Easter Sunday
Fear is natural, and so is grief at the death of another (Jesus, remember, shed tears for the death of a friend). Don’t attempt to avoid it or deny its seriousness. On the contrary, keep it in view; remind yourself of it. When the tradition of the Church proposes that you think daily about death and prepare for it, it isn’t being morbid but realistic: get used to it and learn to live with the fear. And meanwhile – Shakespeare was being entirely Christian in this respect – get used to loving and valuing things and persons irrespective of the fact that they won’t be there for ever. Love them now, and what you would want to do for them, do now. ‘Night is coming when no-one can work’, says Jesus. (John 9.4)
So what does it mean to say that, despite all this, death is ‘defeated’? When death happens and growing stops, there are no more plans, no more hope of control: for the believer, there is only God left. Just as at the very beginning of creation, there is God, and there is the possibility that God has brought into being by his loving will. When death has done all it can do, God remains untouched and his will is the loving and generating will that it eternally is. When we look at death, we look at something that can destroy anything in our universe – but not God, its maker and redeemer. And if we accept that we shall die and all our hopes and schemes fall into the dark, we do so knowing that God is unchanged. So to die is to fall into the hands of the living God.
Archbishop Rowan Williams Easter Day sermon
Bishops, would you kindly follow your Archbishop in getting your Easter Sunday sermons out on Easter Sunday through your own websites? It makes all the difference
