All Saints Highertown
  • Home
  • Safeguarding
  • All Saints Church
    • Our vision
    • Who we are >
      • Staff Team
      • Ministry Team
      • Church Council
    • Where we are
    • Blog
    • Transforming Mission
    • Anti-Racism
    • Baldhu Church
  • Church Life
    • Sacred Rest
    • Life Events >
      • Weddings
      • Baptisms
      • Funerals
    • Children & Young People
    • Sunday Services
    • Toddle
    • Home Groups & Bible Study
    • Fellowship Groups
  • Community
    • Hall & Room Hire
    • Truro Lifehouse
    • Acts 435
    • Cornwall Children's Clothes Bank
    • Truro Foodbank
    • Christians Against Poverty
    • Churches Together in Truro
  • GIve
  • Contact Us
  • Lent 2021
  • 24hr Prayer Event

This Guy

21/4/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
(Mary Magdalene's experience of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Resurrection experience combining John 20:2-18 and Luke 24:1-12)
​
I’ve been hanging out with a guy who I thought the world of. He’s no ordinary guy, people love him, he has this way about him that attracts normal people like you and me.

You see I’ve not lived the best of lives, I’ve done things wrong, I was pretty well off coming from a fishing village but at one point I was really troubled with bad spirits. They messed with my head and made me think bad things and do bad things. Not many people wanted to be near me but this guy

This guy....

This guy he was different...

He healed me. 

My mind and my body and I became better again.

So I followed him, I invested in him, time and money along with my friends Joanna and Susanna

We went with him wherever he went and we saw amazing things.

He didn’t just heal me, he healed so many people, I saw blind men see again, this man who was lowered into a house on a makeshift bed as there were so many people around they couldn’t bring him in the door. He couldn’t move got up but this guy told him to get up and then he started walking about. 
It was like having on the ancient prophets with us, but even better. 

He even brought people back to life, this little girl, a young man and my new friend Lazarus. 

We thought he was he messiah we’d all been waiting for.

We thought he’d come to overthrow the Romans, be our warrior but he was different. 

We loved him but the priest and leaders of the temple weren’t so enamoured with him.

They didn’t think some guy from Nazareth could be God’s son so when that’s who he said he was they were not too happy. 

Plus, he did things they REALLY didn’t like, it was bad enough when he started doing things on the Sabbath, like healing people, I mean what can be more important, healing people or observing the Sabbath. 
Well the priests had their opinion that’s for sure…

But then he started telling people their sins were forgiven…
Talk about taking their job from them… 

Plus, he started getting lots of followers and it threatened their ‘jobs’ so they started plotting to kill him. 

They started by trying to catch him out with tricky questions but I’ve never seen anyone be able to answer questions like him.

But then not long ago when he came into Jerusalem he came on a donkey and the people went crazy, treating him like a crusader, a warrior, someone come to save us from the Romans. He knew what he was doing but I think that was the last straw for the Jewish leaders…

And the unthinkable happened. 

They got to one of our friends. 

It was the best way to actually catch him as up until now they never managed it. He always slipped out of their grasp… To many people around who loved him to protect him.
They needed to get him when there weren’t so many people around…

They got to Judas. 

He was a good guy but never really got away from the pull of money. He used to look after the money for us so they offered him money to betray him and one night he did.

This guy was being weird the few days before.
It’s like he knew what was going to happen.

He started talking about dying and how he was going to be betrayed but we didn’t believe him. 
We didn’t want to believe him.

To us he was Gods son, our messiah. 

And lots of people thought so too.

But Judas did betray him, over the time of the Passover of all times, he told the roman guards where they could find him and with all things a kiss he showed them who he was. 

And they took him away.

That’s when people starting walking away and disappearing.

The next few hours got tough…

Our friend Peter denied him. I mean Peter! He was right there during EVERYTHING. Even this time when he went up a hill and they said Elijah and Moses appeared. You don’t get closer than that…
But while this guy was being questioned the people outside recognised Peter but he denied even knowing him.

He said that would happen too. 
I mean who knows the future?

But then it all went totally pear shaped.

He went from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate.

They both found nothing to charge him with, but in that short time the leaders and priests managed to rile up the crowd who had to gathered.

I don’t know how it happened, it makes no sense, but before we knew it they were calling for him to be put to death.

Pilate said no and tried to appease them by flogging him.

It was awful, we couldn’t leave him, but it was horrific to watch and they seemed to enjoy every moment.

These people who days before were cheering for him. From Hosanna to Death in days.
What was going on. It was all going wrong. This man I’d invested my life in. 
It was going, just so badly.

But the flogging wasn’t enough.

Death, Death, Crucify, Crucify.

And they got their way.

He was exhausted, they had kept him up all night, questioning him, flogging him, mocking him.

Then they made him carry his own cross, and not just to outside the city on the road, they took him to a hill where everyone would see him. 
And to make the point that they thought he was a guilty they crucified two criminals with him.

It was the worst day of my life.

This man who I gave up my life for, I saw him struggle and die.

As he took his last breath he said ‘it is finished’

For us it was.
I felt my heart break
I fell to the floor
I felt physical pain throughout my whole body.
We managed to get the Romans to agree to let us take his body down so he was not hanging on the Sabbath and we laid him in a tomb which was given to us and rolled a stone in front of it.

Those of us that were left, we went into hiding but we had to go back, he was laid in a hurry before the Sabbath so me and some of the other women prepared the embalming spices and took them to the tomb.

The men didn’t come, I think they were too scared but we knew it needed to be done. 
He might not have been who we thought he was, as how could the son of God, the messiah, have died? How could he have left us?
But at the very least he was our friend and he deserved to be treated as we would anyone else.

It was the right thing to do.

Summoning up all our strength and courage we went, knowing the Romans and the Temple Elders were still on the lookout for his followers.

As we got near I knew something was wrong, there was a sense in the air and from a distance I could already see the stone was rolled away, but how? Why?

Could this get any worse?

We ran to the tomb and looked inside and the body was gone?

But the tomb was not completely empty, the cloth we wrapped his broken body in was there, neatly folded. Surely if someone had stolen his body they would take the cloth? Who would want to carry a naked dead body through the city? And even if they did who would take the time to fold the cloth and lay it so neatly with the smaller amount we carefully wrapped his head in at the top?
But there was something else in that tomb though, two bright figures, dressed in shining, dazzling white, 

They scared the life out of me and were so bright I couldn’t even look at them.

Then they spoke. Their words made me jump.

They told us he had risen from the dead.
I remembered how he brought Lazarus back and my heart began to lift, could it be possible?

Who could raise themselves?

But these figures told us to remember all he had told us before.

Those words came back like a crashing flood. All those times he said the Son of Man must die, the Son of Man will be handed over, the Son of Man will rise again.

The Son of Man will rise again, on the third day.
Friday, day one, Saturday day two...
Sunday… Could it be?

The other women they ran home, but my heart and mind were buzzing, so many thoughts so many fears, wishing it to be true but I saw him die, I saw his body broken and now his body wasn’t even there.

When the girl rose we saw the body wake up, same with the young man.

But his body, where was he?

I needed time, I needed space. So, I wandered the garden where the tomb was.
Eyes, fuzzy with tears and confusion I saw a man. I asked him if he knew. If he knew where this man was.

He said one word to me. 
‘Mary’

My heart flooded with joy. My friend, my saviour, my messiah. 

It was true, he was alive. 

This guy… this guy.

Jesus was this guy. THE GUY!

THIS GUY, THE GUY, JESUS!

He WAS and IS the son of God, and what he had said would happen had happened.

He came to this earth, born just like you and me, saw life in its rawness, felt it, touched it, lived it…
Then went to the cross, not for what he had done, but for what I had done.
He forgave my sins, he forgave many sins but we all knew sin needed sacrifice which hadn’t been made, but he was that sacrifice…

A sacrifice once and for all. 

He told me to go and spread the good news, the news that he was alive and risen from the dead.

To begin with the others didn’t believe what I and the other women had told them, 

Some of them ran to the tomb themselves, that was good enough along with that we told them.

For others, they were still a bit sceptical but then the impossible happened.

He appeared to us, in a locked room. Then disappeared.
Then he appeared again, then to hundreds.

Our Lord and Our saviour, IS alive.

He died and is alive.

Life has changed forever.

He changed my life, he healed me and many others.

He’s not here on this earth now in bodily form, but he sent his spirit of love and truth and grace and mercy so you can share in him too.

I’ve never known anyone who gives without expecting much back. But he does.

He just wants you to know he loves you. That’s all he ever wanted. 

And when you know that, when he touches your heart you change.

Don’t ask me how it works, I don’t know. It just pure deep love that changes you from within.

He died on that cross so we can all have it.

This guy, THE GUY, Jesus.

He loves you SO much.
2 Comments

    Authors

    A collection of thoughts and reflections from the people of All Saints. 

    Archives

    January 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All
    Activism
    Acts 435
    Advent
    All Saints
    All Souls
    Alzheimers Society
    Ascension Day
    Ash Wednesday
    Babel
    Beginnings
    Bible
    Black Friday
    Black Lives Matter
    Blessing
    Brazil
    Brexit
    Brokenness
    Caasar
    Calais
    Calm
    Change
    Chaos
    Chartism
    Child
    Children
    Christlike
    Christmas
    Christmas Day
    Christ The Redeemer
    Churches
    Churches Together In Truro
    Civil Partnerships
    Climate Change
    Clothes Bank
    Community
    Compassion
    Connection
    Coronavirus
    Course
    Covid19
    Creation
    Creationtide
    Credit Union
    Curse
    Daily Mirror
    Daniel
    Darkness
    Desert Fathers
    Desert Mothers
    Discipleship
    Division
    Domestic Violence
    Easter
    Education
    Election
    Emmanuel
    Empire
    Environment
    Environmental Theology
    Epiphany
    Equality
    EU
    Faith
    Faith And Family
    Festivals
    Foodbank
    Football
    Freedom
    Funding
    Fundraising
    Gap
    Garden
    General Election
    Generosity
    Genesis
    George Floyd
    Giving
    Giving Up
    God
    God With Us
    Gogglebox
    Gospel
    Government
    Grace
    Halloween
    Harvest
    Headship
    Healing
    Hero
    Hole
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Week
    Homeless
    Homelessness
    Home Schooling
    Hope
    Immanuel
    Imperialism
    Incarnation
    Isaiah
    Jeremiah
    Jesus
    Justice
    Kavanaugh
    Kernow Credit Union
    Language
    Learning
    Lent
    Life
    Lifehouse
    Light
    Listening
    Live Godspeed
    Love
    Loved
    Love Your Enemies
    Luke
    Marriage
    Martyr
    Mary
    Mary Magdalene
    Media
    Midnight Mass
    Migrants
    Ministry
    Mission
    Monastery
    Monologue
    Mother
    Mutuality
    Nativity
    Nuns
    Olympics
    Oppression
    Orphans
    Parenting
    Parliament
    Passion
    Pastoral
    Paul
    Peace
    Pentecost
    Politics
    Pollution
    Poverty
    Prayer
    Prodigal Son
    Protest
    Protesting
    Psalm 139
    Psalms
    Racism
    Recycling
    Referendum
    Reflection
    Refuge
    Refugees
    Refugee Week
    Religion
    Remembering
    Remembrance Sunday
    Resistance
    Resurrection
    Righteousness
    Rights
    Romania
    Rome
    Rough
    Running
    Same-sex
    Samuel
    Sermon
    Shared
    Sharing
    Silence
    Sleepers
    Smartphones
    Society
    Stewardship
    Stories
    Study
    Suffering
    Suffragettes
    The 10 10 Project
    The Ascension
    The Cross
    Transition
    Tree Of Life
    Truro Methodist Church
    Unique
    Unity
    Valentine
    Victory
    Vision
    Vote
    Walking
    War
    Weather
    Wholeness
    Wilderness
    Witness
    Worship
    Young People
    Zero

    RSS Feed

SAFEGUARDING
Ensuring that children and young people as well as adults are kept safe whilst in our care is an integral part of our church life. If you have any concerns about safeguarding please contact:

Our Parish Safeguarding Co-ordinator, Mrs Irene Mortimore who can be contacted through the church office on 01872 495121. | And our Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser, Sarah Acraman who can be contacted on 01872 274351.
​Out of Hours for after 5pm and weekends: 01208 251300

In emergency situation:
Local Authority Children’s Social Care: 0300 123 1116 | Local Authority Adult’s Social Care: 0300 1234131
Picture

​Reporting hate crime:

You can do this by: Contacting Devon and Cornwall Police   
​or Stop Hate UK
or Stop Hate Crime / Stop Hate UK BSL service 
​or CrimeStoppers
​

GIVING

Picture

PARTNERSHIP LINKS


​Transformation Cornwall
Churches Together in Truro
Transforming Mission Cornwall
Cornwall Refugee Resource Network
Truro Foodbank
​Acts 435
Christians Against Poverty
Cornwall Childrens Clothes Bank
Alcoholics Anonymous​
Singing for the Brain
Truro Memory Cafe
Cornwall Hugs
Kernow Credit Union
Inclusion Cornwall
Cornwall Faith Forum
A Million Acts of Sanctuary
Open Hearts Open Borders
Cafe Disruptif
Climate Vision
​
Transition Truro
Penn an Dre Residents Association
St Petrocs Society
​Cornwall Womens Refuge Trust
​Truro Street Pastors

SOCIAL

TOGETHER

Picture
Picture
Picture

CONTACT US


​All Saints Church
Tresawls Road
Highertown
Truro TR1 3LD

01872 495121 | office@asht.org.uk
The Parish Office is open
Mondays 1pm to 4pm
Thursdays 8am to 5pm

THE PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PARISH OF HIGHERTOWN AND BALDHU is a registered charity and has the registered charity number 1179768.

​Visiting
​
Meeting Software
PCC Forms
Staff Team
Ministry Team
Church Council

Data Protection Privacy Policy
Safeguarding Policy
Anti-racism Policy
Environmental Policy
Lettings Policy
Health & Safety Policy
​
Equal Opportunities Policy

Room Booking Terms and Conditions
Room Booking Data Policy
The Truro Lifehouse Project is currently applying for funding through the European Regional Development Fund.
Picture
  • Home
  • Safeguarding
  • All Saints Church
    • Our vision
    • Who we are >
      • Staff Team
      • Ministry Team
      • Church Council
    • Where we are
    • Blog
    • Transforming Mission
    • Anti-Racism
    • Baldhu Church
  • Church Life
    • Sacred Rest
    • Life Events >
      • Weddings
      • Baptisms
      • Funerals
    • Children & Young People
    • Sunday Services
    • Toddle
    • Home Groups & Bible Study
    • Fellowship Groups
  • Community
    • Hall & Room Hire
    • Truro Lifehouse
    • Acts 435
    • Cornwall Children's Clothes Bank
    • Truro Foodbank
    • Christians Against Poverty
    • Churches Together in Truro
  • GIve
  • Contact Us
  • Lent 2021
  • 24hr Prayer Event