Christ’s Resurrection urges us to create a society which brings love, truth and justice to all, the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon says in his Easter message.
Rt Revd John Davies will celebrate at Brecon Cathedral on Easter Sunday at 11am.
Easter Message
There are times when the truth is so obvious that we fail to grasp it. The truth of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is, for many, an example.
Some time ago I was fascinated to read a letter in the press in which the writer stated categorically that Christianity was patent nonsense because, he said, Jesus had never even existed. Without him, the writer urged, the whole thing fell apart. I’d agree with him on that point. But, of course, Jesus did exist; of that there is no possible doubt. Roman and Jewish historians of the first century write in clear terms about him and also about the movement which grew up around him, the movement which we now know as the church. This is not nonsense. The truth is out there.
During Holy week and Easter, the Church calls the world to reflect on the truth of which events of Jesus’s death and resurrection speak so powerfully; death is something with which all can identify – it’s a fact of life. Resurrection is less easily grasped. However, the truth is out there. History, in dealing with the reality of Jesus also makes pointed reference to the life of the movement which not only grew up around him, but which exploded into the world after an event which followed hard on the heels of the day when most thought he was dead and gone. That event is resurrection; something we may well find hard to explain, but something which clearly happened – unless, of course, the incredible spread of the faith and the Gospel were and remain a gigantic confidence trick. But, could you really con so many people for such a long time? I don’t think so! What demonstrates the truth of Jesus’s resurrection is not dry, dusty theories, but the very life of the Jesus movement and the sheer courage and witness of those who were around at the time who were not sophisticated philosophers of religion, but plain, straightforward, thinking people who knew what they had experienced. The truth is out there.
The truth which underlies all of this, life death and resurrection, is the truth of the reality new life and new beginnings; God’s just society. We are on the verge of a General Election and other political choices will come our way in due course. All parties appear to promise new life, new beginnings, some of which will cost more than others. There are many in our own nation who need that new life and those new beginnings: young and old in poverty, the chronically sick, people with little or no prospect of a job or anything that breathes hope into their aspirations, and many others too. In exercising our choices we must all seek to do what we believe will bring to them as well as to ourselves the best chance of a fair and just society.
God’s will, revealed in the real Jesus, is that all should have the fullness of life. The concerns which Jesus demonstrated in his ministry were concerns for justice, truth, the pain of the needy, the agony of the marginalised and the good of society. He was more concerned with these issues that with arid religious argument and ritual observance. He called for words of love to be fulfilled with loving and compassionate actions. He called the leaders of his own time to address the needs of society; it made him unpopular and it cost him dearly. However, the truth of his resurrection reminds us all that the cause of love, the cause of truth and the demands of justice can never be shut away or closed down.
I hope that Easter will remind the Church of its vocation to worship a Lord who demands new life and new beginnings for the needy and that it will inspire the church to be active in calling those who govern us to address their plight with compassion and truth. I hope too that you will use your life, your voice and, indeed your vote when the time comes, to try and secure new life and new beginnings for those burdened by the darkness of need.
The truth is out there. Understand it. Live it. Work for it.
