Thought for the Day
A one-minute read to inspire or challenge. Written by members of the church and updated every few days.
Good Friday, 18th April 2025
What to write on such a day in the Church’s calendar? Here I borrow heavily from a piece, kindly shared with me, in which the writer had set out what Easter means to them:
The first Easter feels like a pinnacle moment of history – like a great arch that puts everything that’s gone before in a new light and utterly transforms what lies ahead, somehow making sense of history and of the Bible, of the present, and the future.
The Bible opens and God brings light out of darkness and order out of chaos. That’s what God’s been doing ever since, and I believe it’s what God wants us to do too.
On Good Friday we follow Jesus again, experiencing terrible darkness and chaos. Falsely accused, utterly misunderstood and rejected by people of power, let down by His followers who melt away, convicted and sentenced to a cruel death. Then horror is turned into glory, grief and sadness into great joy.
Easter tells us that even when hitting rock-bottom – especially then – we can know that God is there loving us and understanding what we’re going through first-hand. He will bring light out of darkness. Whether your name is Herod or Hitler, you may be able to do unspeakably wicked things, but you won’t have the last word, because always God is working to bring justice and peace.
The Bible ends with a picture of God wiping away every tear, of glorious joy when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, as they become aware of just how much they are loved and forgiven.
Ruth Allen
16th April 2025
Here we are, half way through Holy Week. We have celebrated Jesus’ spectacular arrival in Jerusalem, and tomorrow we will think of the Last Supper. The tragedy of Good Friday will soon be followed by the glorious miracle of the Resurrection on Easter Day. But what about the days in between? What about Monday, Tuesday […]
11th April 2025
Palm Sunday is approaching. At Church we will (probably) sing “Ride on, ride on, in majesty” and will (probably) be given a palm cross – a precisely cut and folded piece of dried plant material, allegedly palm, which is to remind us of Christ’s crucifixion. (These seem mostly to be made ‘by Masai villagers of […]
9th April 2025
Last Sunday morning in the deacons’ prayer meeting – those few minutes before the service when the deacons pray for all who have gathered for worship – Sam was joking about how he has upset some of the ‘rules’ we cherish. For as long as anyone remembers, communion at Tyndale has been served by four […]
4th April 2025
EYE AND TOOTH. Martin Luther King Jr is on record as saying ‘If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will soon be a blind and toothless nation’ – a sobering thought where certain international events seem to embody two eyes and two teeth, and even more, for […]
28th March 2025
I hope you were able to see the exhibition of Jen Ford’s art that was on display at Tyndale in March. The title was “Silenced women of the Bible” and it aimed to “to change the way in which the church views women, by re-introducing those women in the Bible who have been wrongly shamed, […]
24th March 2025
Of great concern to many at the moment is the situation of the creative arts in the UK. The recent abolition of the music department at Cardiff University is just one example of diminishing government support at national and regional level, seen also in the steady disappearance of music, the visual arts, drama and dance […]
19th March 2024
If you’re a follower of the ‘beautiful game’, you’ll understand that, as a Newcastle United supporter, I’ve known a lot of pain over the years. The glory days were long past, and every time we seemed to be about to claim the honours, strangely lacklustre performances by the lads in black and white stripes cruelly […]
17th March 2025
Tidying my bookcase, I rediscovered “Open our Hearts, Daily prayers for Lent and Holy Week” by Ann Gerondelis, published in 2018. I flicked open the page for today and read: How do we respondto the unrelenting horrors we call the news?God, help us not to grow silently numbto pain and suffering –or become eager to […]
14th March 2025
In my last Thought for the Day (5 February) I wrote about reading aloud. After reading that, one of my sons decided to see what AI (Artificial Intelligence) might make of the subject. After giving instructions to something called ‘Chat GPT’ it came up with what appeared to be an acceptable Thought, although not in […]