The Bishop of Exeter's Easter Message, video by Alan Quick IMG_8725

Transcript

00:00I'm here with the Bishop of Exeter. Bishop it's lovely to see you. I'd like to get your Easter

00:10message to the people of Devon. Can you tell us why Easter is so important in the Christian

00:16calendar? Yeah I certainly can and there are a lot of reasons why it's important but perhaps I

00:22should root the reason I think it's so important this year in the realities that we face and only

00:28on Palm Sunday we heard about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza and we heard about the missile

00:36attacks on another town summit in the Ukraine and the deaths of 34 more people and we can see from

00:44that that the tragedies in our world continue with pace and when you add to that some of the

00:51difficulties internationally with trade in recent times the ongoing mental health crisis

00:59concerns about the negative effects of social media in developing toxic masculinity drug and alcohol

01:08abuse the environmental crisis the issues just go on and on so given that and given the mess we appear

01:16to be in and the mess that collectively humanity appears to be making of it you might think that

01:22Easter is a bit of an odd time really with bunnies and daffodils and Easter eggs but I think the message

01:32of Easter is all the more relevant and important given what I've just listed as some of the issues

01:37around us because one of the key messages of Easter is that just as now so in Jesus day people really

01:46messed up and in particular they messed up with Jesus the Roman authorities the religious authorities

01:52the disciples who cut and ran everyone messed up in relation to Jesus and ended up nailing him to a cross

02:00and killing him but one of the key messages of Easter is that God does not allow our mess or our failure

02:08to be the last word and Jesus comes back to us risen from the dead not to give us hell but to love the hell

02:16out of us he comes back not wagging his finger demanding a pound of blood but instead actually invites us

02:25to join him to join him in his new life in a new way of being with him so one of the key messages of

02:31Easter is no matter how much you feel you may have messed up or you may have failed or that you are

02:38disappointed in one way or another understand and know that with our God there is new life and a new start

02:47for you so really incredibly relevant uh message I think for these days thank you very much thank you bishop