One Twitter user said: "Reassured that there have been three hundred thousand, thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand tests carried out so far. Far less reassured by Priti Patel's grasp of numbers."
Another tweeted: "I'm confused about what number she was trying to read."
Then later yesterday, the Queen put out an Easter message. Twice in a week in contrast to Saturday’s Downing Street briefing, we’ve been given assurance and confidence as she has shared her thoughts with us. How’s this to make us feel a bit better?
'Easter isn't cancelled.
Indeed we need Easter as much as ever.
The discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter Day gave His followers new hope and fresh purpose, and we can all take heart from that.”
I want to end my thoughts for Easter with my favourite resurrection story: John 20: 19 - 23. We are in the upper room on the evening of Easter Sunday. The disciples have been there a few days in a state. Their dreams and hopes dashed, they have locked themselves in the room safely behind a door because they fear for their lives.
Jesus comes to those disciples at the height of their fear. He comes through a locked door and gives them two gifts to help them move on. His first gift is peace. “Peace be with you.” Don’t we need peace right now? Many of us are really frightened that this time in our lives, which one day will be an amazing piece of history, will go on for a long time and that feels hard. He comes to us, this Easter Sunday, wherever we are locked in our fear and he gives us his peace. And that peace can make us calm as we know he is there in the place we feared we were on our own.
Then he gives them his second gift. “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I love this giving of the Spirit. It is quietly given, an encouraging force to say “you can begin again” and “all will be well” and enabling us to be his people. I think this upper room assuring words of Jesus and his presence are what we are meant to be giving to others as his Easter people. People in our pastoral care need peace and they need new energy, and help knowing they can live life to the full again.
Jesus breathes on us, like God breathes on the chaos in Genesis at creation, Jesus breathes on our chaos. I’m very grateful over this past week to clergy all over the country who have written their thoughts or given us services and prayers on line. Dipping into their ministry has been a great help. This morning we’ve been able to share with Canon Sarah in her garden on Holy Island; the Dean of Peterborough Cathedral; and my successor in Mossley, Rev Jim in North Carolina.
I’m humbled some of my words this week have been shared by friends to their friends. We need to encourage each other. Our congregations and our communities will need our assurance and our confidence and our giving long after the lockdown has ended.
Easter is in the end, God’s gift to us. What is that gift? Well let me share my most important bible verses with you. This to me is the promise of God in dark times and what any of us who say we are Christians need to help others know.
“In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
What does God do? He shows compassion, suffering with us, he breaks in where we least expect, and he guides our feet where they need to go, into the way of peace. Isn’t that fab? How many people do you know as you read this who are dwelling in darkness? How many of us dread the daily mortality figures given out? We stlll live in the shadow of death but death has been defeated. That’s our belief.
A Roman Catholic friend sent me what Pope Francis said at the Easter vigil last night:
“The women who went to Jesus' tomb, he says, "like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly.
For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.
Yet in this situation the women did not allow themselves to be paralysed.
Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope.
Even if in your heart you have buried hope, do not give up: God is greater.
The message of hope should not be confined to our sacred places, but should be brought to everyone.”
That is Easter. And knowing Jesus is with us means even with what is going on at the moment we can pick ourselves up and be his people because we are never on our own. He assures us of that.
This poem by Malcolm Guite called Easter 2020 has just appeared:
”And where is Jesus, this strange Easter day?Not lost in our locked churches, anymore than he was sealed in that dark sepulchre.
The locks are loosed; the stone is rolled away and he is up and risen, long before, alive, at large, and making his strong way into the world he gave his life to save, noneed to seek him in his empty grave.
He might have been a wafer in the hand of priests this day, or music from the lips of red-robed choristers, instead he slips away from church, shakes off our linen band to don his apron with a nurse: he grips and lifts a stretcher, soothes with gentle hands the frail flesh of the dying, gives them hope, breathes with the breathless, lends them strength to cope.
On Thursday we applauded, for he came and served us in a thousand names and faces mopping our sickroom floors and catching traces of that virus which was death to him: Good Friday happened in a thousand places where Jesus held the helpless, died with them that they might share his Easter in their need,
Now they are risen with him, risen indeed.
A year ago, I was still very unwell and I’d just made the painful decision to curtail my appointment as Superintendent of the Hastings Bexhill and Rye Circuit. We were on Holy Island for Easter as we should have been this year. On Easter Sunday morning I climbed up to the Heugh for the dawn service. I was asked to read the Easter gospel. It was a huge moment of healing for me. At the same spot, weeks before, I’d been there alone and I decided I had to make a decision I didn’t want to make. As I read the Gospel, the sun rose. While since then life hasn’t been easy still, I’ve felt slowly in getting better and able to minister a new sense of peace. Most days! We need those moments. He will Easter in us when we need Easter most.
Below is a short act of worship which I invite you to share in. It includes two Easter hymns and a Taize chant, the Psalm for Easter Sunday evening, the Magnificat which is an amazing statement of positivity as we remember God’s intention for us. I’ve put a link to a lovely setting of it called Song of Mary. And then a powerful reading from the scholar Walter Bruggemann.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. May we be assured of Christ’s risen reassuring words always and may we know his peace when we need it.
As the night watch looks for the morning, so do we look for you, O Christ.
May the risen Lord Jesus bless us.
May he watch over us and renew us
as he renews the whole of creation.
May our hearts and lives echo his love.
From the darkness of the grave
Blood poured out, a crown of thorns
Christ the Lord is risen today
From the triumph that is won
Over the power and fear of death
Christ the Lord is risen today
Walking from the empty tomb
Opening wide the gates of life
Christ the Lord is risen today
Lord of life
You defeated death
To show that we can rise
From all that binds us to the world
Pride, envy, anger, fear
The debt of sin that holds us here
Christ the Lord is risen today
Lord of life
You defeated death
To demonstrate a love that is
Beyond our understanding
That reaches out even to me
Saving Grace to all who hear
Christ the Lord is risen today
Lord of life
We pray for all who bring your word of life as a light to those in darkness
For those who bring your word of peace to those enslaved by fear
For those who bring your word of love to those in need of comfort
Lord of love and Lord of peace, Lord of resurrection life, be known through our lives
and through your power.
Christ the Lord is risen today. Alleluia!
1 Be joyful in God, all the earth;
sing the glory of his name;
sing the glory of his praise.
2 Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds! •Because of your great strength your enemies shall bow before you.
3 ‘All the earth shall worship you,
sing to you, sing praise to your name.’
4 Come now and behold the works of God, how wonderful he is in his dealings with humankind.
5 He turned the sea into dry land; the river they passed through on foot;
there we rejoiced in him.
6 In his might he rules for ever;
his eyes keep watch over the nations, let no rebel rise up against him.
7 Bless our God, O you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard,
8 Who holds our souls in life
and suffers not our feet to slip.
9 For you, O God, have proved us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
10 You brought us into the snare;
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
11 You let enemies ride over our heads we went through fire and water, but you brought us out into a place of liberty.
The Gospel reading: John 20: 19 - 23
Easter Us
a prayer by Walter Brueggemann
~ Walter Brueggemann, from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (Fortress Press, 2003)
As you go out into God’s world this week, be Easter people! Be those who say, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not here. He is risen.” Be ready to be surprised with what God will do next. Look for the risen Christ in those you meet. Let the Holy Spirit nudge and guide you. The tomb is empty because Jesus is out in the world, and now we must go out into the world too! May the joy and wonder of that Easter live in your hearts today and everyday. Amen.
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