The Parish Church of St. Matthew, Highfield, Wigan

Keep going!

As I write this the news is of a terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain in which thousands of people have been injured and hundreds killed.

Like me, I'm sure that all of you are sickened by this atrocity, the latest in a long and shameful list of 'man's inhumanity to man'. It's hard not to think that the world, far from getter better, is actually going backwards and that human society has learned nothing from its past mistakes.

The writer James Carroll once made a list of reasons why we should give up trying to build a better world. Nevertheless, he insisted that though there was reason to feel this way, biblical faith teaches us otherwise. He wrote, "When the times call for resignation, the Word of God calls for boldness. Where the times give us excuses to despair, the Word of God insists that we stand firm. Faith and prayer are never more important than when they appear to be foolish and irrelevant."

The source of Carroll's optimism is the belief that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and with him a fallen world. As St Paul pointed out, Christ's resurrection is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, the sign of the harvest that is to come and is already on the way. This is the hope that Easter brings to the faithful. This is the hope that we share.

At the southernmost point of South Africa is a cape round which the storms are always raging. For a thousand years no one knew what lay beyond that cape, for no ship had ever returned to tell the tale. It was called the Cape of Storms. Many sailors believed it was folly to continue to try - they thought it impassible.

In the sixteenth century a Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, successfully sailed around the cape and found beyond it a great calm sea and beyond that the shores of India. So the name of the cape was changed to the Cape of Good Hope.

Until that first Easter morning, death had been the cape of storms on which the hopes of all humankind were wrecked and no one knew what lay beyond it. But now, in the light of Easter, it has become for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Cape of Good Hope.

As we remember and give thanks together for the events of Easter this month let us not give up trying to build God's Kingdom. May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born into a new and living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter 1:3)

Easter Blessings,

Bob

Page last modified: 22 March 2004