Easter Message

Easter: the day we have all been waiting for, preparing for, and now it is here. It is a day that has inspired great music, lofty ideas, and for many a sense of nostalgia remembering the good old days when our churches were full, and we had to get extra seats for our morning worship. However, Easter is not about nostalgia, it’s not even about whether Jesus’ body literary disappeared from the tomb on that first Easter morning.

The real Easter is harder to understand, it is less straightforward and more complicated because it is about real life, real situations, real people. As we reflect on the events in Israel/Gaza and other places in our world that are experiencing the effects of war, famine, persecution and discrimination, we and others might find it hard to say the words of our Easter Acclamation - Alleluia Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia - and many people will not feel resurrected in their own lives as they continue to struggle with household bills, lack of work opportunities, through the loss of loved one and many other real things that happen to us all in life.

Maybe the best news of Easter is that the resurrection happens more than once, there is always another chance, another hope, another voice that will speak to us of new life - no matter how many times we have heard the story of the first Easter Day, today of all days we are invited to look into the empty tomb and give thanks that the resurrection gives us a glimpse of light into the world, and the communities we live in that in Jesus rising from the dead there is the promise of new life for all of creation. Resurrection does not only happen on Easter. Every day, every moment we are invited to start again. To begin a new paragraph that will take us all closer to the life that we are meant to live. There is a new paragraph waiting to be started - in your story, in God’s story. Christ is risen. May we rise too this Eastertide.

Every blessing,

Nigel and Jongi