March 2021

Church -  Opening times.

Comment from our group of Churches. - March 2021

Easter! Lent’s over! Booze and chocolate galore! The lengthening days and British Summer Time push back the darkness. God’s creation comes alive.

Then there’s that extra all-important meaning for Christians. On the Friday, Jesus’s crucified body had been buried in a tomb closed by a heavy stone. On the Sunday, the stone had been rolled away, and nothing was left but a few pieces of linen. Only St Matthew, who loved drama and describes an earthquake and an angel who zoomed down and rolled the stone back, before the terrified guards. But the tomb was already empty.

Artists also liked to make the scene dramatic, never mind whether it was true to the gospels, and painted Jesus rising into the air above the tomb, greeted by God the Father and a crowd of angels, while the guards sink to the ground below.

Some of the hymns we sing at Easter have this triumphant attitude too, but I don’t think they get anywhere near expressing the wonder and mystery of Easter. Somehow, quietly, between Friday evening and Sunday morning, the corpse had gone. All the gospels are insistent that Jesus had risen and appeared to his followers to guide and inspire them. The hymn that sums it up best for me is less well known. Here’s the first verse:

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,

Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain.

Love lives again, that with the dead has been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

The melody is lovely, gentle, meditative. The emphasis is not on Jesus as a person, or where he is, but on love. The love that was - is - so strong it couldn’t die. The love that brings new hope, new comfort, new inspiration.

The last verse of the hymn seems so right for what has been happening over the last year:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,

Thy touch can call us back to life again;

Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Amid all the fear and grief - the people who couldn’t say goodbye to a dying parent; the men and women in care homes who had no visitors; the many who have lost their jobs and who fear for their future - Love has come. People of all faiths and none have collected food for the hungry, visited or phoned vulnerable people, raised funds, while medical and social care workers have given their all to support and heal. This is Love rising again. This is what Jesus is all about.