YOUR STORY: "At Easter, we remember a good man being killed by Roman authorities 2000 years ago. So what!  

Through each century of recorded history, good men and women have often been killed when they challenged oppressive authority.

However, there's something different about the story of the Palestinian man called Jesus.

Christians believe that God was so uniquely present in Jesus that we call him 'Son of God' but, it doesn't matter whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Hindu, a humanist, or an atheist, I think there is something in the Easter story that offers hope for all of humanity.

Of course there's well known background to the story. Jesus was a Jewish man, living in an occupied Roman territory.

At about the age of thirty he was baptised by his cousin and through that had a deep sense that God wanted him to reach out to the people who were excluded and looked down upon by his religion.

For three years, he spent most of his time healing, teaching and assuring people that no matter who they were God loved them.

Whether you had leprosy, whether you were a tax-collector, whether you were from a different ethnic group, whether you were a prostitute, he kept saying; "No matter what you've done! No matter where you've been, God loves you, and thinks you're amazing."

The religious authorities of the time didn't like it because he kept breaking the rules that they had created. Indeed, the rules that they made a profit from.

Jesus kept saying to them, 'your understanding of God's love is too small!'

It all came to a head when Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem to pray but found the religious authorities were running a business based on people's longing for God. Jesus turned over the tables of the temple bank - and drove out the animals that were for sale with a whip.

He had gone one step too far…it's one thing to say God loves you…it's another to say to the authorities you are corrupt and need to change.

Within one week they had arranged for his death, end of story?

Early on the Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found it empty. In the dialogue that followed there is a really important piece for us that offers great hope.

Mary was looking for Jesus as he had been and because of this did not recognise him standing right in front of her. 

Even though she knew his voice, his walk, his face, Mary did not recognise him…she thought he was the gardener! It was not until Jesus called her name that she realised that her friend and teacher had been restored to new life.

The insight of course is that new life looks different, and often we do not recognise it when it comes. But new life can come. New life will come…if we're up for it! 

In my lifetime, conflicts that seemed impossible to resolve have found resolution: for new life has come to Northern Ireland where for more than one hundred years Catholics and Protestants killed each other because of the difference in their religion.

New life has come to South Africa - for the institutionalised discrimination of apartheid has been dismantled and people of all racial backgrounds are now full citizens in the Republic of South Africa.

Inspired by these we can pray for, we can work towards, we can advocate on behalf of, new life in the conflicts of our time: I think particularly of Syria, and the violence of current terrorism.

However, new life is not just for people and places far away. New life is here in the midst of the tough stuff of our own lives.

When relationships breakdown between friends - new life will come! When we get made redundant and we can't find a new job - new life will come!  When the rains don't come and we don't know how we're going to pay the bills - new life will come! When a family member gets sick and we don't know if they're going to make it - new life will come! When someone we love dies and we know life will never be the same without them - new life will come!

The Easter story reminds us powerfully each year that, in the midst of endings, and the really tough stuff of life - in God's grace, new life will come. It will look different. It will be different…but it will come."  

The Right Reverend Cameron Venables
Bishop for the Western Region