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Viewpoint from Rev Phil Rodd 05/04/2024 

PHIL RODD 03-2024Rev Phil Rodd
Team Vicar – Flegg Parish Churches

 

Changes
 
Love them or loathe them? 

 
Changes at work, changes in relationships, changes in location; in family life, expectation, outlook, politics, fortunes, changes in belief.  The list goes on and on.  They can all be a bit of a challenge, can’t they?  In Great Yarmouth of course, our bridges have gone through various changes in recent times.  Even in the heart of Fleggburgh village where I live, the dazzling array of yellow and white lines that have arrived recently, although they will hopefully be effective in slowing the traffic and making it safer for us locals to cross an increasingly busy road, I have noticed some pedestrians – how shall I put this? – mesmerised by the amount of coloured paint in the road!
 
dove leftThis all makes me remember the last time I moved to a new job sixteen years ago (which for me as a vicar meant a new church) - a new job in a new city in a new part of the country.  And I recall thinking how that church ‘obviously’ needed changing – and I was the person to do it
 
A few months down the line, and I soon realised that I knew nothing, and that perhaps the greatest changes taking place were those taking place in me
 
A few years more, and it was all change again, and my wife and I moved again, and arrived here in the Norfolk Broads – this time not in one church, but in six – all situated in lovely villages – each with lovely people welcoming us into their worshipping communities
 
For us all now, Easter has come and gone.  However you spent it, I trust it was a good time for you and those you love.  Easter is truly the greatest of all the Christian festivals, the one without which none of the others would make much sense.  We can think of Easter, too, as being all about change: Easter, when we celebrate Jesus the Son of God coming and taking the worst that we humans could throw at him: our envy, our jealousy, our spite, betrayal, torture and death – but remaining unchanging in love through it all.  And lastly rising again – changing everything for us all, inviting us to hope, inviting us to share his own risen life.  Inviting us and inviting our tormented and beautiful world, to be changed forever

 



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