The reality which gives us hope
EASTER is at the very heart of our faith, and is the most significant holy day celebrated by Christians, and even non-Christian alike each year.
The journey towards Easter season is an amazing and busiest time of the church’s year. The Palm Sunday, the Holy Week, the Renewal of Ordination Vows, Maundy Thursday, Washing of the Feet, Stripping of the Altar, Good Friday, Easter dramas, camps and picnics.
These days and their programs offer us the opportunity to reflect on God’s fulfillment of His covenant through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His Son.
It is at the very heart of our faith, and its meaning reminds us that life is stronger than death, that hope is stronger than despair, that the light is stronger than the darkness, that makes us the ‘People of the Resurrection’, which provides us a framework in which we live out our lives today.
Easter Day or the Resurrection Day is mystery and promise, reality and hope. And the message of hope someone once said: ‘Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live’. I believe there is a great deal of truth in those words. In this difficult and often confusing world of today, hope, for many people, is something that seems to be missing or even misunderstood.
In fact, we would even go so far as to say that in a world of suffering, grief and sorrow, of complex family relationships, of problems at work alongside many other hardships of life causing sadness, loneliness, drugs and depression.
But hope, I believe, is one of the key Christian attributes and one of the most important gifts we can give to our country today. Nothing brings hope back to life like Easter. A hope in a bewildering world and hope to face the uncertainties of the future.
This special day never arrives without its refreshing reminder that there is life beyond this one: True life. Eternal life. Glorious life. Those who live on the ‘outside’ of hope need an empowerment message of hope and Easter certainly gives it.
The Easter message is well known, and there is no need to prolong it, complicate it or try to explain or defend it.
The facts speak for themselves: Jesus said He would suffer ... be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Betrayed and arrested, hurriedly pushed through several trials and declared guilty - first of blasphemy and then of treason.
Alone and forsaken, He endured the torture of scourging, the humiliation of insults and mockery and the agony of that walk to the Cross without hesitation.
We cannot fully explain what happened on that first Easter day, but the simple fact is that there is something magnificent, therapeutic and reassuring about Easter morning, and that is Hope. And this hope in the resurrected Christ silences the empty message of sceptics and cynics alike.
How? Because the evidence of the resurrected Christ can be found in the testimony of many thousands of people until today who have had their lives transformed by the indwelling presence of Jesus through a personal trust and faith in Him.
Our identity, at this time of Easter celebration, is strengthened as we stand together and proclaim that ‘Christ is risen - He is risen indeed. Alleluia! This hope can be with us every moment of our life.
The dimension of hope is the very centre of the Good News. In Christ, God had begun to move with power. Christian faith was faith in one who had raised Christ from the dead and therefore they could persevere with hope and confidence, joy and expectation.
And that continues to speak to us in our country today. The resurrection event is not just something we remember as a past event, it is a continuing reality which gives us hope today. Fiji is living in a world that is in real need of a sense of hope. Individuals, communities, countries alike. There are many who are feeling disconnected, isolated, overwhelmed with the pressures around them and the new changing society.
Therefore, I invite us for the opportunity to see Easter as time when we walk the way of the Cross and enter into the Passion of Christ: journey with Jesus in the short-lived triumph of Palm Sunday, through Passover week, to betrayal, trial, crucifixion, death, darkness and resurrection.
This years Easter day should be a day which blazes with hope. It should remind us that we are part of something far bigger and greater than ourselves.
Remember our faith does not take away our suffering and weakness. Loneliness and death are still our companions. But that is no failure: as Christians we believe that Jesus transforms our human condition in walking with us in the valley of death. The good news is that God is with us.
We live in a world of suffering: we always have; we always will. More than that, we are somehow agents in that world of suffering: all of us play some part in injustice, indignity and unkindness.
Easter 2024, the world’s heart bleeds for the people of Ukraine, Gaza and many more places beset by conflict.
Our Easter is grounded on hope: it’s the hope that life will always triumph over death, love over hate, peace over conflict.
Let us try to be the living proof of the Easter hope that continues to inspire others.
A word of hope into situations of despair. A promise of reintegration after brokenness. A sense of community or ‘gathering in’ as opposed to separating out. Relationship with the Risen Christ who connects with us on this journey of life and holds out the promise of fullness of life.
In Christ all things are made new, and may we all experience afresh the life-giving joy of being people of the resurrection, and may that be something we in turn live out in our communities.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. We wish you all a happy, blessed and hope-ful Easter.