Acts 26 tells us of Paul’s testimony before King Herod Agrippa II. In the ongoing saga of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem, he has defended himself before the crowds, before the Sanhedrin and before the governors Felix and Festus, and now has the opportunity to speak before the king himself. Undaunted by all the pomp and grandeur of a meeting with royalty, Paul not only recounts his personal history, both as a faithful Jew and as someone whose life was turned around by meeting with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, but challenges his audience to consider what the implications for their own lives are if God really has raised Jesus from the dead. Agrippa clearly understood these implications, saying, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28) Paul’s answer is that he wishes all men could become as he is (minus the chains of imprisonment!) We see here the fulfilment of his calling to be a witness for Jesus as he proclaims the gospel in every setting imaginable.

Jesus had warned his disciples that testimony to him would be required. He said, ‘But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.’ (Luke 21:14-15) Paul is living proof that this happened, for at the end of Acts 26 we see that both Agrippa and all the judges present agreed that he had not done anything worthy of imprisonment and could have been released had he not appealed to Caesar. (Acts 26:31-32)

We may look at this chapter from a historical point of view, but all Scripture has something useful to teach us today, in our own situations too. We too have a testimony to share, a story to tell. We may never have to testify before kings, but we are all called to be ready to give a reason for the hope we have. (1 Pet 3:15) May God give us words and wisdom in every situation so that His story is told through our lives to all we meet.

The Easter story is ultimately not about chocolate at all. It’s about God’s love for the whole world and how His everlasting love and eternal plan of salvation were fulfilled by the death and resurrection of Jesus. The story involves God’s mercy to us – for we have all sinned and deserve to pay the price of death and separation from God for that sin, but we are rescued by Jesus taking our place on the cross. It involves the Messiah, Jesus, God’s chosen and anointed one. It’s a story of miracles – a miraculous birth (which we celebrate at Christmas) and a miraculous resurrection, demonstrating God’s power over sin and death. It also reminds us that God is worthy of our worship and wants us to be His witnesses around the world. One of our readings today was from Matthew 28, reminding us of the Great Commission God has given us to make disciples of all nations, teaching people all that God has done.

God’s plan of salvation was not a last-minute idea; Jesus was slain from the creation of the world. (Rev 13:8) Salvation came from apparent failure, humiliation and defeat. Resurrection followed crucifixion, and this reminds us that in our lives too, we have to walk dark paths before we reach victory.The gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that by His death and resurrection we are reconciled to God and born again into His family, is so simple that even the youngest child can understand it and receive Jesus into their lives by faith. Paul spends a lot of time in his letter to the Corinthians trying to explain the difference between God’s wisdom and the world’s wisdom and he tells us that everyone who believes can have access to God’s wisdom and that Christ is actually the wisdom of God. He says,‘No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—What God has arranged for those who love him. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.’ (1 Cor 2:9)

Easter changes everything. It opens our eyes to God’s eternal plan, shows us the extent of His everlasting love, gives us insight into the mercy He shows us and the miracles the Messiah works – and the result should be our ongoing worship and witness to the world God made and loves so much that He gave His only Son to save us.

Last year we spent quite a bit of time at our Little Big Church looking at chocolate and at different sweets, including Liquorice Allsorts. Garry even wrote us some new songs on these themes – telling us God’s love is better than any chocolate and any ice-cream or cake and teaching us that it takes all sorts to make the church of God complete.  Easter is a time when traditionally we get chocolate Easter eggs – symbolising new life – and other forms of chocolate, so tonight we explored the Easter story through M & Ms.

M & Ms are multi-coloured button-shaped chocolates, each of which has the letter ‘M’ printed on it in white on one side. They were first made in America in 1941 and they have different fillings, including peanuts, peanut butter, almond, pretzels, caramel and crispy, dark chocolate, all covered in milk chocolate. Last year, a fudge brownie centre was introduced in the United States, but I don’t think these are available in the UK yet. M and Ms are the flagship product of the Mars Wrigley Confectionery division of Mars, Incorporated and are a very popular chocolate treat. There’s even an M & M Store in Leicester Square in London which has over 100 M & M’s selections to choose from!

We looked at a poem by Bethany Darwin which looks at how this letter M can tell the Easter story to us:

“These sweeties tell a story,

The best you’ll ever hear.

This story tells of Jesus dying on a cross

So we can be brought near.

So hold them and turn them

And you will see

The ‘M’ becomes a ‘W’, an ‘E’ and then a ‘3.’

The ‘E’ stands for ‘Easter’…

God’s everlasting love and His eternal plan.

It reminds us of the cross and how God rescued sinful man.

The ‘3’ represents the 3 days Jesus spent in the grave;

It tells us by His death, His children He did save.

The ‘M’ reminds us of the mercy

The Messiah showed as He died in our place,

And the miracle of the resurrection

So we can see Him face to face.

The ‘W’ reminds us that He alone

Is worthy of our worship and our praise

And that He calls us to be His witnesses

Around the world for all our days.”

This morning on Easter Sunday, Garry spoke about ‘The Light In The Grave.’ He talked about how mankind had originally known God as a friend, how Adam would meet with God in the garden of Eden, but with sin came the loss of connection and darkness, spoiling that beautiful relationship. Just as printed photos fade over time, so too as generations passed, mankind’s relationship with God became more distant.

God has always been a God of revelation, however, and His truth is linked to light (Ps 19:8). 1 John 1:5 reminds us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Paul tells us that God lives in unapproachable light (1 Tim 6:15-16) and John’s vision of the resurrected Christ in Rev 1:12-16 is full of the imagery of light (His eyes were like blazing fire; His feet like glowing bronze; His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.) The light in Jesus brings life (John 6:68, John 1:9, Isaiah 9:6). Gloom and darkness are dispelled by the light of God, and as Is 42:7 reminds us, this light would include Gentiles as well as Jews.

With the Incarnation, we see the arrival of the Light, for Jesus is the light of the world. (John 8:12) The enemy does not want us to see the light (John 3:19-20) for light reveals what is. In the darkness, our imaginations can see monsters in the shadows, but light removes the darkness and shows us plainly what is, the reality. In John 1:1-3 we see life and light in Jesus, and He illuminates, reveals truth and dispels the darkness. The enemy wanted to extinguish His life and light and at the cross thought he had succeeded, but as 1 Cor 2:8 reminds us, he and the earthly rulers just did not understand God’s reality. Instead of being the end, the grave became a beginning, a doorway not the end. The grave was illuminated by the light and now ‘the God who died came back to life/ And everything is changed.’ (‘Christ Is Risen’, Phil Wickham)

The disciples who had been huddled in a room, fearful of the Jews and afraid for their own lives, were transformed by the resurrected Saviour. They understood that death did not have the final say or victory, that we are also promised new life in Him. (2 Tim 2:11) The light in the grave now blazes forth and reminds us that our future is safe in Jesus, the Overcomer.

The Bible is full of names. It’s full of genealogies and lists of people doing different jobs. Some of these names are hard for us to pronounce and many of us skip over these lists of names when we read the Bible because we find them boring and irrelevant. Eugene Peterson reminds us, however, that “the biblical fondness for genealogical lists is not a pedantic antiquarianism, it is a search for personal involvement, a quest for a sense of personal place in the web of relationships in which God fashions salvation.” (Eugene Peterson, ‘Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work’, P 107)

All of us need personal involvement in God’s story. All of us need a sense of personal place, a sense that who we are and what we are doing is crucially important, that we are not just ‘marking time’ on earth, that our existence matters. One of the most debilitating elements of lockdown has been that our sense of purpose has been drastically affected in a negative manner.

In the midst of all this, many people in the Dearne area and beyond have been using this time purposefully and creatively. They have been involved in the Dearne Churches Together Easter project ‘Whispers of Love’, making and decorating hearts to give out to our communities as a prophetic reminder involving 1054 hearts and reaching 9 care homes/ assisted living places that God loves us and that Easter marks the height of that love as Jesus died for our sins and rose again to bring us everlasting life.

I don’t know the names of all the people who have been involved in this project. God does. But in true Biblical manner, here is the list of names that I do know who have chosen to work with us to take God’s love in visible form to our communities and to remind everyone that they are loved by God. My heartfelt thanks to all who took this crazy dream to heart and turned it into a prophetic reality. My thanks to all for using their God-given talents and skills in so many different creative ways:

• Knitting

• Sewing

• Decoupage

• Painting (on wood, card, pebbles, glass pebbles)

• Encaustic Art (hot wax painting)

• Cross stitch

• Embroidery

• Beading

• Woodwork

Known Participants

• Alison Sykes

• Fiona Kouble

• Diane Webb

• Julie Turner

• Karen Dunn

• Katie Dunn

• Chris Taylor

• Jackie Kenning

• George

• Amanda Campbell

• Stacey Turner

• Esther Turner

• Rebekah Turner

• Garry Turner

• Janet Cobourne-Smith

• J-P Schreuder

• Herlen Schreuder

• Mackenzie Schreuder

• Tatijana Schreuder

• Pupils & Staff at Sacred Heart Primary School

• Charlotte Williams

• Children & Staff at Station House Community Association

• Jeanette Boulton

• Brenda Jones

• Joyce Kilner

• Andrea Calladine

• Ella

• Sharon Seaborne

• Dorothy Lees

• Pat Harris

• Roger Martin

• Sue Martin

• Jade Edmonds

• Brian Nelson (Encaustic Art Plus)

• Marie Nichols

• Mrs Young

• Marcia Tissington

• Tracy Stringfellow

Thank you to all, known and unknown to us, who contributed to this project and to all who are now busy making Pentecost doves of peace for our next Dearne Churches Together project!

Today we distributed the remaining hearts (about 600 in total) in Goldthorpe, Thurnscoe and Bolton-on-Dearne. Our thanks to all who helped from GPCC, the Salvation Army and Sacred Heart and to Andrea and her daughter Ella who came too. Here are some photos of the distribution.

We even met someone who had found hearts already to give to her family!

There were some festive sights as well.

We’ve had news of others finding hearts.

We are especially pleased that the shop Elmhurt’s is displaying our heart in its shop window: