30th April, 2024
Dear Friends,
I don’t know about you but I find words fascinating and when I come across a word I’m not sure about, I have to look it up to see what it means.
One word that doesn’t come up very often is the word UTOPIA. It’s an old word and has a very specific meaning which is:- Utopia is a description of a society of people striving to be perfect. In other words a place or state where everyone works and behaves for the common good and there is no crime, only perfect harmony. If any of us knew there was such a place we would probably have moved there by now!
There have been attempts to form a Utopian society like the Shaker villages in America, but none have stood the test of time. The Hippy culture moved in that direction but fizzled out.
Being honest, forming a perfect society is beyond us as human beings. The old saying goes that if you find a perfect church, don’t join because you will spoil it.
There is, however, one Utopian society that is available to every single one of us. It is to be found through the perfect freedom that God offers every single person who receives forgiveness through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God’s Utopian society is not during our lives now, but is His promise for us after death. Christians have this wonderful promise of a perfect society without our human failings of greed, selfishness, mixed motives, anger and any kind of evil.
It is a wonderful prospect beyond anything we can know now. It is the HOPE that unites us in our worship and in our approach to death, and gives us every reason to sing our praises to God. The Resurrection of Jesus which we have recently celebrated, is the key to God’s promise of Utopia with Him.
I pray that all of us share in this promise that God has given us through Jesus.
Every blessing,
Rev Geoff Hobden
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