From Nothing to Everything, from Despair to Hope: What Makes You Want To Sing Alleluia

Happy Easter

Easter begins in emptiness and despair. In the example from Mark, the three women go to the tomb and find it empty. They are told Jesus has been raised and to go tell the disciples. They flee in amazement and terror, they tremble in awe. They are in utter despair. The despair soon turns to hope, a new hope, a fresh hope, respair. This is the message at the heart of Easter. This is what folk sing praises to. That new hope can be born again, even in the bleakest of despair. That said it is up to us to bring that hope to life.

I woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning. I spent some time with friends I sit in meditation with regularly. We shared together and I began to feel a little revived. I was tired after the annual meetings and looked ahead at the things I have to do in the next 10 days. I wondered how am going to find the strength to come through all this. I had a few personal troubles too. The loss of one of my oldest friends and another friend who was really struggling. I began to work on the tasks of the week. Another friend called who is also grieving, part of me didn’t want to take the call, but I did. He began to off-load and share his struggles and then asked me about my stuff. For once I told him. It was interesting what came out, including my struggles to uncover what to explore this Easter. As we spoke clarity came, as did human connection. There was something beautiful in the connection. I shared about a hilarious conversation I had with some young new and student ministers I had been engaged with at the annual meetings. We moved onto conversations about the difficulties one can face in expressing ourselves. A little later I went out again on a pastoral call. Interestingly in this conversation I spoke much more about myself than I would normally. The person I visited wanted to know things about me, and asked directly. Again, it was a lovely conversation. We both shared about our lives. Those dark moments, those times of renewal and re-birth, of discovering new things, of coming out of the empty cave of unknowing, to be born into new light and life once again.

I returned home and got down to trying to write this sermon, I had made a start when there was a knock at the door. It was the man who had come to read the chapel gas meters. Molly and me let him in the cellar. As he stepped out of the darkness of the cellar he began to ask me questions about the chapel and Easter. He then began to tell me about himself and his own beliefs. He called himself a cafeteria Catholic. He told me about his heritage and what he thought about resurrection and Easter. He preached me a wonderful Universalist Easter sermon. I invited him to take the service this Sunday, but he didn’t turn up. I left and smiled and then returned to writing the sermon. I thought about all three conversations and I sang songs of Hallelujah. I sang a song of praise for that spirit that moves through us as I stood in the chapel gardens surrounded by the pink cherry blossom, that had already fallen.

I then began to think about Easter. How do I speak about Easter? What do I think of Easter? What does Easter mean to me? Well as with everything you should start at the beginning. Easter begins in grief, in emptiness. Something I was actually experiencing as I sat down to write. Something that had been on backburner these last few days, as I had been caught up in my work, and been away with many folk at our annual meetings.

There is something deeply universal about Easter. There is something in its spirit that can speak to all people in every culture at every time and in every place. It points to those moments in all our lives when something deeper within us comes to life, or perhaps it comes back to life. If we truly enter into what is at the core of Easter, its spirit, it can bring us to a deeper understanding of life right here, right now, in our world. I thought of this as I looked at the life so alive in the chapel gardens, as well as those many conversations I had had with folk, folk in grief and suffering, who are coming back to life. All examples of Love born again from that empty tomb.

I thought about what Tony (The gas man) had spoken of, about resurrection and what he believes lives on. It is possible to celebrate Easter without having to believe in the actual resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is of course the traditional Christian view. The early followers of Jesus believed a variety of things. You can believe in Easter without having to accept the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. You see there is something deeply universal in the spirit of Easter that has the capacity to awaken everyone’s spirit regardless of whether or not they believe every aspect of the Gospel accounts.

Easter can also be understood as the festival of the renewal of life that comes at springtime; Easter can be seen as the resurrection of the earth after the seeming death of winter. These last few weeks you surely have felt powerfully this deep sense of the renewal of life. The other evening I could both feel and smell this powerfully in the air. There is a real electricity in the air at springtime. Now of course the renewal of the seasons is recognised in the pre-Christian roots of our Easter celebrations. According to the Venerable Beed the word Easter is after all derived from “Eostre” the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring; the goddess of fertility and renewal.

The Easter “mythos” can also be seen as the triumph of the human spirit, over all that would crush it, even death itself. This triumph also has pre-Christian roots, such as the Jewish “Passover” which of course Jesus and his disciples were commemorating on what has become known as Maundy Thursday. In Latin speaking countries Easter is known as “Pascha” or similar words that are derived directly from “Pesach”. Easter isn’t even called Easter in many parts of the world. The root of Easter lies in the Jewish festival of Passover. Remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi who wanted to bring the religion back to the people. In the eyes of those who followed him, he was the Messiah. This is why they cried Hossanah as he entered the city at the beginning of the week. Last Sunday was Passover.

Jesus’ resurrection is a powerful example of love overcoming death; a perfect example of the spirit of love living on even after physical death. I think it is impossible to argue that the spirit that was in Jesus did not live on after his bodily death. The spirit of love that incarnated in his life has survived all that we have done to it these last 2,000 years as we have remembered him, rather badly.

All love lives on, again something Tony (the gas ma) spoke passionately about. All we have to do to bring it once again to life is remember those who have touched our hearts and souls. What has been bound into one another’s hearts cannot be unbound. Love is stronger than death. This for me, above everything else, is the universal “mythos” that is at the root of Easter. A festival for everyone.

I awoke on Wednesday morning in a new spirit. I had to go into Manchester first thing, as I had to sign something legal, for a dear friend who is herself grieving the loss of her beloved dog. I saw things differently as I headed out. I enjoyed the pink snow covering the gardens. My eyes felt raised up once again, I saw new vision, new hope, not expectation or optimism, but new hope, fresh hope, “Respair”. I realised that my eyes had been a bit down recently. I knew it was grief, a grief I had not been fully aware of up to then. As I travelled home on the tram, a lovely poem “Vision” by May Thielgaard Watts, came to me.

"Vision" by May Thielgaard Watts

To-day there have been lovely things
I never saw before;
Sunlight through a jar of marmalade;
A blue gate;
A rainbow
In soapsuds on dishwater;
Candlelight on butter;
The crinkled smile of a little girl
Who had new shoes with tassels;
A chickadee on a thorn-apple;
Empurpled mud under a willow,
Where white geese slept;
White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight
On the scrubbed kitchen floor;
The under side of a white-oak leaf;
Ruts in the road at sunset;
An egg yolk in a blue bowl.

My love kissed my eyes last night.

Isn't it lovely. Now the ears of my ears are awake. Now the eyes of my eyes are open.

When we live in heart, in courage, in love, we can see these signs of hope everywhere. It comes in the little things.

All we have to do is keep our senses open, in order to see these things. It begins with our hearts and souls.

Today is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad; let us celebrate the joy that is this day whatever it may mean to us. For no matter the conditions of our lives, the state of our hearts. The lives of those dear to us and the struggles in this our shared world, the spirit of Easter can be born again and anew, in our hearts and lives. Life continues. Spring is here, the new life cannot be denied. Easter is here, let us rejoice and sing Hallelujah!!!

And what is Easter? Well it is different, perhaps unique for each and every one of us. What makes you want to rise up and sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah?

What is your song, the one that makes you want to feel like you belong. I was lovingly listening to the new bird song on Wednesday, it made me want to sing hallelujah.

I believe that each of us have a song in our hearts, that will bring us hope when hope is hard to find. We need to find a way to learn it, sing it and share it and thus help one another through those dark times, to times of love and joy, so we can enjoy the milk and honey. So that we can bring the spirit of Easter alive in us and through us.

For we all experience alleluia moments, isn’t this the heart of Easter; We all have alleluias in our lives, those moments of triumph and wonder, of insight and rebirth; we all have alleluia’s, those moments of transformation, when our way of being in the world is fundamentally changed; alleluia moments when we are strengthened and life is deepened; alleluia moments when we feel more connected, more whole; we all have moments when we want to sing alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

That said there cannot be Easter without Good Friday. Hope is born from Despair. Easter begins with an empty tomb and fear. It is often the same with all life, this is the universal message of Easter. Sometimes our most profound transformations emerge out of the loss we face in life. This may be the empty hole left by grief, at the loss of a beloved, something so many are facing. Or it may be one of those thousands of lesser losses we experience in life. All forms of grief are barren, empty places. They can feel utterly God-forsaken, where all hope is gone, that leave us in sorrow and suffering not singing songs of alleluia, but instead singing song of lamentation.

This though is not the end. Feeling forsaken is not the same as being forsaken. The message of Easter is that love triumphs over death. That new life is born again, like those spring buds of hope, or the poppy born out of the battlefields of the First World War. Hope is born once again from the despair, just as life continues on into this awakening Spring. The Cherry blossom has been and almost gone, but it will return once again.

The Universal message of Easter is the power of love coming back to life, transforming in new and wonderful ways. It can happen at any time in our lives. Easter implores us to live, to allow the renewal and resurrection of our souls, to risk living life alive, fully alive, to love abundantly. To risk our hearts in love. To take the seeds that are planted in us, water and nurture them until they blossom and can be handed to another. To take the gift of blossoms and warm them with the sunshine of our souls and the rain of our energy, until they bring forth fruit.

Easter begins with an empty tomb, but that ending is just another beginning. Life continues on, in fact new life is born again in the emptiness and the loneliness and the despair.

So let us roll our own stones away and let love once again incarnate in our lives...In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

Happy Easter, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Something Beautiful Remains: An Easter Reflection

“Rebirth” by Elizabeth Tarbox

"When the day is too bright or the night too dark, and your feelings are like an avalanche barrelling down the mountain of events outside your control, when you look down and you are falling and you cannot see the bottom, or when your pain has eaten you and you are nothing but an empty hungry hole, then there is an opportunity for giving.

Don't stay home and cover your head with a pillow. Go outside and plant a tulip bulb in the ground; that is an act of rebirth. Sprinkle breadcrumbs for the squirrels or sunflower seeds for the birds; that is a claiming of life. And when you have done that, or if you cannot do that, go stare at a tree whose leaves are letting go for its very survival. Pick up a leaf, stare at it; it is life; it has something to teach you.

You are as precious as the birds or the tulips or the tree whose crenellated bark protects the insects who seek its shelter. You are an amazing, complex being with poetry in your arteries and charity layered beneath your skin. You have before you a day full of opportunities for living and giving. Do not think you know all there is to know about yourself, for you have not given enough away yet to be able to claim self knowledge. Do you have work to do today? Then do it as if your life were hanging in the balance, do it as fiercely as if it mattered, for it does. Do you think the world doesn't need you? Think again! You cleanse the world with your breathing, you beautify the world with your thinking and acting and caring.

Don't stay home and suffocate on your sorrow; go outside and give yourself to the world's asking."

Elizabeth Tarbox

We all know suffering...We all know moments when all hope has seemingly gone...And yet from this place of emptiness, nothingness, knew hope can rise again...There need not be despair if we turn again in faith and return to love and life...This is the meaning of Easter for me...

Easter begins with the empty tomb; Easter begins with despair and fear; Easter begins with a sense of emptiness of nothingness. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This to me is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

“Easter Day” by George Landor Perin

"There is perhaps no day in all the year so full of meaning to the sensitive soul as the Easter Day. To say nothing of the beautiful music and flowers with which it is honoured, it is to multitudes the anniversary of new life by which they were borne to higher and nobler hopes. The peal of Easter bells and the melody of the Easter songs are the signals for a throng of memories and a host of suggestions to every heart. The origin of the day is simple enough. It is the anniversary of the Master’s resurrection. But what are its deeper meanings, its profound suggestions? I know not how it may be with you, but for myself they are embodied in such phrases as theses: “Victory from the ashes of defeat;” “Hope born from the soil of despair;” “Immortality crowning the grave.” The resurrection of Jesus means all this and more."

by George Landor Perin

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear and precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others amongst us though seem to see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. 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. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lense we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. 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.

I believe it is the same with every life and the love that life leaves behind, something beautiful always remains.

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 cannot end. Easter for me is about birth and re-birth, again and again and again…

All around us life is being reborn. I see this clearly as I walk down and around Dunham Massey each morning. The spring flowers are everywhere, the birds are singing more sweetly and the deer, the beautiful deer, are increasingly going about their deer like business. I have noticed the young bucks squaring up to one and trying out their growing antlers either against tree branches or fencing with one another. It is a beautiful sight of life coming alive and 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. There is something about the essence of Easter in all of this.

In each of us is written the essence and the spirit of Easter. In each of us is written to capacity to resurrect the Love that was at the core of the life of Jesus. We can bring that love alive once again. We can incarnate that love again. That 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. We can become at one with that ancient tale. We can become the resurrection and the life. In so doing we will ensure that something beautiful will remain from our simple, humble, oh so human lives.

Easter begins with the death and loss of the life of Jesus, with the seeming end of his life’s promise. Every single death seemingly means just the same. It begins with the despair of the empty tomb and the despair and terror of this very emptiness. 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. The death of Jesus, for those who followed him, was not the end it was actually the beginning, a new beginning.

This very same possibility of transformation and renewal exists for all of us. We see examples of this all around us. Not just in nature and the earth’s renewal but in the lives of ordinary folk too. People who have experienced utter despair, have lost everything precious to them and yet have transformed this into a loving new Hope. Yes they have known utter despair, but this despair has been born again in a new Hope. Resurrection is not some mysterious event from 2,000 years ago, but a promise to each and every one of us; Resurrection is a promise and a challenge for us all that represents the possibility of transformation for everyone and a real sense of a new 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.

...May we become the blessings our world needs...Not just this morning, but in every morning to come...

These are thoughts of mine about Easter, a universal festival for all people at all times. This is what it means to me, but what does it mean to you. I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

"Something Beautiful Remains" 

Easter: Hearing the voice under all silences

“Rolling Away the Stone” by Sarah Gilbert

In the tomb of the soul, we carry secret yearnings, pains, frustrations, loneliness, fears, regrets, worries.
In the tomb of the soul, we wrap ourselves in the security of darkness.
Sometimes this is a comfort, Sometimes it is an escape. Sometimes it prepares us for experience. Sometimes it insulates us from life.
Sometimes this tomb-life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and reach out to heal others.
Sometimes it numbs us and locks us up with our own concerns.
In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves.
Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us-possibilities for new life in ourselves and in our world.

Amen

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear, precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others amongst us though seem to see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. 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. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this aspect of the mythos. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lens we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

Over he last few days I have been reflecting on the account of the resurrection in John's Gospel. The reason for this is the rather beautiful reflection titled “Easter Resurrection”, by Kathleen McTigue, that I recently came across. It has moved me greatly.

"Easter Resurection" by Kathleen McTigue

"The Easter story as told in the Gospel of John revolves around the experience of Mary who gets up before dawn on the day after the Jewish Sabbath and goes alone to visit the tomb. Her beloved teacher has died a horrible death, and it was only by the unexpected generosity of a wealthy man that Jesus was given even the small dignity of a real burial place instead of a pauper's grave. Because of the Sabbath, his body had not been cleaned according to tradition, and Mary set out early with her herbs in order to do this last grieving service. But when she got to the tomb she found that the stone blocking its entrance had already been rolled away, and his body was gone.

It isn't hard to imagine her despair and anger at being robbed of even this last farewell. she ran to some of Jesus' other followers with the news, and they came back with her to see for themselves. they probably stood there for a while arguing about what to do, but there was nothing to be done. Who would you complain to when you risked your life even admitting to the authorities that you had known him? Filled with that bitter realization, they finally left him again.

But Mary stayed, alone and weeping; maybe something defiant crept in with her grief that made her brave enough to stay. Then she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to find someone standing there. "Why are you crying?" he asked. "Who are you looking for?" Thinking he must be the gardener, she said, as carefully as she could, "sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've put him and I'll take care of it. I won't tell anyone. I'll just take his body and clean him up so he can rest in peace," Then Jesus - because of course it was Jesus standing there, and she didn't recognise him - Jesus just called out her name: "Mary." And then she knew, and she said back to him, "Rabbi."

For those of us who believe that Jesus was a human like us, the idea of his literal resurrection from death is a leap of faith we can't quite make. We know that when our bodies die, they die. We belong to the earth, and it is comforting and right to know that we dissolve again into the sweetness. But we can believe in Mary's resurrection. When Mary heard her name called, suddenly her eyes were opened to a new reality. She was called out from the blindness of her grief and despair, and from within herself she found a new way to see and to understand what had happened to her.

I take that Easter story as truth. It points to the moments in every life when something within us is called out, called forth, called to a deeper understanding of our world. Easter raises the question: In the bright opening of the earth, in the turning season when new life is pouring out all around us, what will we bring forth from within ourselves? It's a time that calls us to open our eyes in a new way, to see not just what we expect to see but perhaps some bright and mysterious truth we could not fathom before, something completely new and unexpected.

We are a troubled tribe, we human beings. The unfolding story of our time on earth is clouded with pain and cruelty, with missed opportunities, unthinkable heedlessness, and indifference. It is also marked by the bright notes of decency, kindness, freedom and courage. Easter proclaims that we each have a part to play in how the story unfolds, if we are willing to wake up. We listen for what is calling to us, and like Mary, when we hear our name we answer, rising anew to meet the life that will not stop calling our names."

Kathleen Mctigues's reflection truly touched the soul of me. Mary Magdalene was in utter despair, having lost her teacher, who she couldn’t even give a proper burial to. Then she once again heard the voice of hope, born from that same place of total hopelessness. As she did she was able to see life through new eyes, new vision came and she was able to turn away from despair to hope.

This is Easter for me a story of hope for all of us that whatever happens in our lives if we keep on turning in faith new vision will come. Easter time, in the midst of spring, truly is the turning season, it is the day of new beginnings. Easter teaches that we can begin again in love each and every day. This begins by hearing or even seeing new hope and turning from whatever despair may keep us trapped in our empty tomb and turn us toward that voice or light.

So I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

I have also been inspired by the following Easter reflection by Robert Walsh

“Early Easter” by Robert Walsh

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear
by E.E. CUMMINGS

"Easter arrives in New England while spring is still mostly a promise. If there is anything we can trust, surely we can trust the Earth, in partnership with the sun, to put new leaves on the trees, to coax blossoms from the forsythia. Meanwhile, I watch through the window of a gray chilly day for the warming and the brightening to come.

Easter invites us to trust in something more amazing even than the coming of spring. Can we trust this: that love is more durable than life? Can we believe that love casts out fear? Can we have faith that love is the voice under all silences?

I trust, and I mistrust. From the quiet centre of myself, I hear a trusting of love, a faith that the story about love is true. On the noisy surface of my life, I hedge my bets. I collect things, join organisations, and take out insurance, hoping to be saved.

That’s why I need Easter. That’s why we keep this celebration. It is because we need to hear the old story about love. We need to be reminded about the voice under all silences."

...the voice under all silences...Again this truly touched that place right in the marrow of the soul of me...

Can we hear that voice under all silences, the one that calls out our name? Do we believe in the voice, do we believe that it can know our name? Do we believe that it is the voice of Hope that can lead us out of the dark empty tomb of Despair to the light of new beginnings?"

...Beautiful...

I have an experience of a power that is greater than all and yet present in each of us, in everything. That said I do not believe that it controls all that happens in life. I can turn to it for strength and direction and when I do so my prayers are answered and I can live in the way of love and courage. I can become “The Light of the World”, that Jesus spoke of “On the Sermon on the Mount”. I believe that we all can if we listen out for that voice and keep on turning from the tomb of despair to the light of hope.

Now if we believe that we are “the light of the world” then maybe the resurrection occurs within our very lives. That the love that Walsh is speaking of can come alive in us, can incarnate in our very being if we listen for it, if we engage with it intimately.

Easter is so much more than the coming of spring as Walsh states. There is more here than just the re-birth of spring plants and flowers. There are far deeper truths than just seeing the renewal of plant life all around us. I also think that there is far more going on than the story of physical resurrection too.

The resurrection for me is not really about the physical body coming back alive. What it is really about is the spirit within each and every one of us coming alive. Sarah York claims that Easter mythos is about the resurrection of many souls not from death but from deadness. She writes:

“What do I mean by deadness? I mean the things inside that kept the disciples away from Jesus’ funeral – fear, cowardice, lack of conviction and purpose. And I mean those same things in our own lives that prevent us from feeling alive – things like fear, cowardice, and the lack of conviction and purpose. And things like the loneliness, grief and boredom that numb us to life.”

This is what Easter means to me. It is far more than the resurrection of a body, which just seems impossible. It is also far more than the renewal of nature of spring after winter and of plants rising from the once frozen ground. When I think of Easter what I experience is that sense of spirit truly coming to life, just as it did for Mary Magdalene when she heard her name being called in the tomb. It’s about love coming alive in all our bodies and of that light coming alive and us sharing it with a world that at times seems completely starved of love. It’s about the voice of hope coming alive once again in the tomb of despair and being led out into life renewed. It’s about each and every one of us truly becoming “the light of the world”.

That’s what Easter means to me, but what does it mean to you…why don’t you think about that…I’ll leave you with that one…

I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

I am going to end this chip of a blogspot with a meditation by Mark Belletini, entitled “Exultet for Easter Morning”

I could say they are beautiful
those stars hemming the blue veil of morning
I could say it gives me pleasure,
that bronze and perfect Passover moon,
or I could say they make me glad,
those laughing daffodils along the lane.

Or, I could just as well say they are lit from within,
Divine, overflowing with what some long to call
Revelation, or even the growing vision of God.
But today, on Easter, I don’t care which words I use to express my
wonder.
I just am glad to be alive, blest with such marvels.

I could say that the earth hanging in space
is an accident in the universe that just happened,
or I could say it’s one more miracle,
in a cosmos full of miracles,
one overflowing with divinity.

But today, on Easter,
For all of my education and life experience,
I cannot tell which word is which.
Accident. Miracle.
They both seem to see each other’s face
in the mirror of my heart.
And so I rise in gladness again,
And sing the marvel that everything is!

When some argue for heaven,
And others argue for earth,
For the life of me I cannot comprehend the
seriousness of the debate.

After all, the heaven I see daily overhead
Never argues with me.
It just tumbles clouds through my eyes and yours
And paints the horizons pink and orange
Come evening or come morning.

And the earth I walk on never argues with me either.
It mostly just explodes with buds and petals
Like some out-of-control fountain.
Heaven and earth remain silent even when people malign
the ancient exclamation “O God!”
by fusing with violence and entitlement.

But now, on this Easter Day, everything grows
beyond words, beyond earth and heaven, into
a necessary vision of harmony and peace for all
humankind who rise into life that is alive.

Amen

From Nothing to Everything: An Easter Reflection

I was recently sent the following on Easter . It struck a chord with me. It got me thinking of the empty tomb, the first symbol of Easter; it got me thinking of love once again coming to life from the emptiness; it got me thinking of the journey from nothing to everything.

"The Tomb is Empty" by Carl Scovel

If the truth of Easter has eluded you, maybe the simple wisdom of this story will bring the wonder of the holiday into your heart.

"An Episcopal Bishop once told me a story about Easter that has stayed with me for many years. It seems that a fourth grade religious education teacher in the Alabama church that he served was trying to explain the Easter story to her children and told them the story of the empty tomb. Then she gave each of them a plastic shell, the kind that pantyhose used to come in. She asked the children to return next Sunday with something in that shell that reminded them of the empty tomb.

On the next Sunday they opened their eggs. One had a flower, one had a tiny felt bunny, one had a small picture of Jesus. Eventually they came to a boy who was mentally retarded. He was older than most of the children because he had been held back for two years. He knew it and the other children knew it. They were uncomfortable with him and avoided him, occasionally mocking him behind the teacher’s back.

When his turn came, he opened his shell and there was nothing inside. The other children snickered. The boy said something rather incoherent, trying to explain his presentation, and the teacher listened carefully to him. Then she looked up to the others and said, “He means the empty tomb.” The boy, of course, had gotten it.

The empty place is the first site and symbol of Christian faith, an absence rather than a presence, and with that space and absence comes a sense that the world is not as simple as we imagine it. For all its laws and patterns, the world still has surprises.

Who could have guessed that a community of martyrs and witnesses would come out of this tiny ragtag group of confused, abandoned followers? Who would have guessed that a man who was choked to death on a stake would become the center of a worldwide religion? Who would have guessed that the power of his message lives today?

Who could have guessed what would come out of an empty tomb?"

This is what Easter is built upon the empty tomb. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This though is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

Easter is a symbol of hope, but I do not see it as an end point. Easter as I see it is the beginning of hope. It is the symbol of love once again coming into life. Carl J. Nelson speaks nearly perfectly of this in the following reflection.

“The Dividend’s of One’s Hope” by Carl J. Nelson

"If nothing else. Easter is a season celebrating the dividend’s of one’s hope. It is not a celebration of hope itself, but of its first fruits – early blooming flowers, budding trees, returning birds. Endlessly without fail, the natural world renews itself following the barrenness of winter.

And too, in the less tangible world of human emotions, we are periodically renewed. Out of tragedy often comes a chastened spirit; out of hate, an ability to love. Beneath the myth and ceremonies of every land and culture, this seems to be the message of the season. Take heart! For hope inevitably will bring about a springtime in the human spirit."

There is something deeply universal about Easter. There is something in its spirit that can speak to all people in every culture at every time and in every place. It points to those moments in all our lives when something deeper within us comes to life, or perhaps it comes back to life. If we truly enter into what is at the core of Easter, its spirit, it can bring us to a deeper understanding of life right here, right now, in our world.

It is possible to celebrate Easter without having to believe in the actual resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is of course the traditional Christian view. You can believe in Easter without having to accept the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. There is something deeply universal in the spirit of Easter that has the capacity to awaken everyone’s spirit regardless of whether or not they believe every aspect of the Gospel accounts.

Easter can also be understood as the festival of the renewal of life that comes at springtime; Easter can be seen as the resurrection of the earth after the seeming death of winter. These last few weeks you surely have all felt powerfully this deep sense of the renewal of life. The other evening I could both feel and smell this powerfully in the air. There is a real electricity in the air at springtime. Now of course the renewal of the seasons is recognised in the pre-Christian roots of our Easter celebrations. The word Easter is after all derived from “Eostre” the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring; the goddess of fertility and renewal. Rather like much of the Christmas rituals and traditions many of our Easter ones are a mixture of Christian and Pagan principles.

The Easter “mythos” can also be seen as the triumph of the human spirit over all that would crush it, even death itself. This triumph also has pre-Christian roots, such as the Jewish “Passover” which of course Jesus and his disciples were commemorating on what has become known as Maundy Thursday. In Latin speaking countries Easter is known as “Pascha” or similar words that are derived directly from “Pesach”.

Jesus’ resurrection is a powerful example of love overcoming death; a perfect example of the spirit of love living on even after physical death. I think it is impossible to argue that the spirit that was in Jesus did not live on after his bodily death. The spirit of love that incarnated in his life has survived all that we have done to it these last 2,000 years as we have remembered him, rather badly.

All love lives on, all we have to do to bring it once again to life is remember those who have touched our hearts and souls. What has been bound into one another’s hearts cannot be unbound. Love is stronger than death. This for me above everything else is the universal “mythos” that is at the root of Easter. A festival for everyone.

Easter is for everyone, all we need do is open our hearts to the universal “mythos” and its spirit will once again be born in us.

I believe that it is our task to once again bring that love to life. Love born again from that empty tomb. This truly a journey from nothing to everything. I believe that it is our human task to bring life to life in our world right here right now, to begin build the commonwealth of love, right here right now...

It begins in our own empty tombs, let us roll our own stones away and let love once again incarnate in our lives...In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

I will end this little blogspot with a prayer by Victoria Weinstein

“Being the Resurrection”

"The stone has got to be rolled back from the tomb again and again every year.
Roll up your sleeves.

He is not coming back, you know.
He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him
We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did
on his behalf --
We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice
We who love the sinner, even knowing that "the sinner" is no farther off than our own heartbeat

He will not be back to join us at the table
To share God's extravagant banquet
God's love feast, all are invited, come as you are
And so it is you and I who must feast for him
Must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left
and dish up the broiled fish (or pour the wine) and pass it to the right.
And treat each one so tenderly
as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort
to make it back from heaven, or from hell
but certainly from death
to be by our side.

Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?)
He did come back
Wouldn't he want to see us like this?
Wouldn't it be a miracle to live for just one day
So that if he did, by some amazing feat
come riding into town
He could take a look around and say
"This is what I meant!"

And we could say
it took us a long time...
but we finally figured it out.

Oh, let us live to make it so.

You are the resurrection and the life."

Amen

An Easter reflection: Let Love continue long

I remember as a young boy being terrified by the death of my sister’s rabbit. I was in the house on my own, one Saturday afternoon, probably watching Grandstand. The rabbit was left in the living room with me and I was told to keep an eye on it. Suddenly I heard this violent scream, which made me jump out of my skin. I hardly dare look, but look I did. The rabbit had died and I was terrified. For one thing I’d never heard a rabbit make a sound before, let alone such a terrifying one  and for another I didn’t know what to do. So what did I do? I went into denial and left the house. I fled in terror and guilt no doubt, as well as a whole bucket load of shame.

I have only ever seen and touched two dead bodies in my life, both of whom were people I loved beyond words. The first was my father who I helped nurse through the last months of his life. He had died just moments before I awoke to see him that morning. I touched him and kissed him and told him that I loved him. I will never forget the look on his face, just moments after his death. My father had been in great pain, probably all his life, but the stress and strain was all gone as his life had gone. I have the very same frown lines on my forehead that he had. Those lines and all the other lines had disappeared as I looked down at him and touched his face.

The other person was Ethan, Claire’s son, who in his short life taught me everything. I saw him that day shortly after he had been killed and again a month later when they released his body for burial. Again these images and the way that his body felt will always stay with me.

A few months after Ethan died I remember Claire having a conversation with a nurse we know who works in casualty and her asking why after he had died the nurses kept talking to him as if he were alive. From what I can remember she said that they did this because it is understood that the spirit of the person is still there immediately after death and therefore this is how they act with someone who has just died. At least this is what I thought she said. I may well have misheard or misunderstood.

Although I have a powerful experience of God in my life now, I cannot say with any certainty, what happens after we die. I suppose I have to remain fairly agnostic with regards to what happens when life ends. This does not diminish my faith in God it just means I have to be honest and I say I do not have knowledge of the afterlife. So no I do not know where those we love reside after they leave us. Having said that I do know where we can experience them. They can be felt and known every time we talk or remember them, at every family gathering or when old friends come together for whatever reason. On such occasions their spirit does indeed reveal itself. The more sensitive amongst us often talk of feeling their presence. I think my sister Mandy is one of those people and I know of others too.

Those we have loved and lost often live on in our dreams and memories; they are imprinted on our conscious and sub-conscious. Their impact can be felt in our daily actions and our waking thoughts and feelings. I am sure that I am not the only one who imagines them being with us from to time. I remember my father fondly and un-fondly at times and Ethan impacts on just about everything I do and say. If I had not met that remarkable little boy I am not sure I would even be here today. His life certainly revealed God to me.

Those we have loved and are no longer with us have clearly had a profound impact upon us and as such are always with us. The love that we shared never dies. Yes their death changes our relationship with them, but the love that we have known will always live on, will always be with us, it is an eternal force. The love has created a bond that can never be severed. No one can take that love from us. Its influence on us is still there and impacting upon the people that we meet in our lives today, people our loved ones may never have met.

In Luke’s Gospel (Ch 24 vv 1-5) Jesus’ disciples return to the tomb to prepare his body for its final burial, but when they get there the tomb is empty.  Then two men in dazzling clothes arrive. We are told that the women are frightened and bow their heads, they do not know what to do. They are then asked the question “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

What a question. I suspect that it reflects powerfully the experiences of the early followers of Jesus “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It reflects their struggles to come to terms with and understand an unmistakable presence that was still there amongst them after he died and that was still impacting upon them and holding them together long after he died. It is still echoing and impacting on humanity today.  Whatever we may or may not think of the idea of a bodily resurrection I do not think that anyone can deny that the love that Jesus embodied in his life lived beyond Good Friday.

Some call it resurrection and others call it beloved or blessed memory but something ties us to those we have loved and have loved us, those that have impacted and shaped who we are. As Forrest Church said:

“The greatest of all truths is that love never dies, that every act of love that we perform in this life is carried on into another life and passed on into another life, so that centuries from now the love carries, and that is the work of religion. The opposite of love is not death. It is fear. Fear is what armours our hearts. If our hearts are armoured, they’ll never be broken, and I have seen so many people get hurt in love and then try to protect themselves against it, and when they protect themselves against love, they protect themselves against the only thing that is worth living for.”

This is the hope in Easter that has birthed from the despair of Good Friday; hope and despair are formed from the same root and yet grow in opposite directions.

For love to live on and continue to show us the way we have to let it embody itself within and through us each and every day. For love to incarnate all that we have to do is to be open to it and that begins by first of all opening our hearts to one another and to God.

“Let love continue long and show to us the way and if that be strong no hurt can have a say.”