CAPTION: Bishop Mike says we are called to be Easter people in a Good Friday world
Bishop of Exeter’s Easter Message of Hope in a Good Friday World
Easter is for me the most important Christian festival and I’m really looking forward to my first Easter in Devon. I’ve been invited by Exeter Cathedral to preach on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and on Easter day. I’ll also be taking baptisms and confirmations in Barnstaple on Saturday evening, so it’s going to be a packed weekend.
A lot of Easter traditions can feel like escapism – Easter bunnies and decorated eggs and floral Easter cards – all over an Easter weekend with gardening, shopping and bank holidays. I sometimes feel it’s a bit of a strange bubble to be in at Easter, with daffodils and chocolate, and how far we are decoupled from the events on which Easter is founded.
When I was last in Jerusalem I went to the Holy Sepulchre – the site of Jesus crucifixion and of the empty tomb from which he rose. It was deeply moving seeing pilgrims from around the world prostrate themselves on the spot where tradition has it, Jesus dead body was laid out, weeping and praying fervently. Christians from around the globe who were united in their adoration – tears of sadness for his death and also tears of gladness that He conquered death.
Looking at the world around us it seems more like a Good Friday world than an Easter Sunday world, with some of the latest tragedies such as the two Palm Sunday attacks which hit the news: firstly, the Israeli bombing of the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, which is run by the Anglican church in Jerusalem. It is the fifth time the hospital has been bombed since October 2023, and it was the last functioning hospital in Gaza.
The strangeness and the hopefulness of the Easter story is that God refuses to allow our failures to be the last word
Secondly, the Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy as people gathered to mark Palm Sunday, killing at least 34.
Add to this the economic tumult at the present time, anxieties raised about social media, mental health and boys and masculinity, fractured families, the slow growth of opioid abuse in England alongside multiple other addictions, the environmental crisis which brings further grim tidings daily and you sense this is a time of darkness, desperation and depression for many – Good Friday indeed.
This can make us feel it’s a bit hopeless, and that we’ve messed up, messed things up, irreversibly. I know people who feel that in their own lives, parents who feel that, leaders who feel that, in fact all sorts of people feel that. And the story of Easter is about this too. After all, when you look at the story of Jesus’ death, mostly everyone messed up whether it be the Roman occupiers, the Jewish religious leaders or indeed his own followers who he’d been teaching for three years. All of them failed – failed to see who was in front of them, what was really going on and who they were called to be and do.
And the strangeness and the hopefulness of the Easter story is that God refuses to allow our failures to be the last word – rather our biggest calamity, our worst car-crash, our greatest catastrophe, even this is somehow redeemable by the One who is committed to us beyond reason, beyond sense and beyond death and returns in Easter Day, not with a prison sentence, bloody punishment or the death penalty but with an offer of new Life, in Him.
Easter tree in a Dartmouth church
This means we can trust in God’s enduring commitment in Jesus to us, which is why the first day of the Easter weekend is known as Good Friday, because we see forgiveness offered from the cross and we see a God in Jesus who dies for us, but comes back, not wagging his finger at us but inviting us to join with Him in a different way, together.
This is not a story of despair, but of hope. Not of death, but of life. We are called to be an Easter people in a Good Friday world.
This year, for the first time, we’ve had a children’s Easter Egg trail in the garden of the Bishop’s Palace in Exeter. It’s been lovely seeing families hunting for printed eggs with letters on to spell out a phrase in exchange for an Easter egg (and in case you were wondering, I’m very partial to the slightly rarer white chocolate egg!)
The phrase we chose for the Easter trail is “He is risen”, the incredible message of hope based on the bible verse Matthew 28:6, when the angel says to the women who have come to mourn at Jesus’ tomb: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”
Just as he said. At Easter we celebrate the risen Jesus, whose words & actions we can trust, no matter how many times we have messed up, been let down or had our hopes dashed.
I invite you to come and hear this message of hope yourself, with me at Exeter Cathedral this weekend, or at one of our many parish churches as they mark Good Friday and celebrate Easter Sunday in communities across Devon. You can find a church near you here.
The Rt. Rev’d Dr Mike Harrison, Bishop of Exeter
