Worship for Easter 2022

Time to Reflect

This Sunday is one of the most significant days in the Christian calendar.

It is the day when we celebrate the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. With Christians around the world we shout out our ‘Alleluias’ celebrating the final victory over death that Christ has won for us and the new life that he offers to all people.

In the last couple of years, as we have journeyed through a global pandemic, the promise of eternal life in Jesus has brought comfort to millions of people who have lost friends or relatives to COVID-19. It has also brought consolation to those in places of conflict throughout the world, most recently in Ukraine, reminding the faithful who mourn that death and destruction are not the end.

Each year we see the flowers at Easter that remind us that after the death of winter comes the new life of Spring. The knowledge of the resurrection is transformative in the way that it defeats our greatest fears around life ending. It reminds us that God is fully capable of making and remaking new life amongst us.

This reality, of new life offered to us, is not simply a future hope but a present reality. The power of the resurrection can be experienced by us now through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who gives us a new and renewed life as God’s holy people. The resurrection is a sign of God’s transforming power that is capable of overcoming death and breathing in new life in Christ into the Church.

In the passage that we have from Luke’s Gospel we are told about the women disciples, who witnessed to the empty tomb and heard the heavenly messengers who confirmed Jesus’ resurrection. The male apostles, who heard their testimony, did not initially believe in the reality of Jesus resurrection. Despite what Jesus had told them before, and despite what they had seen him do, they were unable to accept it at first.

Perhaps there a similar risk that we too deny God’s resurrection power amongst us and the miracle that he can perform? We see the death occurring around us in the Church and can convince ourselves that this is the end and that there is no hope of any future.

Yet while death is real there is still the promise of resurrection to those who would hear the good news and believe in it. God’s work amongst us is not finished and he continues to make things new, breathing in his life and offering his ressurection power. The question is whether we are able to accept the miracle that God can work amongst us?

In this Easter season I pray that we might find hope and encouragement in the story of Christ’s resurrection; that we might embrace the new life that Jesus offers to us in the here and now. I pray that we might be transformed by God and inspired to share the good news throughout our communities. I hope and pray that the resurrecting power of God might move through us and we might see new life. May our joy ring out and may the fullness of life be found as we cry Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!