The National Council of Churches (NCCA) is often contacted before Easter and Christmas by media looking for a religious comment on these high festivals.
This year we have asked Church leaders to supply an Easter message for release in Holy Week (the week between Passion Sunday and Easter). Here we have a selection of 6 messages from Australian heads of Churches, and an ecumenical message from the NCCA.
We hope these messages are helpful to the media, and the Australian public, as Christians in Australia and around the world celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ*, an event above all others that is essential to the Christian faith.
Revd John Henderson
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in Australia
(*Note: In the Western Church, the date of Easter this year is Sunday 16 April. Most Orthodox Churches will celebrate Easter this year on Sunday 23 April, based on the Julian calendar.)
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ANGLICAN CHURCH
The tomb holding Christ’s body was sealed with a huge stone. The three women who visited that first Easter morning to honour his corpse with spices wondered how they would move the stone barrier. They arrived to find it had been rolled away. The stone is a metaphor for the rock hard fears, closed doors, periods of interminable darkness, disagreements, pains and prejudices we all face. The women didn’t have to move the barrier. God did. Easter has nothing to say about what we can do. It has everything to say about what God does. God rolls stones away and sets life free.
The Most Reverend Dr Phillip Aspinall
Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia
CATHOLIC CHURCH
I, and many others, were thrilled when Pope Benedict entitled his first Encyclical Letter “God is Love”. He writes “In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, the message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical, to speak of the love which God lavishes on us and which we in turn must share with others”.
The suffering and death of Jesus teach us that love is costly. His resurrection joyfully love’s victory over death. Love consoles us as we carry life’s crosses and rejoices our hearts as we live the life of the risen Lord.
May Easter renew our love of God and love of each other.
+Francis P Carroll
Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn
President – Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference
CONGREGATIONAL FEDERATION
In the Northern Hemisphere, Easter is equated with spring – the end of winter and the return of plants and animals that have been dormant during the cold winter. From American and European movies and television, we see Easter as a time for new fashions and bright flowers. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is the case and Easter is the harbinger of cold weather. For us Easter is not the end of physical winter but is the end of spiritual winter.
Until the Resurrection, the world was spiritually cold, burdened with the darkness of sin and desolation. After the Resurrection, there was a spiritual light and warmth that lasts for all time. Easter is a time for new spiritual awakening and joy.
It is wonderful to wake up in the morning and to realise that you have been forgiven by the Lord and that you are not burdened with sin but are free to go forth and live in the Lord’s creation and do the Lord’s will. Easter is absolutely the happiest holiday. It was not created by man or governments; no, Easter was created by the Lord for us. It is the day that the Son triumphed over evil. God won, evil lost and by that victory, all of mankind for evermore won. Easter is God sharing Christ’s victory over death with us. Christ’s resurrection is our redemption.
Regardless of whether Easter arrives in cold or warm weather, for our hearts and souls, it is indeed a warm and happy time of the year. Easter reminds us of God’s Love and Forgiveness. Easter is a time for some new fashions – not just clothing – but the fashion of proclaiming Christ the Risen and Mankind the Forgiven. Easter is the happiest event each year because it was and continues to be the happiest event since creation itself.
Dr Harry Melkonian
Congregational Federation of Australia
COPTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH
Easter time is a time to contemplate upon The Resurrection and the New Life; both bringing hope after they had all but disappeared.
Easter is a time for celebrating Victory after Defeat. Victory on the human level is one over hatred, pride, and selfishness of those who crucified Christ. On the spiritual level, it is a victory even over death; humanity’s most dreaded enemy.
Today, hatred is spreading between civilisations and neighbours, also pride kills innocent civilians and destroys families. As well selfishness wastes many a life of potential goodness on meaningless hedonistic experiences.
After The Resurrection and The New Life, we need love and humility more than ever, so that the compassion of Christ would engulf us, and that is our hope and ultimately where our victory lies.
Daniel
By the Grace of God
Bishop of Sydney & Affiliated Regions
Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Sydney and Affiliated Regions
LUTHERAN CHURCH
'I have seen the Lord’, cried Mary Magdalene as she burst into her friends’ hiding place.
As Mary had been, those followers of Jesus of Nazareth were bewildered, depressed, without hope and frightened. They had witnessed his crucifixion and now were confronted with an empty tomb, but it was Mary who had seen the risen Christ, her Lord and Saviour.
We can only imagine the joy which burst through in her life. We wish we could have it. How did it feel, Mary, when he called you by name? Your name in his mouth – and suddenly you knew who he was and you knew who you were: loved and raised from the dead.
The mystery of faith from unbelief, hope from hopelessness, meaning from despair and life from death can only result in one thing: ‘Tell the others!’
There is hope in mental illness, tragedies, despair, loneliness, sickness and in death. That hope is in the risen Saviour. Let our world hear the good news.
The joy that bursts from the grave is eternal.
Revd Mike Semmler,
President
Lutheran Church of Australia.
UNITING CHURCH
Easter.
The terror and the majesty of Easter for Christians is that the injustice of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross becomes the window through which we have to look at all who suffer injustice, for there is the majesty of God present on the edge of life.
Then God raised Jesus from the dead and in so doing blatantly declares God is not only at the edge but at the centre of all that is.
If you want to separate God from the universe, make God as an object, talk about God as someone you can take or leave, don’t look here. Here is God assuming all of the human context and condition, so it may be healed. God is the one in whom all, including our life, is to be made whole.
The Revd Dr Dean Drayton
President
Uniting Church in Australia
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN AUSTRALIA
Recent publicity about the Gnostic ‘Gospel of Judas’, and popular fascination with works of fiction like ‘The Da Vinci Code’ might give some people the idea that authentic Christian hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ should be long dead and buried.
This month, however, around the world and around Australia, Christians will celebrate the central tenet of their faith, that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. This is a core belief because it authenticates not only Jesus’ moral and ethical teaching, but also his claim to be the Son of God and Saviour.
It is natural for there to be controversy, scepticism, and counter claims about such a radical event that steps outside the bounds of what we usually accept as normal and even possible. It is an event ‘from beyond’, that is, of God’s choosing not ours. Controversy has raged over this event for 2,000 years, and continues today.
Christianity has always opened itself to such scrutiny, and does not reject it now. Each person must make their own decision about the claims of Jesus Christ and the promise of God for salvation. For their part, Christians will go on witnessing and proclaiming what they believe is the greatest event in human history, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Revd John Henderson
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in Australia
