"The Rising" - Easter Sunday Morning Words from St Bride's

Early morning rising, while men sleep, women rise early, waking, wondering, weeping: the human one, the son of a woman who lived like a son of God is dead.

Hard to believe, impossible to deny - the wood, the nails, the mocking crown, the blood run down, the cry – IT IS FINISHED. Yes – finished, dead, moribund,  all our hopes and dreams lost, thwarted, slain, deprived, crucified.

What now?

Rushing to the tomb,

son of Mary’s womb,

would he be lying there, naked, bare save wrapped like a babe in swaddling clothes,

except now clothes of sorrow, garments of death?

But no – no body, nobody, no loved one…..lost again, missing,

linen wrappings lying there empty adding to the pain

no chance to weep, to mourn, to bathe,

embalm this body with tears mixed with oil and spice,

recalling memories of love, and wisdom, and awe – at what a price!

An empty tomb, laid bare, it’s stone walls echoing the rising of the One no longer there, “why look for the living among the dead” the angels said

He is The Rising…….. the rising, risen, Easter one who welcomes all to their own rising.

The rising: to be changed, transformed, made new. Turned around, seeing the light, waking from sleep, Emerging, evolving, metamorphosing….

The Rising is here despite appearances of politics failed, economies derailed, poor people nailed, to a cross of suffering - (bedrooms taxed while the rich relax, sleep-walking into a cruel injustice.)

What seems like an empty tomb, empty barren womb of hopelessness is the rising: the rising of a new humanity.

Through Eden’s fall, to the risen Gardener’s call: “do not be afraid” The Rising is here, rising in us, saying “you will have pain but you will see me again” for I am to be formed in you.

He is The Rising…….. the rising, risen, Easter one who welcomes all to their own rising.

To rise. to wake up from sleep, to become, to emerge, To see again as if for the first time, laying down the old clothes of sorrow, guilt and shame, the patterns and habits of times past that no longer serve us well, putting on the new clothes of the rising, shining garments luminous, bright in their presence, of the Holy One, the risen one, the rising One, the Easter One who transforms all…

Come to the Rising…  

©JJelfs March 2013