‘Fullness of joy still lies far ahead’
DO people really want an Easter message that is all about Covid - 19?
So I won’t mention it, at least not before the end.I turn instead to Mark’s Gospel, the first to be written, which in its original form - following an extremely lengthy Passion narrative -offers an account of the Resurrection in just eight verses.
There are no accounts of Resurrection appearances at all ; the Risen Jesus is never seen.
True, faithful women find an empty tomb and have a transforming encounter with a young man assumed to be an angel.
He assures them that Jesus has been raised, that he is now going ahead of them in a particular direction and that in due course they will see him. But that is all in the future; meanwhile they can hardly take it all in, to the extent that the original gospel closes with the surprising words - ‘they were afraid’.Mark in fact helps us grapple with the reality of Easter.
This is not a moment for easy certainty or superficial jollity - the Easter event so capsizes the normal pattern of human life that the implications are frankly scary. And we best celebrate Easter, not by clinging to a comfortable static Christ who neatly fits all our emotional needs, but by realising that in the future we may authentically meet that living Jesus if we dare to follow.
We only know vaguely where we are going, our encounters with Christ may occur when we meet the most unlikely people, we may actually spend our entire lives trying to catch up with the Risen Jesus.
Thrillingly he leads us on, taking us almost breathlessly around the next corner in a quest that never loses its value or its mystery. ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen’, we shout .... thrilled that no tomb can trap him and that his resurrection energises us to enter a future which is already his. And here I come back to Covid 19.
This is not an Easter when we can think we ‘have it all made’, when we can go together to church, and then munch Easter Eggs and roast lamb in the close company of our friends.
The atmosphere this Easter, just like the first Easter, is far more scary than that. Fullness of joy still lies far ahead, there is no opportunity to pause let alone to cling to one another, we have got to keep doggedly going in the exhausting pursuit of health and hope.
But Easter assures us that a Risen Jesus goes ahead of us, that the next corner is always worth rounding, and that along the way during this extraordinary crisis we may well encounter Christ in brave and caring people who remind us what humanity at its best can be. Alleluia!