RESURRECTION FAITH

All the love and tenderness, the affirmation and cherishing, which we discover in Jesus is poured out upon each one of us day after day, every day of our lives. That is what it means to be the People of God, to live this side of Easter, to have a resurrection faith. But it means that as Easter people we have to deal with others and minister to them in a resurrection way, with resurrection language, resurrection laughter and resurrection love. Ours is to be the way of affirmation and raising up, not condemnation and casting down. Every harsh word, every piece of bitterness or scorn, not only diminishes others, but diminishes us too. Oppose evil and injustice - we must - and resist the wanton destruction of human life and of our beautiful world. But do it without rancour and without derision. For we are called, each one of us, to be part of the glorious and joyful work that God undertakes for the sake of his whole creation: affirming, caring, loving, redeeming. For the Risen Christ who lives now, lives eternally, and he bids us share his resurrection life.

Let him easter in us,
Be a dayspring to the dimness in us,
Be a crimson-cressited east.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

And so may the Risen Christ easter in you, today and always. Amen

Sherborne Abbey . Vicar, Canon Eric Woods.