Easter (It starts like this)

This poem was written for our Sunday morning service on Sunday 28th April, the second Sunday of Easter. The gospel reading was John 20:19-31. In the news that week had been the horiffic bombings in Sri Lanka and the murder of Irish journalist, Lyra McKee. The poem was inspired by the idea of resurrection being a process as espoused in this sermon by Michael K. Marsh, especially this quote: 

 "The facts are just the starting point for the story. The fact of the empty tomb is the starting point for the resurrection story. Whatever facts you woke up to on Easter Monday are simply the starting point for your story of resurrection. Too often, however, we take the facts as the entire story. Isn’t that what we’ve done with St. Thomas?"

 I think we certainly do think of Thomas like that - he is the perennial doubter, rather than the saint who brought Christ's message to India, and had grown so much in faith that he was prepared to die for his God. It made me wonder whether we were looking at other people and situations in the same way - from their start, rather than their fulfilment in God. I hope you enjoy...

St Thomas - taken from indiaz.com

 

Easter

It starts like this:

In a garden at early dawn, in confusion,

Walking on a road together, bound in grief.

With misplaced hope that death is rumour, or illusion,

And yet resigned that death has killed belief.

It starts with hiding, cowering behind locked-shut doors

Overcome by fear and doubt;

Fearing reports of wars and rumours of wars

And of persecution around, about.

It starts in far-off lands, with churches burning,

Where the faithful worship on their final Easter Day,

Where others kill, a life-for-life returning,

With perverted faith that vengeance is The Way.

And closer to home, a journalist is murdered,

As she reports on violence in the town that is her home.

Fearing that the killers’ cause may now be furthered,

It starts with fearing we’ve been left, alone.

 

These things are how it starts. But they are not how it continues.

It changes.

In that early morning garden, a gardener shows a new direction.

A traveller joins the grieving mourners on the track.

Hope that death is rumour turns to hints of resurrection,

And the wall of non-belief begins to crack.

It changes with Christ walking through that locked-shut door.

It changes when his disciples finally see.

It changes everything that ever was ever before.

It changes everything that is, and all that is to be.

Where once was said “unless I see, then I will not believe”,

It is now changed: “my Lord, my God!”

Where once were scared disciples, too frightened to perceive,

There are now saints, in whose faithful paths we’ve trod.

And now, where churches burn, and countless lives are lost

And rife is persecution of Muslim, Christian, Jew,

Our prayer for the guilty is changed too, by Christ’s own upon his cross:

“Forgive them, Father; they know not what they do”.

And so, help us persevere until our resurrection-journey’s done.

And although we may never really comprehend,

But where we now have doubt, by faith, it will be overcome;

Because, though this may be the start, it is not the end.