Easter Thought for the Weekend by Revd Simon Helme, Convenor of Churches Together in Cam and Dursley and District.

Thursday, April 1st is April Fools Day and pranks usually happen. This year April 1st is also known as Maundy Thursday for Christians. It is the start of the Easter weekend when Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. From the earliest days of the church the cross of Jesus was seen as foolish. Why would you follow someone who got himself killed? Was he not a loser? Most Hollywood heroes suffer a bit and lose some battles before sorting out the bad guys and winning the victory. But Jesus? He ends up humiliated and dying on a cross abandoned by almost all of his followers.

I don’t know if you have seen pictures of the stranded Ever Given mega-container ship in the Suez Canal which is holding up an estimated $9.6bn (£7bn) of goods each day? The ship, the length of four football pitches and one of the world's biggest container vessels, has drifted sideways blocking the Suez Canal and has run aground on the bank. Pictures show just one man in a digger, a JCB, trying their best to dig out this massive boat.

Christians claim that the massive problems of the world: evil, suffering, death are addressed and answered by God through the death and resurrection of Jesus. God’s love and power, bigger than any Hollywood superhero’s, won after all. For others it is a relatively insignificant event because the Romans crucified thousands of other rebels, and this was just another state execution. The cross and claims of resurrection are as insignificant as a small digger trying to free a mega container ship stuck in the Suez Canal.

The most significant event in world history? Or an insignificant event, even a bit of a religious prank? Who would be a fool to believe it? You decide.