Easter Message

Easter Message 
from the Coptic Orthodox Church

Our hearts rejoice and our souls delight as we celebrate the glorious Feast 
of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection is not merely a historical event, but is a living and dynamic act, which we experience and live by its power, as St. Paul wrote, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  (Philippians 3:10-11).

Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and raised us with Him, “and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  (Ephesians 2:6).  For us it is firstly in baptism that we experience death and resurrection with Christ, as St. Paul wrote, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.”  (Romans 6:4-5).

Experiencing death and resurrection with Christ is dynamic and is experienced daily.  In our spiritual struggles, “we having died to sin, might live for righteousness.”  (1 Peter 2:24).  For Christ’s sake, we die every day, “For Your sake we are killed all day long.”  (Romans 8:36).  The person, who experiences death with Christ and for Christ’s sake, will also experience the resurrection with Christ and the power of the resurrection will become evident in his daily spiritual life.  Consequently, his joy in the resurrection of Christ will be one, which no one can take away from him.

We rejoice in the power of Christ’s resurrection as we face death.  By His death, Christ has trampled death and has bestowed eternal life to those in the tombs.  Therefore, in the departure of our loved ones, the main source of our comfort is Christ’s resurrection, as St. Paul wrote in comforting the Thessalonians, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).  Then he ended by saying, “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

May the Risen Lord bless our beloved country Australia, its people and Government.

Bishop Daniel

Empty Tomb

DELIA'S LENT REFLECTIONS John 20:9 Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in;  he saw and he believed.

Photo: Paul Smith, Colombia Up at 5.00 a.m.  sat in the dark awaiting dawn  over the  Scarborough sea. Too overcast  to see sun rise  but knew it  happened  because light  broke through  and gradually  flooded the  world outside  and the room  inside. By 6.00 a.m. day break was complete.

Be risen!

Luke 7.11-17

11Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

John Pridmore in "The Church Times"

I think of the first child I buried. Terry, too, was the only son of a widowed mother. He suffered from severe cerebral palsy. He was a total paraplegic and unable to speak. His mother used to trundle him around on a huge cumbersome gurney. In many ways, she was as dependent on him as he on her.

As at Nain, we carried him to where he was to rest. But our sad cortege was not met by another procession coming towards us. We did not meet the Lord of Life on the road from Camborne church to the cemetery, and Terry was not returned alive to his mother.

The death of the only son of the widow of Nain was a triumph of evil, as was the death of Terry, the child I buried all those years ago. Jesus addresses the dead boy with a word that belongs to New Testament’s resurrection vocabulary. We could translate it literally, if clumsily, as "Be risen!" Death’s triumph proves short-lived. Here is Christus Victor. Death has met its match.
Of course, the boy is not raised immortal, any more than Lazarus was, or Jairus’s daughter. Sooner or later, he will be taken out of the town again on the same journey that he was making when Jesus met him. Today the boy is returned to his mother, but tomorrow his dust will return to the earth it was (Ecclesiastes 12.7). Signs must not be confused with what they signify. Both son and mother are still under sentence of death. When the trumpet sounds, it will be another matter.

Meanwhile, every day widowed mothers lose the children on whom they depend, and — we think of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa — countless children lose their widowed or abandoned mothers. Jesus is not there for them in the way he was for the widow of Nain. But we note the response of those who witnessed what he did.

"A great prophet has arisen," they cried. Luke sends us back to the Old Testament. Moses had promised that "The Lord will raise up a great prophet." And Moses had added: "Listen to what he says" (Deuteronomy 18.15).

"Listen to what he says."

We cannot return the dead child to the mother, nor the mother to the orphaned child. But we can shut up and listen. If we do, we shall not be left long in the dark about what to do."

Resurrection Renewal

Revelation 21:1-6

21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;
21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
21:6 Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

John 13:31-35

13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.
13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
13:33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Dulverton Sermon

Today is day 29 of the 50 days of Easter and the readings point us to the work of Christ in heaven and ourselves on earth since the Resurrection.

First, in the Revelation reading, the risen, ascended, glorified Lord says "I am making the whole of creation new".

Soap powder makers produce "new Daz" and socialists "new Labour" but Christ our Lord makes "a new heaven and a new earth". Sorrow is to be forgotten; sin is to be vanquished; darkness is to be at an end; the temporariness of time is to turn into the everlastingness of eternity. Because of this we acclaim in each eucharist "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again". Our faith and vision is that when Christ's work of renewal is complete he will reveal himself again and reign for ever over all his work.

Secondly, in the reading from John's gospel, through words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper we know what he wants us to be doing between his resurrection and his return in glory: "My little children, love one another as I have loved you". This is not a message to the world but a message to the church. His first disciples were those he addressed as "my little children". These words are not for our worldly neighbours but for us. The Lord at the Last Supper, as at today's Eucharist, is speaking of the special bond of love that should unite all who bear his name. Within the Christian fellowship each is to be linked to each by a love like that of Christ fro each. Of course, this is impossible unless we are as branches in the one vine. Only he can make this possible by his grace.

The saints are signposts to what we are called to be. In our human sinfulness and frailty it can be a great encouragement to take a favourite saint and consider what the grace of the Lord Jesus was able to accomplish in them. Realising that humanly speaking they were no different to ourselves we can see what that same grace might accomplish in us.

This has always been a spiritual aid in my personal pilgrimage. Naturally I began with Peter and soon added John and Charles Wesley. Then Francis of Assisi took over before I came to a period with Ignatius of Loyola. Always with each of these there was Mary, our Lord's mother and now she stands supreme which is perhaps appropriate living in a seaside town where the parish church is dedicated to her.

May is Mary's month. For me she is the one who fills me with hope in the Lord. So simple and straightforward in her love for her son he has been able to make her "mother of the church" and "queen of heaven".

He who makes all things new can make us new too. Alleluia!
He can make us full of love like his saints, like his mother. Alleluia!

Scepticism about those bones

THE BISHOP of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, had dismissed the findings of a new documentary to be screened on Sunday, which claims that Jesus’s tomb has been discovered in a district of Jerusalem.
The film, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, is directed by James Cameron, who won an Oscar for Titanic. It claims that ten ancient ossuaries, small caskets used to store bones, may have contained the remains of Jesus and his family.
Israeli construction workers building an apartment complex in 1980 found the ossuaries in a tomb. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, six of the ossuaries were marked with the names Mary, Matthew, Jesua son of Joseph, Mary, Jofa (Joseph, Jesus’s brother) and Judah, son of Jesua.
Speaking on Tuesday, Dr Wright dismissed the claims, saying that every few years someone went through the Israeli ossuary sites and found similar names. “What we have to realise is that it is like looking through a London phone book, and seeing the names John and Mary Smith. There are lots of them, just as in Jewish history these other names were very common.”
Although film-makers said this pointed to the existence of Jesus, no serious historian ever supposed this to be the case, said Dr Wright.
Historians and archaeologists in Jerusalem have joined church leaders in dismissing the claims, saying that the film’s hypothesis holds little weight. Professor L. Michael White of the University of Texas told Reuters that the claims were archaeologically unsound.
The film is to be screened on the Discovery Channel.