Thursday 16 April – Hope on the Rampage!

DAILY BYTE

Easter should leave us trembling in awe with new and unexpected hope. Easter should bring back a sense of wonder to our hearts. Easter should remind us that no matter how gripping death is, no matter how much it may dominate the daily headlines of our newspapers, that it WILL NOT have the final stay. It will not be a full-stop. Despair need not be our final condition.

Easter reminds us that just as the Good News of new life appeared first to those women who were disregarded as small and inconsequential by society at large, so no one is too small, too insignificant or too sinful to go unnoticed. As Henri Nouwen once wrote, ‘The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that noting that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost.’

You will never get lost. You can be found. Death can’t drown you and failure can’t hide you from God’s embrace.

No matter how big the disappointments, failures and fears in your life may be, like that stone blocking Jesus’ tomb, they are NOT big enough to block God’s life-giving power. They can be rolled away.

Remember though, you have to respond. The Gospel story does not continue until you are involved and participating in it. You have to reach out to the God who is reaching out to you. You have to remember to open your heart in wonder to God and his Easter message.

For what a wonder Easter is. Easter is hope in rampage. It is life let loose. Death is large but Easter is bigger.

To paraphrase John Chrysostom, Easter is when Hell reached out for yet another corpse, and instead met God. Easter is when Hell seized earth and encountered heaven. Easter is when Hell took what it saw, and was overcome by what it could not see.

No longer does the fear of death have to dominate and control us. No longer do we have to live constrained and bound by that full-stop. We can be free of all that, released instead to tremble in awe at what is truly worth trembling over.

God Love. God Possibilities. God Potential. God Life.

Because the hope of God is alive and on the rampage through the world.

Because Jesus has risen and so everything changes.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Risen Lord, conqueror of sin and death, thank you for the way you so graciously reached out to us in our death, and how you so mercifully reached out to us in our sin, both freeing and forgiving us. Help me to live your life to the full with Resurrection wonder. Your hope is on the rampage through this world and may I be a part of it. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 118. 14-16, 23-28 MSG

God's my strength, he's also my song,
and now he's my salvation.
Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs
in the camp of the saved?
"The hand of GOD has turned the tide!
The hand of GOD is raised in victory!
The hand of GOD has turned the tide!"

This is GOD's work.
We rub our eyes—we can hardly believe it!
This is the very day God acted—
let's celebrate and be festive!
Salvation now, GOD. Salvation now!
Oh yes, GOD—a free and full life!