Thought for the week - 10 March 2008

The Bishop of Worcester's Easter Message

This message brings with it my Easter greetings and the hope that you may experience its joy.

Easter is about joy. It is a joy that comes with the knowledge that, in Christ, life has hope and meaning. There is much in the world about which to be despondent: twenty-four hour news bulletins mean that we are more aware than any previous generation of the amount of pain and suffering being experienced by our fellow human beings all over the world and are constantly being bombarded with it even when our own lives are going well. However, Christians believe that in the midst of all this suffering we can still have hope and so be filled with joy. Why? Because of the love of God. It was that love, we believe, which raised Jesus Christ from the dead and showed us that, whatever befalls us, pain and evil and death do not have to have the last word. 

The resurrection of Christ enabled his very depressed and demoralised disciples to become a group of people who changed the world – and they are still doing it.  I was privileged to visit the Tsunami affected part of southern India shortly after it happened. I was moved to see the way in which Christian believers who possessed next to nothing were among the first to come to the aid of those who had lost everything. What is more, they were full of joy in their faith because they were convinced that, as St Paul puts it, ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.’ That is the Christian hope which gives meaning and hope to life.

I am new to this Diocese but I have already been able to see at first hand some of the very good things that are going on in our churches.  In them people find joy and hope, forgiveness and meaning. From them much care is offered to the communities in which they are situated. So much of the advertising to which we are subjected tries to persuade us that if only we have this or that material possession we will find happiness and fulfilment. It is a lie. Only God in Christ can bring us the fulfilment we crave and enable us to find meaning at the deepest level in our lives and, with it, the joy which Easter brings. 

I pray that you may find something of that joy this Easter, and may God’s blessing be upon you.

Dr John Inge

Bishop of Worcester