Easter Blessings from Archbishop Aymond

 
May God’s abundant blessings be with you as we celebrate this great feast of Easter, the resurrection of Christ.

“Jesus is risen! He is not here!” Those are the words that the women heard when they went to the tomb on that Sunday morning. They were looking for the body of Jesus to anoint it.

They were totally confused, and it wasn’t until later that they realized that the promise that Jesus had made – “I will be raised from the dead” – had been fulfilled.

That is what we celebrate on Easter Sunday – that the Lord Jesus suffered and died for us and was raised from the dead and now lives forever with the Father.

As we celebrate this great feast, perhaps it invites us, first of all, to get into the tomb with Jesus. What are some of the things in life that take life out of us, maybe even make us feel half-dead?

Some of those might be tensions at home; some of those might be dealing with our own self-identity or self-image. Others can be difficulties and problems in the workplace or in the community or, perhaps, addictions, which are so common today.

Go into the tomb, acknowledging whatever weakness it is that weighs heavily upon you and takes life out of you, and let the risen Christ bring his light into your brokenness. Let him bring his light into your darkness and call you out of tomb. Let the risen Christ breathe the spirit of life and love and peace into your hearts.

I hope you will join me in realizing that it’s not only in our own lives that we live in darkness but also in our world today when we see the incredible number of wars and rumors of war, the violence, murder, racism and hatred in our world today.

It’s very common today to use words to truly offend and to hurt people. All of a sudden, in our world today, it’s OK to say anything we want about anyone. We can say it directly to their face or post it on Twitter or Facebook.

There’s a great deal of violence in our world. Look at what happened in Florida at that school, the Austin bomber – and the list goes on.
As we go into the tomb, we certainly bear our own darknesses, but let us also bear the darkness of our world and ask the risen Christ to use us to bring light and hope into this world that is sometimes broken.

This is a great feast. It is the highest feast of our church, because the Lord Jesus was born, he lived among us, he suffered and he died and was raised from the dead. And, he comes to raise us from the deaths that we sometimes experience. He comes to raise us to new life in him.

May you have a very, very blessed Easter!