Bread ... and wine

Sunday today, and at the church we visited the title was "It's not fair"

The whole service drew out the fact that God does not treat us fairly, instead he shows us his ridiculous, extravagant grace. He lavishes love upon us far greater than fairness would dictate. We can't do anything to earn that love - we can just respond to it.

We celebrated communion together as part of that service and were reminded of the morning service on Radio 4 today where they were talking about how messy the first Easter was. We like things to be so neat and tidy, so precise, but the events of what we call Good Friday were certainly not tidy.

We have the privilege over the coming couple of weeks of being part of a team sharing the story of the first Easter in a local school, and as such have just looked again at the BBC DVD of The Passion that was released a few years back. It certainly wasn't 'pretty' or organised in the way we like things. And yet through all the confusion, apparent chaos and untidiness of those few days such love and grace was poured out by God to us all.

So ... bread - just ordinary bread, wine - just ordinary wine ... but such a reminder, especially at this time of year.