17/04/2025
Peace to you, and those you love, this Easter ❤️
Our Easter Message - Life over Death
The Easter story offers a message of tragedy and triumph. – Jesus travels to Jerusalem to face his persecutors. He is arrested on bogus charges and sentenced to death. He hangs on a cross, and with his last breath he utters the words, “It is finished.”
In the death of their long-for Messiah the hopes of many are cruelly crushed. The persecutors have won. There is a profound sense of grief and injustice to this crucifying storyline.
However, on Sunday morning Mary Magdalene ventures to Jesus’ tomb only to discover that the stone is rolled to one side. Despair at the thought of a stolen body is overcome by an encounter with a supposed stranger who calls out to her, “Mary.”
Mary rushes to the hiding disciples and excitedly announces, “I have seen the Lord!”
And we join with people across the ages and cry, “Hallelujah! Christ is risen!
The Easter story tells us that life brings us sorrow and grief, and that needs to be embraced as an inevitable part of the human story. However, that is not the end of the story, because through and beyond death there is restored life, and lasting hope.
We all experience sorrow and grief, the loss of hope. There’s a life-threatening medical prognosis, the death of a loved one, cherished hopes and dreams are snatched from our grasp … and we cry, “Why?”
However, as real as that grief may be Easter tells us that that grief is not the final storyline in our lives. There’s another, ongoing chapter, and it’s filled with hope.
As surely as spring follows winter, as green shoots follow a bushfire, and as laughter may follow tears, there is new and lasting life – thanks be to God.
Peace to you, and those you love, this Easter.
Trevor Whitney, Interim Chair, L’Arche Adelaide Board