Easter Morning: Respair Awakening to a Fresh New Hope

We have passed through more than a year since the beginning of this pandemic. A year in which so many lives have been lost; we have lost people close to us, family and friends and folk from both communities. We have also lost much in the way of our experiences of life. A year staying in and staying home, of not mixing, of not celebrating, of not being together. It has felt like a long year and more now actually. It is not over just yet, but there is a little more light. There is a little more life, coming to birth once again.

Today is Easter, but it is not a time of absolute halleluiah, not just yet. There is much to do, to rebuild, to heal, to mend. There is much to give birth to within our hearts and lives and those of whom we share this spinning planet with.

That said just because we cannot live as we would like it does not mean that we cannot enjoy the Love that is to born again in the emptiness of tomb. Winter is over, Spring is here, life is returning and there is love in our hearts. From the dark caves of despair, hope is being born again. Let us give birth to this hope, but let it be a new hope, a fresh hope, may the despair become respair. May a new Hope be born this day in the dark caves of our lives. Today is Easter, let us give birth to the love born in the caves of our own hearts. A day of fresh hope, a day of respair.

I saw a wonderful example of “respair” while I was working on this sermon in the chapel the other day. I had just been out for a walk, it was beautiful to feel the sun on my back, to experience to appreciate, that beautiful feeling of the warmth of the sun on my back, it has been too long since I felt this. By the way did you know that there is a word for this feeling, or there use to be in the 17^th century. The word is ‘apricate’: to revel in the warmth of the sun on your back. “Apricate”, like “Respair” has gone out of usage, we should give birth to them once more.  Sorry I digress. Back to that example of respair. It came as I crossed the threshold of the chapel, there at my feet was an enormous bee. It was struggling along the ground, didn’t look in the best of shape, but wanted life so much. I knelt down beside it, it brought Galilee to my mind and those words “Interpreted as Love, interpreted as love.” It was the first bee I had seen this year. It seemed to me to be another sign of “Respair” of a new fresh hope. I left the door open for it and filmed it as it crawled toward the door. As it moved back towards light and life and into the unknown of who knows what. It didn’t fly off immediately, it seemed to crawl up the door frame and I watched for a little while longer. Then the phone rang and I was distracted for a while and by the time I looked again, it was gone.

I then returned to my desk and wrote this sermon with these wonderful feelings of “Respair” and “Apricate”, singing in my soul. With this sense of new life and new beginnings, singing in my soul. Isn’t that what Easter is about “Respair”, a new Hope, a Fresh Hope, sunshine returning once again, the Sun rising once again. It certainly felt like that in that moment. It inspired me to write these thoughts. It brought Easter alive in my heart, it opened the cave of my soul. It brought my understanding of Easter to life.

I wonder what Easter means to you.

There are many layers to the “Easter Mythos”, that if we allow it to can touch all of us, that can bring respair, a fresh, a new hope. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. Perhaps if all we focus on is this, then we will miss some of Easter’s power. What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. It brought a new fresh hope, it brought respair, two thousand years ago in a time of utter despair, that those who followed him must have felt. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained. Love was born again, even after the body was killed.

I believe it is the same with every life and the love that life leave behinds, something beautiful always remain.

This brings to mind those beautiful words often shared at funerals by that famous author “Unknown”

“Something Beautiful Remains” – Unknown

The tide recedes but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle
warmth still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet it echoes
on in sweet refrains.....
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.

Every life leaves its mark. Every life impacts in some way. We should never think that we are insignificant, that we do not matter. We impact on everyone and everything around us. Everything that we do and everything that do not do matters. There are those who I have known and who have loved me, who have been gone many years, who are still impacting on my life. Of their lives, something beautiful remains.

Easter is a reminder to me that even after death something beautiful remains. It is an acknowledgement of life’s sacredness. It is a reaffirmation of life that not even death can end.

All around us life is being reborn. I see this clearly each morning as I take my daily exercise. The spring flowers are everywhere, the birds are singing more sweetly. As I pass people, I offer a smile of love and nod of connection. It fills my heart to overflowing with a love for life itself and helps me connect to my true inner being, to all life and to that Greater reality that gives birth to and connects all life, whether I can feel the warmth of the sun on my back or not, you do need to “apricate” in order to appreciate. It is amazing how love and light finds a way through, even in these dark difficult times.

You can find the essence and spirit of Easter in your own heart, we can incarnate that love through our lives. This love can seemingly die in the winters of our lives and come to life once again in our spring times, regardless of the time of year. It is we who can bring this love alive once again. In so doing we will ensure that something beautiful will remain from our simple, humble lives.

Easter begins with the death and loss of the life of Jesus, with the seeming end of his life’s promise. As every single death means just the same. It begins with the despair of the empty tomb. This though is not where it ends, something else happened, something grew from this emptiness, this hopelessness, this despair. Something beautiful remained. Something new was born again. This despair was transformed into a new Hope.

This very same possibility of transformation and renewal exists for all of us. New hope can be born even in despair. Hope is born from despair. They share the same root. In French Desepair and J’espair share the same linguisitic root, it is the same with life. Yes we can know utter despair, but this despair can be transformed into a new Hope, “Respair”, a new hope, a fresh hope.

Even after death, something beautiful remains. If we live lives of love and beauty. If we become all that we were born to be if we bring to life from the empty tombs of our own lives the love that is at the heart of the Easter Mythos. A love that is eternal, a love that never dies, a love that I believe is our task to bring alive.

This is the Love that is born again on Easter morning. This is what grows from the emptiness of the tomb when the stone is rolled away…From nothing to everything…From Despair, Hope is born again…Respair a new hope, a fresh hope is born again in our own hearts.

 

Now I would like to end with these words of blessing by David Whyte.

 

“Easter Blessing”

The blessing of the morning light to you,
may it find you even in your invisible
appearances, may you be seen to have risen 
from some other place you know and have known 
in the darkness and that that carries all you need.
May you see what is hidden in you 
as a place of hospitality and shadowed shelter,
may that hidden darkness be your gift to give, 
may you hold that shadow to the light
and the silence of that shelter to the word of the light, 
may you join all of your previous disappearances 
with this new appearance, this new morning, 
this being seen again, new now, and newly alive.

David Whyte: Easter Morning 2015
In Memoriam John O’Donohue

Here's a video recording based on the material in this "blogspot"