As we celebrate the risen Jesus, The Rt Revd Nick Baines, has written an Easter reflection for this most special of days.
“When a distraught woman visited a garden tomb in the early hours of the first Easter Day, the last thing she expected to find was an emptiness. Yet, the tomb was empty. The place of death had quietly and imperceptibly become the place of newness. And this newness began as an absence.
That’s not how it’s supposed to be, is it? Easter is supposed to begin with a cry of joy and vindication. But, the actual story begins with confusion, bewilderment, fear. Only once Mary and her friends had faced and lived with the emptiness were they able to be surprised by the presence of Jesus … who was the same but different.
We are living in a complicated and uncertain world in 2025. Nothing we face is remotely as uncertain as that first Easter morning. To proclaim that “Christ is risen!” Is only the beginning, never the end of the story. Our own confusion or bewilderment as the world changes can meet the surprising reality of a risen Jesus who compels us to see God, the world and ourselves differently … if we dare.
What has been called “the wide space of our hope” is where we find that the God of resurrection has already found us, and calls us into a death-defying confidence in God - whatever our circumstances.
That’s why a Christian like me can cry: “He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
The Rt Revd Nick Baines
Bishop of Leeds