Christ is risen; he is risen indeed!

We are pleased to share Bishop David's Easter message with the diocese. Please take a moment to watch it, and share it in your chaplaincy and beyond.

This video is also available to read below:

My dear sisters and brothers:

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

It is with great joy that I greet you on this feast of Easter. The psalmist says, “This is the day the Lord has made, and we are glad in it!” 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest event that the world has known. It confirms the powerful love of God which changes everything. Easter is the heart of our faith. Easter is the foundation of our hope.

These are still difficult times for God’s beloved world. War still wages within the territory of our diocese. The people of Ukraine continue to walk the Way of the Cross. Forces of death and destruction take the lives of the invaded as well as of the invaders themselves.

Elsewhere in the world violence continues even if the press has stopped reporting on it. Fr Amos Manga, a priest of this diocese based in Finland, himself a refugee from South Sudan, is a human rights advocate for the people of his homeland, still a convulsed and violent place. He speaks of ongoing suffering as women, children and aged people are caught in the bloody intercommunal cross-fire.

When Mary Magdalene reached the tomb on Easter morning and saw the stone rolled away, she thought that this was another victory for evil. She cried out, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him”. Mary’s cry echoes the anguished cry of hopelessness of so many who cannot even mourn over the bodies of their loved ones. The emptiness of the tomb mirrors the emptiness and darkness experienced by so many in the world.

Yet when the beloved disciple enters the tomb after Peter and sees Jesus’s linen wrappings, he believes. The Gospel does not say more about what he believes or why. But the emptiness and darkness of the tomb opens up the possibility for his mind and heart to be filled, mysteriously, with a new and joyful faith. God has vanquished death. We Christians do not explain away pain and death in the world; we know that the Son of God was willing to descend into the trenches and suffer and die with us, and then rose from the dead. Our Easter joy is the knowledge that God’s holy plan to end the destructiveness and darkness of the world is under way. Death is not the final word.

So, one of my contacts in Ukraine, working on the front-line delivering relief, reports signs of Easter hope and faith. He told me of people coming together to share in community the values of freedom and openness. In February, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited South Sudan together, and delivered a message to the people there: “Never lose hope, and lose no opportunity to build peace”.

This Easter let us be filled with joy and hope. Because our Lord Jesus lives, we know that, whatever we experience now, the future is one of new life. Remember, sisters and brothers: the Risen Christ is among us. He is and ever shall be!