Archbishop's Easter Message

Easter Baptisms

LET'S SHINE A LIGHT ON OUR FAITH

AS a boy growing up in Uganda, I would always look forward to Easter day. Easter for us was even better than Christmas, because on Easter day each of the 13 children in my family were given new clothes to wear. I can still remember the new white shorts and shirt that would greet me on Easter morning, as crisp as they were bright with the promise of all things new.

For billions of Christians around the world, and for millions of people in Britain, today is a day of sheer joy. Joy is not quite like happiness. Whilst happiness tends to be fleeting, disappearing at the merest mood swing, Joy underpins and sustains. To truly know Joy is to be almost physically winded by peace, to be overwhelmed by love or floored by grace.

Claudia Lawrence

We hear it in the awestruck words of Mary, the mother of Jesus; in the prayer we call the Magnificat. Mary begins by saying that "my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour."

Overwhelm

To rejoice is to know more than happiness; it is to know joy unbounded. Yesterday I had the pleasure of conducting open air baptisms in the middle of York welcoming anew those who have responded to this invitation of joy, love and grace.

But our joy may be threatened if we give in to its opposite. The opposite of joy is not sadness. The opposite of joy is fear. And there are fears, both real and imagined, that threaten to overwhelm us as we read of economic gloom, recession and redundancies.

These are hard economic times but there is much more to life than economics. What price the first smile of the new born or the embrace of a loved one? My message to all of you today is a simple one: Do not be overcome by the fear that laps around you and chomps at your heels. Rather give in to the joy of knowing goodness and doing good.

Those simple acts of love, the random acts of kindness, those acts of affirmation and grace, big or small that stand as lights in the darkness. Those who know joy know of the light that darkness cannot extinguish.

They too can sing Mary's song. They hear the resonance of the words of God as told by the prophet Isaiah: "Fear not for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine."

KEEP ALL HOPE ALIVE

IT is now almost four weeks since the chef Claudia Lawrence went missing in my home town of York. With every day that has passed since March 18, the fear has grown that Claudia may have come to some harm.

The pain, suffering and anguish of Claudia's family will be unimaginable to many. But there are some, such as the family of Madeleine McCann and other families who live with the gnawing absence of a loved one, who know only too well what the Lawrence family must be experiencing.

However what we do know, as a plain matter of fact, is that in both Claudia and Madeleine's cases, someone somewhere knows where they are.

The message of Easter is a message of hope, and our hope that those who are lost may yet be found must not be diminished by the lack of media coverage that comes as time passes.

Hope is the enemy of fear and gives birth to both actions and inspiration. As we celebrate the triumph of life over death in the Easter story, let it inspire us to continue the search for the missing so that we may bring hope to others in our common desire to see these families reunited.

CYNICAL REPORT

A REPORT this week by an anti-religious group calls for the NHS to dump its chaplains in a cost saving move.

What the report didn't mention is that even if we were to accept the guess-timates on which its numbers are based, the cost of chaplains amounts to less than half of one per cent of the total NHS Budget. Oscar Wilde defined cynics as those who knew the price of everything and value of nothing. If that is right, then this report is an exercise in pure cynicism.

The value of chaplains to the dying, bereaved and sick of all religions and of none is incalculable. Their role in providing care not only to patients but also to staff is conveniently ignored by the cynical agenda that attacks religion wherever they find it, ignoring the lived experience, the practical wisdom and the living tradition of people throughout this land.

IT'S NOT JUST FOR GLORY ON THE PITCH

I AM in full agreement with those in Birmingham who have called for Aston Villa v Everton game not to be played this afternoon.

Many reasons have been given by Church leaders of all denominations for the match, along with that between Manchester City and Fulham, to be moved so that today, like Christmas Day, can be one where we can take a step back from the busy-ness of life and spend time with those we love.

But the greatest irony for me in these two fixtures is the fact that without the very first Easter Day, the teams involved in today's matches would not exist at all.

Each of the four teams playing in today's Premiership matches were founded by churches. To this list can be added other clubs such as Liverpool, Spurs, Birmingham City, Southampton, Barnsley and Bolton amongst others.

Football has come a long way since members of the Aston Villa Church Bible Class formed a football team in 1874 and the members of St Domingo's Bible Class started playing football at Stanley Park in 1884.

But when Villa take on Everton this afternoon, they would do well to recall the faith of their founders and to abandon the amnesia of their heritage.