Words of Light and Hope from Helena Crockford LLM

Words of Light and Hope – Easter Day Helena Crockford LLM
How do we grasp the significance of Easter Day, seeing beyond the Easter Eggs and
Bunnies? “We do not keep Easter, we do not observe Easter; rather, we live inside
it. Christ’s birth was an event, so was the crucifixion. Easter is not an event. Easter
is a conviction, an attitude. Easter is not history; Easter is the future.” David Hoyle,
A Year of Grace.
Two poems by the poet-priest Malcolm Guite convey both the loss and despair,
and the hope and resurrection which provide us with the everlasting answer:

Jesus’ body is taken down from the cross
His spirit and his life he breathes in all, Now
on this cross his body breathes no more.
Here at the centre everything is still,
Spent, and emptied, opened to the core.
A quiet taking down, a prising loose,
A cross-beam lowered like a weighing scale,
Unmaking of each thing that had its use,
A long withdrawing of each bloodied nail.
This is ground zero, emptiness and space,
With nothing left to say or think or do,
But look unflinching on the sacred face.
That cannot move or change or look at you.
Yet in that prising loose and letting be.
He has unfastened you and set you free.

Easter Dawn
He blesses every love which weeps and grieves
And now he blesses hers who stood and wept
And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s
Last touching place, but watched as low light
crept Up from the east.
A sound behind her stirs, A scatter of bright
birdsong through the air.
She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,
Or recognise the Gardener standing there.
She hardly hears his gentle question
‘Why, Why are you weeping?’,
or sees the play of light That brightens as she
chokes out her reply,
‘They took my love away, my day is night.’
And then she hears her name, she hears Love
say
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.

From: Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year, Canterbury
Press (2012)
Happy Easter, Allelujah!