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Dear Friends, This issue of the magazine will come out on Easter Day. I suppose I should add DV (God willing), or perhaps computers and photocopiers willing in our case. Nevertheless may I wish you a joyful Easter if you receive your copy on Easter Day or hope you have had a joyful one if it reaches you later. The phrase ‘God willing’ takes me back to an evening service we used to attend as a family. The notices were always given out with that caveat – ‘there will be a service at this time next week – DV’. A week might be a long time in politics but it can also be just such in ordinary life. One never does know what tomorrow will bring. In that respect I have no difficulty with the phrase. It’s the theology behind it that bothers me now I start to think about it. If the photocopier seizes up or Christine’s computer crashes is that because it is God’s will? If the church we were attending had been struck by lightening and destroyed so there was no service there the next week – would that be God’s will? I find it very difficult to go along with that type of thinking. It leads me into a somewhat bizarre picture of God as someone who wills bad things to happen. I do not believe that is the message of Easter. Good Friday saw a normal public execution as far as most people at the time were concerned. There was nothing unusual in such cruelty. There is nothing unusual about death and torture in the world today. What God did was to take the evil and transform it into the joy, hope and love that is Easter. God does not will disaster so that good can be brought from it. He does, however, will that evil should be transformed. In the words of the song we sang at the Desmond Tutu Conference in St Andrews the other year - ‘Goodness is stronger than evil: love is stronger than hate.’ Let us rejoice in this truth this Eastertide. Janice |