Carrying us back to the light

SOME years ago I travelled to Israel, before the current ongoing situation in Gaza and Israel. It was amazing and unsettling to be in such a divided and contested land. I spent some time trying to engage with the political realities of life in Israel and Palestine and more time travelling in the footsteps of Jesus.

In some places, it was hard to see through the centuries of building and development to the world Jesus knew, but in others it was incredibly easy to feel that I was standing in the same place as Jesus looking at the landscape he knew.

One such place was the Lake of Galilee, where the hills and wildlife and shoreline had barely changed.

The other was the Tombs of the Prophets near Jerusalem.

Standing alone in the cavelike tombs, once my eyes had adjusted to the single shaft of light from above, surrounded by burial chambers, I felt as close as I could be to the events of Easter Day.

It was in a tomb like this that Jesus’ heart started to pump again. His lungs filled with air again. His eyes saw again, muscles flexed, thoughts raced.

It was from a tomb like this that Jesus rose. And when he rose, he carried all of us with him – up from the depths of selfishness and anger and fear and hatred to the bright light of love and hope and acceptance and peace and delight.

We died with him, and now he carries us back to the light. We are his Easter people: alleluia is our song.

The Revd Canon Richard Lamey is the rector of St Paul’s Church in Wokingham, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham