大象传媒

From Dave Tomlinson,聽writer and vicar at large:

This year, for the first time, I gave my Easter sermon in the back garden 鈥� to a congregation that included half a dozen sparrows a blackbird and a jackdaw鈥�plus our neighbour Bert who I could tell was listening behind the fence. Normally, I鈥檇 have addressed a packed church, but this is no normal year, so the congregation heard me via the recording made on my laptop.

But it鈥檚 not all bad: I love our garden church, surrounded by nature, which is everywhere exploding into life after the dark, cold days of winter. And I鈥檝e always found it pleasing that the cycle of the church year parallels the seasons so that Easter and spring are virtually synonymous. Whatever we make of Easter, spring is, itself, a form of resurrection, a declaration of new life breaking out.

To me, one of the most awesome things is how seeds and bulbs grow into plants, shrubs and trees when on face value they mostly look like dried-up, shrivelled, dead-looking objects. Yet under the right conditions they burst into life and become beautiful flowers, fruit-bearing plants and massive trees.

Some religious folk think that belief in the miraculous is essential to faith; personally, I鈥檓 more impressed by the slow-motion miracles that are happening all the time 鈥� like nature being reborn every year, babies growing in a mother鈥檚 womb, the way a piece of art or a poem can change someone鈥檚 life, or how people find a way to be kind even when they are frightened, stressed or sick. These are the sort of 鈥榤iracles鈥� I suspect most of us can believe in, religious or not.

And anyway, perhaps the difference between being religious and non-religious is exaggerated. I reckon most of us feel gratitude for the mystery of life, we long for things to be different and better in the world, we aspire to be loving and caring, we make certain choices we believe to be right even when it hurts. Such things are central to my faith but for others they are just about being a decent human being.聽

I think the point about Easter isn鈥檛 to debate what happened to a body 2000 years ago but to be Easter people today 鈥� to live hopefully, even in the face of despair.