Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death;
victory is ours through Jesus who loved us.
– Desmond Tutu
In the month of April we celebrate the most important event of the Christian faith – the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
Through the resurrection, God is revealed,
not as the giver of labels, but as the Giver of life,
not as the giver of lectures, but as the Giver of light,
not as the giver of lethargy, but as the Giver of love.
God’s power to defeat death not only initiates newness throughout all creation,
but it also strengthens us to manifest our faith in the risen Lord
through a renewed commitment to God’s plan and purpose.
And indeed, with the current state of our world
in which people in the public square, as well as people in our churches, are becoming
more strident at our attempts at political discourse,
more fearful of those different from us,
more anxious in regard to climate change,
more despairing in our global outlook,
and consequently more cruel in our interactions,
the Risen One summons us to follow Him and engage the world with God’s power of
love.
As we live the life worthy of our calling,
we participate with the risen Christ in the Easter movement of civil disobedience
that overcomes of all forms of death with the gift of new life,
that transforms the deserts of revenge and retaliation into gardens of forgiveness,
that reshapes the future
not through conquest but through compassion,
not through selfishness but through solidarity,
not through denial but through discipleship.
While Easter proclamation is nothing new,
we in the church are the ones who have the privilege of announcing it.
The systems of death and destruction have been defeated,
and God has blessed us with an offer of life, true life, that overpowers all of the nefarious
forces in the world.
Transformation is possible . . .
hope is already visible . . .
and life is waiting to burst forth.
And not only are we called to proclaim it,
but we are also called to live it.
In Easter hope,
tom