Hot cross buns have been available for a couple of months now, and Easter eggs appeared not
long after them. They were both a long way ahead of Easter itself! But it’s clear now that the
season is turning and Easter is approaching. We’re enjoying the very last flush of summer
roses, while tree leaves are changing colour and preparing to drop from their branches.
Evenings have become chilly, and the mornings are getting darker. Daylight savings has ended
just in time!
The change of seasons is a reminder that we are constantly moving between light and darkness,
flourishing and fading away, growth and decline, hope and disappointment. We experience
that movement in our health, in our family lives, in the projects we invest in at work or at
school, and in our relationships with those around us. Most dramatically, we are reminded of
that movement in the contrast between our sadness when loved ones die and our joy at the birth
of a new child.
Easter is a spring festival – timed to fit the Northern hemisphere, of course! It celebrates that,
no matter how deep the darkness or disappointment might be that we face in any particular
struggle or suffering, the final word belongs to the new life opened to us by the faithful love of
Jesus that we see on the cross. Jesus remained true to his commitment to the poor and suffering,
whatever it might cost him personally; and the new life of his resurrection opened the joy and
hope that God longs to share with us. As we commemorate Jesus’ death and resurrection, we
recall our own mission to live with the faithfulness and commitment that we see in him.
I wish each of you and your loved ones all the blessings of this year’s Easter celebrations.
