Diocesan News
Archbishop Neill's Easter address
While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb St. John 20:1
Easter is at the heart of everything. Easter defines who we are as Christians, and Easter defines the Church. It is through Easter that we grasp the power of God in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the Resurrection, this Jesus is seen to have eternal significance for us and for the world. It is through the experience of Easter that the New Testament offers to us its witness to Jesus.
There is no attempt in the Gospel narratives to synchronise the experiences of that first Easter. It is more a case of one person here, one person there, taking a further step towards a realisation that something profound has happened. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb in the darkness of the early morning and the first experience is simply that of finding that the tomb has been disturbed. It is a journey that perhaps takes some time before she can go and announce to the other disciples of Jesus, I have seen the Lord (St. John 20:18)
If the realisation of Easter was in fact a journey towards faith for Mary Magdalene, it is equally true that for her it was a personal journey that she had to make. Facts alone are not to be confused with a journey towards belief. The first manuscript of St.Mark's Gospel possibly ended with the assertion that in the light of finding an empty tomb, the disciples were speechless and afraid. Information is hardly life giving.
In this age of instant access to information, the information on Christian belief is more available than it ever was. Easter is however more than information it is a journey towards belief and one that we have to make for ourselves.
Often on that journey, we are strengthened by the faith of others. In the context of Christian worship, the affirmation: Christ is Risen, The Lord is Risen indeed is itself a step on this journey to the heart of Easter.
While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Easter begins in darkness, and the lifting of that darkness was for many of those close to Jesus a very gradual realisation. There are for some people startling moments of disclosure, dramatic conversions, but such should not be seen as denigrating the steps that others take in the darkness towards faith in the living Christ.
For many today, there is the darkness of confusion and of competing ideologies that make the journey towards belief that bit more arduous. In all the churches, we have to admit that we have ourselves often become the problem. To proclaim a message by which we obviously fail to live is to erect serious barriers to belief and to faith. It is easy to point the finger at the sensational and tragic such as abuse perpetrated by clergy, but we must also point the finger in a less obvious way. For example we fail in our witness to the Risen Lord when as churches we become a club for the respectable, or an unquestioning defender of the status quo, or a bastion of a moral rectitude in a world crying out for compassion and healing. In the Anglican Communion, we have spent too long arguing about gay clergy and far too little time wrestling with the fact that nations and leaders claiming to be Christian bomb the daylights out of those with a different ideology. The tragedy of Christian disunity allows Christians to argue about who may take the Bread of Life together while millions have not got enough bread to feed their children this very day.
The Resurrection light is startling when its full impact is felt. The Risen Christ is presented by the Gospel writers challenging the disciples with a startling directness, whether it be in the searching question, Simon, son of John, Do you love me? or the demanding commission to go into all the world and preach the good news.
The full light of Easter, the full impact of the Risen Christ, is not something that any individual or any church has ever fully grasped. Easter is always a journey towards faith, as well as an expression of faith. Easter is not a time of exclusion for those wrestling with the call to belief, it is rather an invitation to come and journey, to walk the road towards belief. The longest single account of Easter is about the walk to a village called Emmaus on the evening of that first Easter day, when facts were recited, when experiences were recounted, but the Risen Lord was only recognised at the very last moment and that in a moment that was a glimpse of the mystery of worship in the broken bread of the sacred meal.
While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb The Easter Eucharist in which we share this morning may indeed be in the full glare of daylight, but it is celebrated by all of us at different points of a journey and for some the darkness seems more real than the light but let us journey together so that in some way we are drawn into the affirmation with which the liturgy began: Christ is Risen, The Lord is Risen indeed.
May the Risen Jesus open the eyes of each of us to meet him and to encounter him for ourselves. Mary Magdalene had travelled far on that first Easter Day, when she affirmed I have seen the Lord she had left the empty tomb, the cold fact, and progressed towards a living encounter, but this in itself was but a step on the journey. This journey of faith in the Risen Christ presents new opportunities and confronts us with new challenges every step of the way. Christ is Risen, The Lord is Risen indeed. What do we make of the Church in the light of Easter, and what do you and I make of ourselves in the light of this startling affirmation? Christ is Risen, The Lord is Risen indeed
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
087 2356472
Contact Details
Lynn Glanville
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