A message of hope at Easter from the Bishop of Sheffield in the face of the virus lockdown

A young priest in Liverpool, the Rev Kim Mannings, gave a moving interview this week to a major TV news programme, expressing her own distress at the way in which the current lockdown is impacting terribly on families who are bereaved by the death of their loved ones.
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She talks touchingly about the way the current lockdown is doubling the grief and heartache of bereaved families, preventing them from giving their loved ones the fitting send off that is usually possible. You’ll find the interview online if you search for ‘Reverend Kim Mannings coronavirus’.

Many of us have in recent weeks had to come to terms with a restricted funeral service, with few people permitted to be present, and with social distancing imposed at just the time when we most long to cling to each other for comfort. It heaps distress upon distress.

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That experience has helped me to read one of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus in a new light.

Pete Wilcox, the new bishop of Sheffield.Pete Wilcox, the new bishop of Sheffield.
Pete Wilcox, the new bishop of Sheffield.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 20, the evangelist records how Mary Magdalene came to the tomb in which Jesus had been buried. She came to grieve, to mourn for the man she had loved and lost.

The other Gospel writers say she came with some other women and with spices with which to anoint the Lord’s dead body. She came to perform a ritual, a sort of funeral service in a way.

But when she got there, she found that the stone with which the tomb was sealed had been rolled away. So she leapt to the obvious conclusion and ran to find Jesus’ disciples and to tell them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him’.

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She then returns to the tomb and stands outside it, weeping. Like many mourners in our own city over recent weeks, Mary has a double grief.

She has lost her beloved Saviour, and she has lost the chance to mourn for him in the usual way. She feels she has been denied access to his body. She’s not able to lay the Lord to rest. She can’t give him the send off she would have liked.

According to John, as Mary wept, she bent over to look inside the tomb. She sees two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been.

They say to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’.

Mary repeats to the angels what she had said to the disciples, ‘They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him’. All she wants is to pay her respect to the mortal remains of Jesus.

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Then Jesus himself comes to her — the risen Lord, fresh from his victory over death. Eventually, she will recognise him, at the moment when he calls her by name. And eventually, she will run off in excitement to announce to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’.

But it is what happens immediately that has caught my attention this year.

The risen Jesus puts a gentle question to her — the very same question the angels had asked her a moment ago. ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?’. And mistaking Jesus for cemetery staff, Mary says, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him’.

I find it wonderful that the Risen Christ, fresh from the grave, on his first encounter with one of his followers doesn’t proclaim his triumph over the powers of darkness with a fanfare but concerns himself with Mary’s grief. Her tears matter to him.

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Yes, at the heart of the Christian faith is the conviction that when God raised Jesus from the dead, he opened up for all who trust in him the way through death to an eternal life in glory.

This is certainly my hope. I am convinced (to borrow the language of another part of the Bible) that in Christ death has lost its sting and the grave has lost its victory.

But this year what strikes me most powerfully is that the Risen Jesus cares about our tears — and in particular the tears of those who have lost loved ones and who have also lost the opportunity to mourn for their loved ones as they would wish.

It is into precisely this depth of grief that the Risen Christ comes, to bring us the hope of his victory.

The Rt Rev Dr Pete Wilcox

Bishop of Sheffield

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