{"id":70840,"date":"2020-04-13T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/an-easter-monday-message-from-the-primus\/"},"modified":"2020-04-13T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T19:59:00","slug":"an-easter-monday-message-from-the-primus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/an-easter-monday-message-from-the-primus\/","title":{"rendered":"An Easter Monday message from the Primus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As he reflected on the Easter celebrations, the Primus, the Most Rev Mark Strange looked back on a Holy Week like none before it and looked ahead to how the Church can &#8220;stand out there and proclaim the risen Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to look out into this world around and listen to what we\u2019re hearing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CjtuNpnCYQw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hello, and welcome to a weekly update.\u00a0 In fact I should start: Alleluia, Christ is Risen, he is Risen indeed, Alleluia.\u00a0 For we are in the Easter season.\u00a0 And yet I think it\u2019s an Easter season that we haven\u2019t felt before.\u00a0 It\u2019s been an odd day today.\u00a0 A day when I\u2019m usually relaxed.\u00a0 A day when all the excitement of building up to the Easter Sunday has tired me out.\u00a0 And yet today there\u2019s a frustration.\u00a0 A need to get on and do things.\u00a0 A need to feel that things might change.\u00a0 A need to get out on a walk, a need to do something and we have fifty days in which to do this something.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fifty great days of Easter to keep alive that feeling we had yesterday when we\u2019d all worshiped together, digitally, with that lovely service from Perth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, I\u2019m going to read you just a few lines here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c&#8217;I could sense it. Something different, something mysterious.\u00a0 Something special about him.\u00a0 I listened as we walked.\u00a0 His words were clear, his understanding powerful, and I felt it tingling in the air around me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c&#8217;And then he broke bread.\u00a0 And I knew.\u00a0 He is risen.\u00a0 He is here.\u00a0 He is with me.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Those two men walking out to Emmaus, filled with the horror of all that they have seen, all that they have witnessed.\u00a0 Filled with suspicion and anxiety about the words they had heard that morning, that somehow the horror that they\u2019d witnessed wasn\u2019t real.\u00a0 And they\u2019re joined by somebody. Somebody they don\u2019t recognise &#8211; just like Mary in the garden &#8211; no recognition that this is Jesus.\u00a0 There\u2019s something wonderfully mysterious about these passages, these readings.\u00a0 Mysterious in a way which says it\u2019s not being confronted by the figure of Jesus, it\u2019s feeling the presence of Jesus in your life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And they arrive, having been given a theological treatise, understand passages from scripture, but it\u2019s at the moment when Jesus breaks the bread when he makes himself present among them.\u00a0 Where there, in their hearts, not simply in their hearing, but deep in their hearts that mystery dawns &#8211; that mystery dawns that they are in the presence of the risen Christ.\u00a0 That must have been so powerful.\u00a0 So powerful in face that they turned round and headed straight back to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve always felt slightly sorry for them at that point &#8211; rushing up the steps to the upper room, then banging on the door and going in and saying \u201cWe seen the risen Lord!\u201d and everyone saying \u201cSo have we\u201d.\u00a0 And then of course Jesus was present there amongst them.\u00a0 You see the moment of the breaking of the bread, the moment when they knew that: there with them always, beside them, within them and around them, was the risen Christ.\u00a0 Driving them back over those seven miles, driving them to go and proclaim it, driving them to begin the journey which ended up with the establishment of what?\u00a0 Of our Church.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And yet it\u2019s so easy at this time for that rushing back with excitement to be turned into: \u201chow do we keep going?\u00a0 What is it that we need to do?\u00a0 How do we save the Church?\u201d\u00a0 To become inward looking.\u00a0 It, I assume, is part of being in isolation that we begin to look inward, begin to see the things we have in our homes, the things we do in our own spaces as ultimately important, but our faith is not about how do we sustain the Church as it\u2019s been.\u00a0 It is not about the conversations I hear all the time about how we survive financially, or don\u2019t &#8211; about how we keep going, or don\u2019t.\u00a0 It is about knowing that we are not keeping going, we are simply living the truth of the risen Christ.\u00a0 And so we need to outward looking.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to look out in to this world around and listen to what we\u2019re hearing.\u00a0 We\u2019re hearing words from our leaders about, almost as if we\u2019re at war.\u00a0 We\u2019re hearing words about well, being important to be part of this community.\u00a0 When actually we need to be praying for the World\u2019s community.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to spend the time we have now writing letters, making contact, telling people that we\u2019re not happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re not happy that somehow we\u2019ve managed to remove the homeless from our streets so quickly, and yet where will they go when this is over?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not happy that refugee children are still held in camps.\u00a0 camps where they\u2019re at risk from this virus, because we\u2019re still not finding space for them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not happy because it\u2019s easy to become grumpy people.\u00a0 I\u2019ve even seen myself standing up in my garden, leaning over the wall and glowering at someone who had the audacity to walk past.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What have I become, if I\u2019m not even prepared to welcome the stranger passing by my home.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Okay, there might be a risk, there might be all those things which you\u2019re warned about.\u00a0 But that shouldn\u2019t turn us into people who look inward.\u00a0 We need to be people still looking outward.\u00a0 Offering Christ\u2019s love to the world, not simply in our prayers, but in our actions.\u00a0 To show people that, even though we might not be able to meet together we still care, we care enough to rush back the seven miles from Emmaus.\u00a0 We feel enough to stand out there and proclaim the risen Christ.\u00a0 We care enough to let our leaders know that lockdown does not mean we stop caring.\u00a0 What it means is we find ways of truly caring.\u00a0 To make sure that those who are least advantaged are cared for.\u00a0 That those who are struggling, and always struggle, are being cared for in special ways.\u00a0 We know that those who are the least advantage have as much chance as those with the greatest advantage.\u00a0 As much chance to survive, and to grow and to be fulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the Church is to be the Church of Christ, it must be outward looking, calling on people, showing them Christ in our heart and in our lives.\u00a0 Enabling them to see, as I hope we see, that the risen Christ brings hope and life and love to world.\u00a0 The Church must reflect that in how it shows itself as loving and caring and rejoicing, into that world.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Blessings upon you.\u00a0 Keep safe, and pray that we find ways to keep other safe.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he reflected on the Easter celebrations, the Primus, the Most Rev Mark Strange looked back on a Holy Week like none before it and looked ahead to how the Church can &#8220;stand out there and proclaim the risen Christ.&#8221; 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