‘Christ is risen, so rise up’

In her final column, the Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton reminds readers that the season of Easter ends with a new beginning.

OUR Easter season, the fifty days from Resurrection to Pentecost Sunday, begins, and this year, the first day in is April 1 –

April Fools’ Day.

Hmmm …Following the holy week, the passion and pain, and on the heels of a glimmer of unfathomable hope, we land on/in a day designated for foolishness.

Hmmm …Rather than rail against the irony, I am inclined to embrace its profound truth, seize and welcome the audaciousness of a belief that puts you in the middle of controversy, of counter-intuitive thinking and action. Resurrection is a bold belief and it calls for a daring that convention might call foolish.

Over the last year, I have witnessed this courageous confidence embodied in our faith communities. Across our beautiful, diverse body of Christ, arms embrace and hearts welcome people into safe, conversation spaces, warm hubs and food banks, café church and community kitchens, mentoring projects and debt advice centres, swap shops and after school drop-ins.

Over the last year, I have been inspired by the imaginative worship and creativity in our congregations, and I have been blown away by the energy I’ve seen put into creating new families and connections. When we embrace the potential resurrection heralds, we embody Easter.

These are challenging times for the Church of Scotland. The restructure of our systems, evolving together to be a sustainable and sustaining body, is not without its growing pains (and, yes, we are growing into something new!) The reconsidering of our resources, pruning and planting to produce fruit where it is sorely needed, is an onerous task, but we are fit for the challenge when we face it together. As we move from Presbytery plan to implementation, as we merge and create new communities of faith, I offer a challenge – to those congregations whose building is closing: Your church is not closing.

Your building is, and there is a profound difference. The work you have been involved in is body-building work, it is born from a community-building vision that does not go blind when the doors close. For the love of God, take your energy, your spirit, your love into a new and ever-evolving creation. The body needs you and will struggle to be complete without your unique spirit.

As we move from Presbytery plans to implementation, as we merge and create new communities of faith, I offer a challenge – to those congregations whose building remains: we are not all just coming to yours. We launch ourselves as fresh communities, and great grace, humility and sense of new space is how we will flourish. ‘We are a new creation’ is a powerful, beautiful image of reformation and resurrection – let’s embrace it and let it breathe new life into us.

Our Easter season, the fifty days from Resurrection to Pentecost Sunday, ends with a new beginning. At Pentecost, the followers speak to all in their own languages …I love to grapple with the imagery. Does it make a difference that the disciples speak in the language of the listener rather than the listener understanding the native language of the disciples? Does it?

I think the image offers a powerful light to our path. When the disciples speak the language of those they encounter, when they engage in the things that matter to the people around them, when they come down from their upper room and offer themselves, the hearers are perplexed … how is this possible that we hear in our own languages?

We are embedded in a world full of family who need the good news that love, justice, forgiveness, radical welcome and audacious hope is alive and well and moving and living and breathing and changing in the life of their community. This Easter season, embrace our foolish, audacious, powerful and pivotal hope – Christ is risen, so rise up!

The Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2023/24.