Easter, Week 3 Resurrection and Springtime  

Wednesday 29 April. ‘Church Without Walls’ blog

It may seem strange to some of us that the Easter season is still celebrated by the church when it seems that most people only celebrate it on one day of the year: Easter Day. In fact, the season of Easter in the church calendar is celebrated for seven weeks right up until the day of Pentecost (Whit Sunday) which falls on 31 May this year. The Easter season always coincides with springtime in the northern hemisphere, and I love the rich symbolism that this brings: not only baby chicks, lambs and rabbits, but the whole of nature bursts into green leaf and wonderful blossom. The flowers and birdsong most catch my attention, including the rich procession of colour splashed across gardens and through woodland - crocuses, then daffodils, now blue-bells. What a joy!

However, like all of us, I recognise the strangeness of contrast this Easter, between springtime breaking out in nature, and people subdues and sometimes stifled by lockdown. So much of the way we normally celebrate Easter thought hymns, songs, the Eucharist and many a community event like an Easter egg hunt or walk or picnic, has been drawn into the home setting.  Many of our celebrations have had to be ‘virtual’. Yet the spiritual significance of the Easter story of Death and Resurrection, of death giving way to life, has been renewed and become more vividly relevant to our lives than ever. It seems that nature is symbolically doing the rejoicing for us; in contrast, we feel like we are still going through a wilderness period of waiting and watching and reflecting on the things which really matter in our lives… a waiting which, I pray, would give way to rejoicing and flourishing, and all the more so when the virus has passed and lockdown is ended.  

The words of a poem written by Malcolm Guite have resonated with me this Easter. God is calling us to discern him in new ways and in different places, a theme which runs through this poem. ‘Hallelujah! He is risen!’, but if I cannot go to church to celebrate, then where am I to find him? If that is a question you are pondering, then I hope you will find this poem by Malcolm Guite inspiring and helpful:

Easter 2020

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,
No need to seek him in his empty grave.

He might have been a wafer in the hands
Of priests this day, or music from the lips
Of red-robed choristers, instead he slips
Away from church, shakes off our linen bands
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

Hymn: Jesus is Lord, Creation’s Voice Proclaims it: https://youtu.be/csjkP4X0Veo 

Collect for the 3^rd week of Easter

God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen

Rejoicing in God’s new creation,
as our Saviour taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen