Easter Message from Fr Richard Gibbons

Happy Easter Everyone!

We can make a right mess of things as human beings. It’s in our nature. We can get things right as well, for example, when we were able to cope with a pandemic which has caused death, trauma, domestic and mental health problems for people, we at least showed some solidarity in looking out for one another during it. Then, just as we thought we might be able to soar above the pandemic and return to some semblance of normal living, a sovereign nation is needlessly and barbarically attacked. This has caused the world huge problems in terms of a brutal war (there is no other kind really), savagery, a refugee crises, cost of living nightmares for people, an energy crises and not to mention, on top of all this, the potential climate chaos that is still an enormous problem for all of us.  It’s not that it came out of the blue in fairness – the likes of Putin and others on our world stage with such tendancies are all too well known and all too real. When economic interests, power, corruption and self delusion are part of our human make up…. we can make a right mess of things.

OK! I hear you say, thanks for bringing us down with that note! So where do we get some hope in all of this?

Easter is the answer, Easter! It is through the Resurrection of Jesus that hope is given to a despondent group of disciples who thought as a result of His death, it was all over. They had written Jesus off as a lost cause and as a result written themselves off. But it wasn’t all over – it was just beginning. The disciples only realised this when they encountered the Risen Christ. For the Gospel of John, the Easter story begins very early in the morning of the first day of the week when it is still “dark”. The Easter we celebrate is an invitation out of the darkness of human messyness into the light of the Risen Christ. The message of Easter is simple – we human beings are not lost causes even in spite of ourselves, even when we do stupid things because in rising from the dead Jesus has shown us our own destiny and if we keep that before us, our potential to do good is enormous. Our Resurrection faith calls us to see hope in the darkest of places and times because we are loved by God and will not be overwhelmed by darkness.

May the light of the Risen Christ shine upon us all this Easter.

Fr Richard