Coffee Theology

The dark days of Good Friday and Easter Saturday are over.  It all changes on Easter Sunday. Of course, the difficult situation you're dealing with may not have changed yet.  But on Easter Sunday we see a ray of hope - a promise of resurrection.  On Easter Sunday Christians celebrate the amazing fact that when the women went to the tomb two days after Jesus' death, they found it empty.  I'd like to share with you another great piece of art from the clever folks that brought us www.icons-on-sea.org.uk  .  This can be viewed in person at the end of Southend pier:   We see a bunch of flowers taped to a traffic sign, a poignant reminder that someone died there, perhaps not long ago.  They're taped to a 'dead end' sign, which seems to indicate the sad fact that the person commemorated by the flowers has reached a dead end.  But the empty tomb of Easter Sunday shows us that the grave is not ...

On Good Friday Christians remember the day Jesus died.  An innocent, holy man unjustly executed in a most painful way.  The immortal Son of God submitting himself to a shameful death.  On Good Friday, goodness and mercy and justice and peace are put to death.  Evil wins. And on Easter Saturday, nothing happens. Goodness has died, and life goes on. When something terrible happens to someone else, we may try to comfort them.  Or we may avoid them, because we don't know what to say.  If we do have a conversation with them, we may come out with statements which attempt to minimise the person's suffering or provide an explanation for it.  At least he didn't suffer.  You still have your health.  Worse things happen at sea.  Everything happens for a reason.  Your prayers were answered, just not in the way you wanted.  Never mind, life goes on. We find these painful times so uncomfortable.  What we absolutely hate to do is to sit ...

  http://www.icons-on-sea.blogspot.co.uk/ Some friends have created an Easter art installation in central Southend .  Pictures like this one can be found up and down the high street; in shops, attached to railings or, in this case, to a bike rack.  Each piece is creative, playful, provocative, sometimes downright offensive.  Like this 'magazine'.  The cover features Christ on the cross with headlines including: Easter Pin Up!   Body to die for! Give your nails full impact .  I love (loathe?) the juxtaposition of the inane celebrity and beauty topics magazines like this push on young women and the horror of the cross of Good Friday.  On the one hand, a sculpted, hairless, (for most women) unobtainable body with perfectly manicured nails; on the other, a broken, pierced, hairy and bloody naked body racked with pain.  It certainly puts things in perspective. This magazine cover i...