12th
April 2020
EASTER
DAY
Pastoral
Letter No. 8
Fr
Andrew writes:
Alleluia.
Christ is risen.
He is risen
indeed. Alleluia.
Easter Day
is a day of great rejoicing, promise and hope. It is not to diminish the
current crisis, and the anguish so many people are in, if we continue to
proclaim all those things.
However, coronavirus,
and its impact upon peoples lives and wider society globally, forces us to pay
closer attention to the nature of the Easter hope and our response to the
Resurrection of Christ. It reminds us that the Easter hope is not vacuous, frothy
or trivial, but deep rooted in realities that are in human experience and also transcend
our experience.
The
Church’s proclamation goes beyond ‘Happy Easter’, eggs and bunnies, because our
proclamation is that ‘Christ is risen’.
In the
Gospels the first Easter Day, the Day of Resurrection, is marked by emptiness,
tears, blurred vision and fear.
Emptiness. The first Easter
proclamation is one of emptiness, ‘He is not here, he is risen’. The tomb in
which Jesus’ lifeless body had been lain was empty. It speaks of despair first
not hope, a snatched body not a resurrected one.
Tears
and Blurred Vision. It
is striking how on that first Easter Day there was a total lack of recognition.
It is so often true that we don’t see things that we don’t expect to see even
if they’re there.
Mary
Magdalene could not see clearly through her tears. She mistook Jesus for a
Gardener at first (John 20.11-18). Mary’s vision slowly cleared as Jesus called
her by name and spelt out what had happened.
Likewise the
disciples on the road to Emmaus did not see who was walking along with them
until the opening of scripture and the breaking of bread finally opened their
eyes to Jesus (Luke 24.13-35). ‘They recognised him in the breaking of bread’
is a scene beautifully portrayed in the reredos in our St Nicholas Chapel, but
it wasn’t instant recognition.
Fear. The women who came to
the tomb to anoint Jesus’ dead body fled with ‘terror and amazement’ ‘for they
were afraid’ and it seemed ‘an idle tale’. (Matthew 28.6; Mark 16.6; Luke 24.5)
Matthew’s gospel does at least suggest there was joy within the terror.
The first
reaction of the gathered disciples on the Day of Resurrection was fear and the
instinct to lock themselves away, what we would now call ‘social isolation’
(John 20.19). That fear was only dispelled by the presence of Jesus breathing
his peace upon them.
Easter
in a time of Coronavirus
A church packed with flowers, people, music and praise on Easter morning
doesn’t often give space for emptiness, tears and blurred vision and fear. The
time we are in now does give that space, though we may not want it. We observe
Easter in our own homes. Easter is not about froth; it is about the void of our
lives being filled with the One who literally full-fills us; it is about the
patient and growing recognition of the gift of life in Jesus Christ, the
Crucified and Risen Lord; it is about acknowledging our fears and yet not being
locked into them, but rather liberated through the ‘peace of God which
surpasses all understanding’ because that is what ‘guards [our] hearts and
[our] minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4.7).
In the
emptiness, tears, blurred vision and fear of our current times may you still
know the deep hope and promise of the Resurrection of Christ:
Alleluia.
Christ is risen.
He is risen
indeed. Alleluia.
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