34 mins
Finally, Easter
COVER
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“April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with Spring rain.”
THE lines are from T S Eliot’s perplexing masterpiece, The Waste Land. They allude to the fact that though, for most, the worst of the winter is past, spring is often tentative and we find ourselves taking two steps forward and one step back. Flowers bud, trees blossom; and then an unseasonal frost sets things back weeks, or a cold period of rain stunts growth for a season.
The miracle, however, is that lilacs do breed out of a dead land, and each year we marvel at the unstoppable power of snowdrops, crocus, dafodils and the rest pushing past the frozen soil, cracking earth’s hard crust, and reminding us that after the long bleak days, new life comes.
For me the symmetry of this imagery with Easter is powerful. The echoes are clear and true. After the hard bleak days of Lent, and the hot/cold passions of Holy Week, and inally the ‘null’ day that is Holy Saturday when, from the vantage point of earth, nothing appeared to be happening and God’s work was invisible to the human eye, inally, Easter.
Easter bursts on to our awareness in a way that is both subtle and startling.
Easter, whatever you make of it, is unstoppable. From the grey-pearled dawn in the garden, to the full burst of sunlight by the empty tomb, to the quiet, relective dusk on the road to Emmaus, to the upper room appearances, to the lake-side meal, the sheer persistence of Easter is a thing of wonder.
When we are tempted to give up or give in, when a broken relationship, or a mind-numbing job, or a cruel bereavement or an emotional depression persuades us that the clouds are lowered forever and light will never come again.
Finally, Easter.
As I travelled around the country, and the world, during my Moderatorial year I wondered what I would see and what I would hear from churches and the people within them. The narrative from the media and, let’s face it, from so much of the Church is a grim one of declining numbers and marginalisation. And yet, whilst not denying the tough times the Church faces (are there any other times?) what I have found again and again is endless resilience.
Women and men keeping the show on the road. Women and men loving their Church and going well beyond the extra mile.
Women and men using their faithful imagination and coupling it creatively with sheer hard graft.
The churches that are not only going to survive but thrive are the ones who find ways to put their faith into practice; to find ways of making their faith relevant to a questioning but searching world; to find ways to show what Jesus is like, today, in 2018. Finally, Easter.
What does this look like?
A graveyard-surrounded church in North East Fife inding ways to set up a community café with computer and phone access and a foodbank that has changed lives – the lives of the church-goers and of the local community. An urban church in an area of high poverty and unemployment inding ways to build resilience and dignity in men and women by helping them develop skills and self-belief. A wealthy metropolitan church opening its doors on a Sunday evening to provide shelter, food and a humane welcome to rough sleepers. A city centre church with few people living in its parish bringing the gospel alive through artwork. A suburban church challenging its largely university-educated congregation with fresh insight to scripture and faith through science, ecology and mystic Christian theologians from the church’s rich history.
If we want to see the change in our Church, then we need to be the change in our Church, to paraphrase a quote attributed to Gandhi.
Some of what I have seen has been bold and breath-taking. Quite a lot has not been rocket science but it has been done which makes things much more attainable and sustainable. And for me that is the point.
The churches that have engaged my attention most have been ones that have not sat back on their laurels, have not taken the next twenty years for granted, have sometimes been revolutionary but mostly evolutionary. They have been churches in many instances that have engaged with local church review with courage. They have been churches that have worked through some of their Good Friday and Holy Saturday issues. Finally, Easter.
I have seen something similar with most of the areas of work carried out by the Church Oices in Edinburgh, where people who, for the majority, are also engaged with their local congregations are deploying imagination and creativity. The provision of resource and support is often phenomenal.
Where I have seen room for greater possibility is with our Presbyteries. Others have said it, but I am concerned that there seems nervousness amongst some about adapting and transforming. Most seem too small to do the work expected of them.
Most could work more collaboratively together. Most seem hesitant about this. Might this be the year when some embrace that change? Finally, Easter.
The world-changing, view-changing, life-changing reality of Easter needs to touch all of our Church at local, regional and national levels. Why stay in the tomb when Easter is coming? If we’re to be Easter people, we need to recreate an Easter Church. Nor is that a one-size-its-all solution. The Easter encounters Jesus had in the gospel stories vary in time, place, and context. These are only the stories that the gospel writers recorded. I believe there were rather a lot more. And that is a good thing.
There are already so many good news stories out there. Little stories that never make the headlines, but stories when, joined up, transform lives and change worlds. On a recent visit to the Holy Land I hosted a dinner in the St Andrew’s Guest House, Jerusalem where at the table a number of the Church of Scotland’s partners, representing diferent groups and organisations, gathered to eat and drink and share their concerns and hopes.
The situation in that troubled part of the world is nearly always tense and edgy.
Mirrored anxiety and suspicion is to be found in Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. The peace process seems stalled and young people on every side are either leaving or disengaging with the political process. All communities shared stories of hurt, fearfulness, and anger. Until the last person spoke. She had no solution to the larger problems that were causing the conlict. What she ofered were little stories, little steps, about ordinary people, achieving small goals of hopefulness, connection and respect. “We can only take little steps. They never seem enough on their own. But they add up. And distances have been travelled.”
It was a little step from the darkness of the Good Friday tomb to the Easter morning garden. Nobody witnessed it.
But because Jesus took it, we are here today. The Church is not dying; it is reforming. Hope comes, light shines, and peace establishes itself.
Finally, Easter.
This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work
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