We welcome our new Head of Junior School, Mr Paul Runting who commences at Yarra at the beginning of Term 2. Paul is the immediate past Head of Caulfield Grammar’s Wheelers Hill Campus which caters for students from K-12. He has also served as Head of Middle School at Scotch College in Melbourne. Paul is very well known and regarded in independent school circles and he will be a great addition to our team.
I congratulate our students, my colleagues and our families on a very successful Term One. We all look forward to the Easter Holidays as a time of rest and renewal.
As the first Term comes to an end today an incredibly more significant event is drawing very near. Different people approach this event in different ways. For many, Easter is no more than a date on the calendar which is marked by some rather quaint rituals around chocolate eggs. For others, there is a vague historical reference to Jesus and the story of the crucifixion which has only marginal impact upon their lives. For believers the Easter story is the most important single event in human history marking the death and resurrection of Jesus and importantly for all of us the ongoing promise of salvation.
The ‘new covenant’ or agreement between God and humankind was borne of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we go about our busy lives we are given the chance each and every year to stop and think about this event. What do we personally make of all this? Is it only about Easter Eggs and holidays or is it about much, much more? The Gospel stories have the potential to inform and shape our lives, providing us with meaning and reassurance beyond our limited human understandings. Easter and the ‘holy days’ are a timely opportunity to stop, listen and contemplate what this all means. Will we take this opportunity to learn or do we continue to fill the quiet spaces with the latest modern distraction? All of us will be confronted one day with our own mortality just as Jesus was. Ultimately His life, death and resurrection had great meaning. Will we achieve the same meaning as He did?
"The stone was rolled away from the door, not to permit Christ to come out, but to enable the disciples to go in." Peter Marshall
