Easter Message from the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge
DURING the last year we’ve been confronted with death in a spectacular and shocking way. Thousands and thousands of people have died prematurely in the pandemic.
Death, the death of Jesus, is at the heart of the Christian Festival of Easter; but death does not have the last word. When God raised Jesus from the dead it was made clear for all to see that his love is stronger than death and stretches out into all eternity.
Easter can give hope in the face of the terrible death toll of this last year – and in the face of our own mortality – in a way that nothing else can. Yet many people find resurrection difficult to believe. As a former scientist, I don’t. As my late wife, Denise, wrote shortly before she died:
The whole of human history is littered with things that were once deemed impossible. We know so much about matter and energy, but there is also much that we do not yet know and our knowledge is always changing. Five hundred years ago no one imagined light bulbs, or space travel, or genetic engineering. A decade or two ago saying we are made of star dust would have sounded like the stuff of a fairy tale, and now it sounds like particle physics. So I do not find it hard to imagine the possibility of a bodily resurrection.
No, neither do I, and it gives me hope for the future. Resurrection is not just about the future, though: it’s about the here and now. It can bring meaning and purpose and hope. May it do that for you this Easter, as it has for millions over hundreds of years.
Happy Easter!
Bishop John.
