RISING TO NEW LIFE

By using age-old symbols we tell each other in the Easter night that the darkness of death is not the end. Out of stones that can’t do anything by themselves, we strike fire. It gives us warmth and protects us from freezing. Water, which is necessary to survive, comes as a blessing over us. And the Easter candle rises out of the water as a sign of new life.

The Sunday after the first full moon in Spring, when nature begins a new phase in life, we celebrate Easter. Nature, that seemed dead, shows that there is new life.

That new life is well understood by the women. On the boundary of death and life they are the people who not only stand under the cross, they also live in the expectation of the resurrection.

They rush ahead of the awaiting and hesitating apostles to the grave. They, the bearers of new life, know that death does not have the last word. Dying and living belong to each other. Easter makes us think of the exodus of the Jewish people out of thelandofEgypt. The celebration of the liberation out of slavery.

People move out of areas where their life cannot bloom. Whereby a marching through water is necessary in order to reach the other shore and there get the time to grow towards their destination. On arrival there the water of the riverJordanmarks the transition to a new way of life, where walls fall over and the future lies open. Also there, it is a woman who clears the way towards a new future.

Easter invites us to become new people who look forward towards meeting God.

Bro. Kees Gordijn