The Minister writes… from our April newsletter
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Dear friends,
In previous years my ‘Easter letter’ has focused on the resurrection joy of Easter Sunday morning. This year, with all that is happening in Ukraine, it feels more appropriate to linger on Good Friday with its themes of darkness, betrayal, injustice, suffering and death. A time when it seemed that evil had the upper hand.
It seems like that now. We watch the news and are appalled. We feel powerless to enact change or make a significant difference. We want to help but how should we respond? What can we do? There are some things we can do of course. Keep ourselves abreast of what is happening even though the news is painful to watch because awareness leads to understanding, understanding to solidarity and solidarity to compassion. And we can give: give of our money to support the emergency relief organisations and give of our time and care in prayer. Perhaps you could even be one of those who gives of your hospitality by offering space in your own home for refugees?
Like the psalmist, we cry out ‘How long, oh Lord?’ And the despairing words of Jesus on the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ are echoed in the anguished pleas of those fighting for or fleeing from Ukraine: ‘God, oh God, why have you forsaken us?’
Yet Christ’s death on the Cross was not the end of the story, nor will the present suffering of a whole nation be the end of this story. The empty tomb speaks of love that has conquered sin and death and just as the women’s tears of mourning turned to tears of resurrection joy, so there will be a new and better day to come when goodness will overcome evil and those who grieve and suffer at the hands of their enemies will rejoice once more.
Many well-known and beautiful hymns are sung around this time but maybe the words of this less familiar one by Brian Wren seem poignantly apt this Eastertide:
Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,
a nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.
Can such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word,
when faith and love seem phantoms and every hope absurd?
Life, emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,
can share in broken silence our deepest emptiness.
And love that freely entered the pit of life’s despair,
can name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.
Christ, in our darkness risen, help all who long for light
to hold the hand of promise till faith receives its sight.
May the eternal hope of Easter be yours today and always.
Sharon