Surrexit Dominus vere! Alleluia!
The Lord is risen! Alleluia!
Archbishop Mark shares his Easter message and invites us to embrace Easter as a time when Jesus brings us peace and transforms death into life. Have a blessed Easter.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge’s Easter Message 2024 – Transcript
At the first Easter, as the women come to the tomb, they’re wondering who’s going to roll the big stone away because these stones were big. But then when they get to the tomb, they find that the stone has already been rolled away. And that goes to the heart of Easter. Because Easter is about rolling away all the stones that seem unmovable and block the way into life. Because unless the stone is moved, Jesus can’t get out of the tomb, and we can’t get into the tomb.
But once the stone is rolled away, Jesus comes towards us, and we can go into the tomb. And when we do, what we see are the grave cloths, we’re told, in the gospel story. We see the linen cloths that had wrapped the body of Jesus and even his head. And those grave cloths are our old fears and anxieties and angers and depressions, all those death things in us. They are simply rolled up in a corner of an empty tomb.
So may Easter be for you, whoever you are, and whatever the big stones might seem to be. May it be a moment when the stone is rolled away and Jesus comes towards you saying, peace. And when you can look into an empty tomb and see that the things of death have become the things of life. Happy Easter.