Posted Thursday 09 April 2009
A reflection for Easter by the Most Rev Dr Idris Jones, Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church:
Charles Wesley wrote the hymn ‘O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise’ on the first anniversary of his spiritual awakening. It comes to mind because of those lines that read: ‘He speaks and listening to his voice new life the dead receive; the mournful broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe.’
Our faith in Jesus Christ gives us secure hope because of his resurrection and because of our baptism ‘if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’ (Romans 6:5).
The Festival of Easter is an act of thanksgiving for Jesus now risen from the dead and a remembrance of all that flows from this glorious and incontrovertible fact that cannot be disproved. What flows from the risen Christ is a plea to God ‘Raise us we beseech thee from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness.’ These days we might have to spend a little time explaining the underlying meaning of the term ‘righteousness’ but I think that most folk would catch the drift! There are consequences that follow the resurrection and even more so for those of us who come together to celebrate it.
What it actually means to proclaim death itself and the triumph of God’s love will not fully be experienced by any of us until we pass through death and find out - but meanwhile we live in a full hope of what that can mean, and with the determination that all that we can do and support to bring a sense of this resurrection life into the world shall be done.
The fact of the resurrection is one thing; the use of the metaphor of what it means is all around us and a kind of extension of the hope contained in it. It is not just about commending the departed - both recent and of years gone by - to the love of God; but about seeking the signs of new life and giving those signs every encouragement in the world in which we live. A further consequence for us is that this will also mean that we are called to oppose and fight against anything that threatens to deny life, hope and opportunity to the people of the world. Resurrection brings with it a call to justice in the name of the one who though denied justice by any human agency, yet gave the promise of new life and God’s purpose for creation.
So we sing the triumph of God not in spite of or in denial of all that seeks to deny that triumph, but because it is real and in it is our hope.
I have one of these ‘holy cards’ in my collection that reads ‘We praise God not because we have triumphed, but because to praise God is to triumph.’
May God grant us all a blessed Easter and a renewed commitment to seek life in our world.
