Some thoughts on the cover of our April edition
From Barbara Hargreaves, Sheffield
Caught in the LightAre you in a web of paralysis and fear?
Are you blinded by the dark and unable to hear?
have you been caught red-handed and feel shame and fear?
Or between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go?
Come to the Lord and be set free;
Come to Jesus, feel the joy and...be caught in the Light.
From Corinne Stace, St James New Town
I suggest that in this picture modern man (see popular style of boot) is attempting to bridge the gap between Christian and Muslim religion, and the gap is getting wider in our times.
However he is confident that he has the power of the Holy Spirit which shines over him through the gap.
He is likely to drop down into Middle Eastern territory where he could meet hostile or friendly reception. He needs our prayers.
From Elizabeth Smith, Launceston
The man sandwiched between two rocks; between a rock and a hard place. Climbers call it chimneying: is he going up the chimney or down the chimney?
I look at the split rock and think of Jesus' death on the cross and the curtain in the temple being torn in two from top to bottom as the earth shook and the rocks split. Yes!
From The Revd Canon Dr Christopher Newell
The cover reminds me that so often in our earthly life we feel confined, cramped, and that there is a desert in that narrow portion we call our lives. We fear that which is dark and that which we do not know, the majority of this picture. I was also reminded of the way in which scientists, in determining the way in which genes work, used to refer to the major proportion of DNA that they did not understand as 'junk DNA'. Yet, as we learn more about DNA we realise that the 'junk' is of course full of significant meaning and purpose. Accordingly, I suggest there is a deeper reading in this picture.
For me the darkness in this picture reveals so much about life and God that we do not know. Our earthly knowledge and life is constrained to such a small glimpse of light. Yet there is so much more out there, known only to and by God. Easter calls us into a relationship with God, which is just not about a small glimmer of light we know in this life, but the exciting unknowable we previously feared, found in the massive continuing dimension of life with God.
Jesus lives, his terrors now can no more , O death, appal us.