Principal's Message

Dear Parents

“Happy Easter!”  Well, almost. There are still a few days to go before we enter into the joys of “Chocolate Land!” Of course, one important thing to do before we loosen our belts on Easter Sunday, is to have a bit of a rethink about what actually happened on the first Easter day. No doubt, if we had been alive in Jesus’ time we, too, would have been astonished by the miracle of a resurrected Jesus. Luke tells us that just as Jesus was entering the town of Naim, a funeral procession was coming out. The dead man was the only son of a widow. Jesus was filled with compassion for the widow and so went over to the coffin and said, “Young man! Get up, I tell you. The dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him back to his mother.” Luke 7:11-17. Mark tells us how in like manner Jesus resurrected the twelve year old daughter of Jairus, an official of the local synagogue. “Little girl I tell you to get up. She got up at once and started walking around. Give her something to eat.” Mark 5:22-24, 35-44. The two individuals raised to life by Jesus returned to their normal lives and at a later point in time they died, definitively. So, how was their “resurrection” different to Jesus’? 

Well, Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the laws of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it – a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence.

Unlike the widow’s son and the daughter of Jairus, “Jesus has not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, he has entered the vast breadth of God himself, and it is from there that he reveals himself to his followers.”

“In Jesus’ Resurrection, a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.” Now, what would you have been thinking if you were one of Jesus’ followers on that first Easter day? “....they were simply overwhelmed by the reality, but after their initial hesitation and astonishment, they could no longer ignore that reality. It is truly he. He is alive; he has spoken to us; he has allowed us to touch him, even if he no longer belongs to the tangible in the normal way.” Jesus’ disciples were quite used to Jesus performing the unusual: restoring sight to the blind; restoring mobility to the crippled; curing lepers of their disease. But now they had to grapple with a new understanding of Jesus: “He was quite different, one living a new and forever in the power of God. And yet, at the same time, no longer belonging to our world, he was truly present there, he himself. It was an utterly unique experience, which burst upon the normal boundaries of experience and yet for the disciples was quite beyond doubt. ”So, when Easter Sunday does arrive we can join with the writer of Psalm 117 in saying, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad”. We can rejoice and be glad, because Jesus, through his humanity, has given us the opportunity of true resurrection. However, as the resurrected Jesus said to the once doubting Thomas,

 “You believe in me Thomas, because you have seen me; happy are those who have not seen me, but still believe.” John 20:29. 

That’s us! Happy Easter – enjoy those chocolate eggs!

Leonie Burfield

PRINCIPAL