Easter Sunday 2025
Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9
What are the words that spring to mind today? Joy, jubilation, resurrection, victory, new life—these are some of them, all appropriate, and there are many more besides. This cannot be stressed too much, or even enough. This is the feast of the victory of life over death, of good over evil. It tells us that ultimately, sin, evil, even suffering and death, cannot win. By rising from the dead, Jesus the Christ has conquered sin and death, and that conquest is for all of us and for ever. “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it”—for it is an eternal day.
Bank all those positive words. They are ours: they are safe. At the same time, let us not be naïve, or callous. Evil cannot win, but it will continue to have a damned good try—and I use the word “damned” deliberately. Look around the world, and you will see that evil is still rampant, and in so many lives suffering still holds sway. We cannot ignore this, and we must not. To do so would be foolish, and cruel to those who suffer, in so many places, in so many ways.
What then should our reaction, our attitude be? We must not let our awareness of suffering displace our joy. We must wallow in our faith in the Risen Christ. At the same time we must pray, and we must work, that the defeat of evil, already assured, may become ever more complete in our time. As St. Augustine said, many centuries ago, “Sing, but keep on walking” and, we might add, “working”. But do keep singing. “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
