and Resurrection are a dramatic power that can affect our lives today. We must respond in faith and with conviction:

“He is risen indeed”.

Wishing you a happy and blessed Eastertide....

Adapted from a file in the minister’s

back-catalogue of sermons…….

- 8 -

Celebrate the Risen Christ Easter Worship @ 11.00am

Hopefully we can expect a few extra worshippers in church on Easter Sunday morning, so will

members of the congregation who have their own copies of the new Hymn Book and Liturgy Book

please bring them to the service.

- 9 -

EASTER OFFERING 2014 Please don’t forget the Easter Offering

You will find an offering envelope either enclosed with your paper copy of Sharing Times, or in your packet of weekly envelopes, or available on the table at the

side of the church.

An opportunity to show our gratitude to God for all that he provides.

E-zine readers can pick up an envelope at Sunday services at Dixon Street in April; or you can send your donation by cheque

in the post to:

Rev’d David Newman, 38 Celsus Grove, Swindon, Wilts SN1 4GT

Cheques should be made payable to the Moravian Church

************************************************************

ADVANCE NOTICE:

Provincial Fellowship Day 4th October 2014

Carrs Lane Church Centre, Birmingham

New Music – Good Worship led by Simon Dunn

Registration and Tea/Coffee 10.00 am

Cost: £5 - pay on the day

Bring your own lunch Tea/Coffee will be provided

- 10 -

Easter Quiz

Just for fun www.kensquiz.co.uk

1. What is the last week before Easter called in the Christian calendar?

2. Which US President started the tradition of the White House Easter

egg hunt?

3. From which country does the Easter lily originate?

4. What name is given to the day before Good Friday?

5. What name is given to the last TWO weeks of Lent?

6. On which day are Hot Cross Buns traditionally eaten?

7. Who was Fred Astaire’s female co-star in the 1948 movie “Easter Parade”?

8. Easter Island is an overseas territory of which other country?

9. What is the Sunday prior to Easter Sunday known as?

10. Who directed the 2004 movie “The Passion of the Christ”, the

dialogue of which was entirely in Aramaic and Latin?

11. Which company produced the UK’s first Easter egg in 1873?

12. On what animal did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday?

13. When the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, offered to release Jesus,

who did the crowd insist he release instead?

14. The Good Friday agreement signed in 1988 as part of the Northern

Ireland Peace process is also referred to as what?

15. Where did the Last Supper take place?

16. Which is the only Shakespeare play to mention Easter?

17. Which of Jesus’ disciples denied him three times before the cock crowed?

18. Who on Easter Sunday 2006 became the first incumbent Head of

State to reach the North Pole?

19. How many times is Easter mentioned by name in the King James Bible?

20. According to the Gospels who was made to carry the cross of Jesus?

Answers in next month’s issue…………

- 11 -

EASTER WORDSEARCH: John 20:15-16

from www.geocities.com/lectionarypuzzles/ - free to distribute

R W H O M T B T W S G J

M A R Y S H E E E A A E

C A R R I E D A E I R S

L H I M R I T C P D D U

A A W A Y A E H I R E S

I V H F O R L E N A N D

D E Y O U E L R G B E W

J O H N W H I C H B R H

I F L O O K I N G O W E

T A K E M E A N S U O R

O T U R N E D I S N M E

S U P P O S I N G I A T

W I L L H E B R E W N O

Words in bold capitals can be found in a straight line left to right or top to bottom (JOHN 20:15-16) JESUS said to her, "WOMAN, WHY ARE YOU WEEPING? WHOM are you LOOKING FOR?" SUPPOSING him TO BE THE GARDENER, she SAID to him, "SIR, IF you HAVE CARRIED him AWAY, TELL me WHERE you have LAID HIM, and I WILL TAKE him away." Jesus said to her, "MARY!" SHE TURNED AND said to him in HEBREW, "RABBOUNI!" (WHICH MEANS

TEACHER).

- 12 -

Pray for all members and friends of your congregation,

that they may find this Easter-tide to be a time

of hope and renewal of faith as we celebrate

again the resurrection of Jesus.

Pray for those in our fellowship and their families who are house-

bound, or unwell, or recovering from hospital treatment; for

those who have suffered recent bereavement; for those who

are facing uncertainty in any aspect of life. May the Easter

Hope strengthen them in their time of trouble.

Pray for the children with whom we have contact that

they may grow and develop in our midst. At this

time of chocolate, may the meaning behind the

Easter Eggs they receive be explained to them

so that they come to know more about Jesus.

Pray for the Swindon congregation committee members in their

roles as elders and stewards; for all the congregations of

the Moravian Church in the Western District and their

committees, as ways of moving forward together are

explored in a time of small numbers and a shortage of

serving ministers.

Pray that all will respond to the needs of the church with

generosity of giving - giving of time, of talents, and of

treasure - so that we can reach out to those around us.

Pray that in all things, our focus is on the risen Christ and the

Gospel message.

W.A.N.T. to pray AMEN

- 13 -

Sharing Quiet Times:

OPTIONS

Choose life or death, the choice is yours - God does not rant, rave or implore

He leaves decisions up to us - To stay or stray, He does not fuss But should we choose to walk away - Upset our lives as we go

astray Remember that God would take us back - We need to confess to

get on the right track God wants to forgive us; He wants us to know That a new start is promised if only we show Regret for our wanderings, sorrow for sins

Turning back to Our Lord is so pleasing to Him. He requires us to follow His laws - Hear His knocking? Just open

the door If this still seems impossible to do - Recollect that His Son died for

you Now just stop and think - Step back from the brink

Turn around, read His Word - Don’t forget, thank Our Lord. With our hearts and souls - As He makes us whole

He is here to forgive - That we might LIVE!

(Deuteronomy 30)

© Shelagh Dalton 1998

- 14 -

April Sun 6th 11.00am Family Worship – Br David Newman Tue 8th 1.30pm Congregation Committee at the manse Wed 9th 7.45pm M.W.A. meets at the home of Sr Sue Webb Fri 11th 12.30pm Final Lent Lunch at St Aldhelm’s. All welcome. Sun 13th Palm Sunday 11.00am Worship with Holy Communion – Br David Newman Mon/Tues/Wed 14th/15th/16th

7.00pm Passionweek Readings in the small hall Thur 17th Maundy Thursday 7.00pm Readings with Holy Communion – Br David Newman Fri 18th Good Friday 10.00am Good Friday Liturgy – Br David Newman Sun 20th Easter Sunday 11.00am Easter Worship – Br David Newman Sun 27th 11.00am “The Lord appears to Thomas” – worship led by M.W.A.

May Sun 4th 11.00am Family Worship – Br David Newman Sun 11th 11.00am Worship with Holy Communion – Sr Jan Mullin followed by lunch and a meeting of Congregation Council

****************************************************

Beavers - Monday evenings in school term-time Little Scamps Tuesday mornings in school term-time Rainbows - Wednesday tea-times in school term-time

The Swindon Congregation Dixon Street, Swindon, Wilts SN1 3PJ

Please ask Br David

Newman for further

details

- 15 -

www.co-operativefood.co.uk/food-and-drink/recipes-and-inspiration/

Fabulous Fairtrade Choca Mocha Cake Serves:16 Prep:1 hr Cook:35 mins

Ingredients:

For the cake

220g margarine, softened

275g Co-operative Fairtrade golden caster sugar

275g plain flour

80g Cadbury Fairtrade cocoa

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder

4 free-range eggs, beaten

300ml semi-skimmed milk

For the icing

200g bar Co-operative Fairtrade dark chocolate

250g butter, softened

200g icing sugar, sifted

50g Cadbury Fairtrade cocoa, sifted

1 tbsp Co-operative Fairtrade instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water and cooled

For the decoration

75g The Co-operative Fairtrade milk chocolate

75g The Co-operative Fairtrade dark chocolate

To make the cake NB: If you don’t have a food processor, combine all the ingredients using an electric whisk or beat by hand. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 / 180°C / fan oven 160°C.

- 16 -

Line the bases of two deep, 20cm cake tins with non-stick parchment and rub the sides with a little of the margarine.

Place the margarine and sugar in a food processor and whizz until combined. Sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and baking

powder, and add to the mixer. Beat the eggs with the milk, pour into the mixer and blend until well

combined. Scrape down the sides and whizz once more. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 30–35 mins, until

the top is springy and the cake has begun to shrink from the sides of the tin. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack to cool. Peel off the parchment bases.

To make the icing Melt the dark chocolate, broken into pieces, either in a heat-proof

bowl over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave. Combine the butter, icing sugar and cocoa in a food processor until

smooth, or use a hand whisk. Whisk in the cooled coffee and melted chocolate until smooth.

Split each cake in 2 to create 4 even rounds. Place one on a serving plate or stand, spread with icing and continue with all the cakes. Use a palette knife to spread the top of the cake with icing, swirling to create a pattern. Cover the sides of the cake with the remaining icing.

For the decoration To make the curls and shards; melt each of the chocolates

separately, as before. Pour out onto a marble board or the clean underside of a heavy metal baking tray keeping the chocolates separate and chill for 10–15 minutes, until just set.

Holding a long knife at a 45 degree angle to the chocolate, push it away from you to create curls. The milk chocolate will curl and the dark will create long thin shards. If the chocolate is too cold or too warm it won’t behave properly; leave at room temperature or chill again to reach the right consistency.

Scatter over the cake.

The Moravian Church is registered with the Fairtrade Foundation as a

FAIRTRADE CHURCH By registering, we have committed to three goals:

Use Fairtrade tea and coffee after services and in meetings

Move forward on using other Fairtrade products such as sugar, biscuits and fruit

Promote Fairtrade during Fairtrade Fortnight and during the year through events, worship and other activities whenever possible