Bishop Harold’s Easter Message – Resurrection Hope
One of the biggest challenges we have in the 21st Century is to sustain a sense of hope for the future. That is true both for people of faith, and also for people who claim no faith.
This Holy Week, we have seen and read tragic stories in the media – a family left desolate after the accident in Donegal, and the lives of so many people taken from them through terrorism in Brussels. We can’t make sense of it in human terms or in terms of faith. If we try to, we find ourselves saying empty and meaningless words.
It is at times like this that we are truly grateful for a faith which does not pretend that suffering doesn’t happen; for a Christ who understands grief, pain and desolation, and for a story which reaches into eternity through the resurrection.
Edward Shillito put it like this in his poem Jesus of the Scars:
“The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne.
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds but Thou alone.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him.
+HaroldDown & Dromore