Sometimes, life spins. War and instability persist, news cycles magnify every crisis. People struggle, positive change feels unreachable. Easter meets us in the weariness and heartbreak. Other times, life stills. A donor gives an organ to a stranger. A politician fights for what’s right. A child runs laughing in the wind. Easter meets us in the solace and joy.
The message of Easter is that God’s love transcends our circumstances. The prophet Isaiah called Jesus himself “a man of sorrows – acquainted with grief”. On the night before his death, Jesus said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”, and asked “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” (Matthew 26:38-39)
And yet, compelled by love, he walked the loneliest road.
Decades later, one of his closest friends would write:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son – that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Whoever – that means all of us. Me and you. Everyone, everywhere, across all time.
God’s love overcomes all that would separate us from God and each other. Our failures, regrets and fears – even death itself. Love took Jesus to the cross. Love stretched out His hands in forgiveness and rolled away the stone of the tomb. The empty grave is another declaration by God that in the end, love wins.
Wherever Easter meets us, it gives us hope and strength for anything is to come. Because no matter how bad our circumstances may seem, they are – as the poet William Langland wrote – “no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea.”
Freely God gives love. Freely we can receive it.
Happy Easter indeed.
Related:
Hear from our CEO & Superintendent, Rev Stu Cameron, in his Easter message.
