God gives hope in our suffering, say Easter sermons
-26/03/05
Helping confused people search for God in times of pain and suffering is the theme of the Easter Sunday sermons prepared by both the Archbishop of Wales and Archbishop of Canterbury. So reports the Western Daily Mail in advance of keynote addresses to be given by senior church leaders on the holiest day of the Christian calendar.
The two Archbishops, representing the English and Welsh wings of British Anglicanism, say that poverty, hunger, Aids, and disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami lead people to ask the same question over and over again: “Where is God at these times?”
Easter is an indispensable sign that God identifies with the suffering world and the pain of humanity, the Rev Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales will say tomorrow at Llandaff Cathedral.
In the face of so many ruined lives, we feel helpless and ask why God canít sort out our problems and woes, says Dr Morgan. Easter tells us that God bears the pain of the world in the forsakenness of Christ
“Jesus cannot fix our tragedies, be they personal, national or worldwide, or stop bad things happening. He is, however, [the incarnation of the] God who identifies with his suffering world,” claims the Archbishop.
“As one theologian puts it, ‘Christ’s body is cast out among the poor and all those who live in desolation. He is among us as vulnerable and powerless’.”
Meanwhile Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, says Easter is a time to live out the hope God instils in us by to caring people stricken by poverty and disease.
“It should not need saying, but it must be said: Our Christian faith is a faith in the rising of Jesus Christ from the tomb in his glorified body; and so it is about leading lives that take the life of the body seriously,” says Dr Williams.
“The words for ‘salvation’ and ‘health’ cannot be distinguished in most languages, and this should remind us that faith in Christ has to be bound up with care for suffering bodies as well as suffering souls.”
In his Easter message Dr Williams adds: “This Easter, let us, as Paul tells us in Colossians 3, try to live as if we had truly been raised with Christ – clothed ‘with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’ and showing all these things in our priorities for action.”
Dr Morgan says we should also note that “there is a distinct lack of a triumphal note in the Easter accounts of the risen Jesus. Jesus doesn’t walk into the Palace of the High Priest or the Governor’s Mansion to say to them, ‘Well you thought I’d died, but here I am again’. He does not prove his vindication. He goes for a walk in the dark with a couple of his disciples out in the country or he talks to Mary in the garden and she mistakes him for the gardener.”
Both Archbishops will be seen as calling for more sober, reflective, hopeful and publicly responsible faith in an age of sensationalism and sound bites. They appear concerned at some of the more intolerant and strident Christian outbursts that have accompanied the recent resurgence of attention to religion in political life.
Dr Williams, who was formerly Archbishop of Wales himself before his election as the 104th occupant of the See of Canterbury, has stressed over the past week that Christian involvement in politics and the forthcoming election should be based on compassion rather than manipulation or the seeking of partisan advantage.