In the picture are some words from our powerful Good Friday reflection,, “We are the body”. The service combined readings, music and art to tell a familiar story in a challenging and heartfelt way. Sometimes we can learn a lot from the darkness, it can provoke us to connect, to love.
By way of contrast, earlier in the week was our School’s Easter Service, which was profound in a different way.
One of the delights of being part of a Village Parish is the opportunity to welcome the School into Church, particularly at Christmas and Easter. It’s always a pleasure to witness the enthusiasm and joy the children put into the readings and songs which they present to us.
In our dark and often violent world, it’s all too easy to become cynical, and to forget about joy; harder still sometimes to see how the events of Easter apply to us in our own lives. And yet, when the children simply sing and recite the story, I find that it becomes crystal clear.
One of the songs sung at the school Easter Service this year is one I haven’t come across before, it’s called “Crucify, Crucify”
“We wanted chariots, armies and splendour, he came proclaiming a different agenda. We’re disillusioned with all that he said, so spare us the life of Barabbas instead”
Such a simple verse, but for me it sums up why the world is in the state it’s in, and also why Jesus was crucified in the first place. All too often humanity chooses personal gain and pride over community and love; a situation which strengthens fear, suspicion and division. We choose death over life. God didn’t demand that Jesus be crucified, it was our love of power and division which did that.
On Easter Day, we remember that Jesus’ disciples were overcome with the grief and darkness of our world. And yet, they saw that this wasn’t the end of the story. In a series of mysterious and fragmented accounts, each experienced the risen Christ in a deeply personal way. Life and love had overcome the power of division and death; they experienced their own resurrection, which meant they were now free to give themselves in love for the other.
“We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another” 1 John 3.14
Christ is now beyond all of our definitions, nether “male or female, neither slave nor free”, but is the light of Love which holds us all together. The light of Christ, which is God.
God is eternal, and God is love, the source of our own personal resurrection, both here and in life beyond. And because Christ is Love, the divine presence of God dwells within us today. That is what we celebrate at Easter; divine love overcomes fear and death and gives us reason to sing a simple song of joy.
