CE Bishop's Easter Message

Mar 21 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN I was a parish priest, I was asked to visit a lady who was dying, writes the Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool.

Towards the end of our time together, I asked her if she would like me to pray with her. “No”, she said firmly, “not if you’re going to tell me I’m going to die”. I continued to visit her faithfully. As we got to know each other, she began to talk about God and asked, “What would God want with an old sinner like me anyway?” On my last visit, she had fallen deeply asleep. I sat by her bed, prayed and left. On the way out, the hospital sister called after me, saying how in the night the lady would call out from her deep sleep “Release me”. I went back in, held her hand, spoke closely to her that God loved sinners, old and young, forgave her and released her from her sins and fears.

They rang me from the hospital an hour later to say she had died that night in peace. It is Easter that delivers us from the universal fear of death. On Good Friday, Jesus did something unique among all the great religious leaders. Through his own death, he took upon himself and away from us our sins. On Easter Sunday, he defied death and rose from the grave. He opened the door to eternity for all who would follow him.

There are two fears that grip our culture: fear of failure; fear of death. The antidote to both is the love of God. It drives out fear because he loves the most abject failures. We can abandon God and even drive nails through his hands but he never stops loving us.

His love defeats death because having made the Earth and everything in it, he refuses to let disease, decay and death have the last word. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is God’s signal that death is not the end and that we can all of us have a future beyond the grave. That’s why John Donne could echo the words of St Paul: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!”

Have a fearless Easter.