Would I be showing my age if I said it reminded me of a song heard much as a child : ‘ Like a rubber-ball you come bouncing back ( to me )’?
Now all this that got me thinking about bouncing back in more detail and about comebacks and how that might relate to the whole idea of Easter – when Jesus came back from the dead . As humans , made in the image of God , we have an amazing capacity to comeback from the worst possible circumstances – take the British soldier who lost both of his legs in Iraq and then completed the London marathon in 2009 .
The story of Dr Glenn Cunningham is another amazing comeback story : horribly ( almost fatally ) injured in a fire as a child .
Through sheer determination he taught himself to walk again and then run and then in 1934 he run the fastest ever mile in Madison Square Garden . Talking of that great arena reminds me of my child-hood hero Muhammad Ali who came back from defeat to take the world heavyweight boxing crown three times … but whose greatest triumph in my eyes was the dignified way in which he fought the Parkinson ’ s disease that blighted his later life , lighting the Olympic flame at the Atlanta Olympics .
And it ’ s not just individuals that can bounce back – it ’ s something that can happen to whole nations – take Germany and Japan for instance . After the second world war these two countries were on their knees . Yet in the post-war period they picked themselves up and moved from being bankrupt , both morally and in reality , to being the 4 th and 5 th largest economies in the world .
In school on a daily basis we also witness comebacks all the time .
Teachers bounce back when a lesson hasn ’ t gone to plan . They go back to the drawing board and give it another shot . And our pupils are really comfortable with the idea of ‘ it ’ s ok to make mistakes ’; generally speaking they will have a go at things in lessons without fear of failure . We are proud of our culture where it ’ s safe to make mistakes . Let ’ s hold on to that as we move
The serious business of the Year 9 Pancake Race
into the summer term . In order to blossom as learners we will make mistakes along the way , we need to learn from those mistakes and not give up so that every day we can do a little bit more than we could the previous day . That ’ s how we get to the top .
Comebacks : like us they come in different shapes and sizes – but what they show is the resilience of the human spirit – that refusal to be beaten . Which is the message I would like us to take from the Easter story this Year .
The Easter story is of Christ beaten ( literally ) and humiliated before his ‘ death ’ on the cross . On the day of his death , at noon , darkness fell across the whole land until three o ’ clock . At that time Jesus called out : ‘ My God , my God , why have you forsaken me ?’ Then he uttered another loud cry and breathed his last .
The burial of Jesus happened on Friday . Joseph bought a long sheet of linen cloth , taking Jesus ’ s body down from the cross , he wrapped it in the cloth and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock . Then he rolled a stone in front of the tomb … However , the next evening when Mary Magdalene , Salome and Mary , the mother of Christ , went out to anoint the body of Jesus with special burial spices they found that the stone – a very large one – had been rolled away . So they entered the tomb , and there , on the right , sat a young man clothed in a white robe . The angel said : ‘ Do not be