Moderator’s Easter Message

Moderator of the Church of Scotland Rt Rev John Chalmer’s Easter message:

I have found it particularly poignant to have followed the themes of Christian Aid, posted daily on our website, which bring us now to Easter Day.

I began our journey through Lent 40 days ago, when I commented that “when I see a child die because she slakes her thirst at a stagnant pond, I could not separate the relative value of the water that flows from the taps in my house and the living water which Christ speaks of in the story of the woman at the well in John chapter 4.”

And while it is my greatest delight at this Eastertide to celebrate the resurrection and wish you all the joy and hope that new life in Christ brings us, I cannot get away from the praying for and working for the day when women and men and little children across the world get the opportunity to enjoy, in full, their life before death.

But that, of course, is what the power of Easter invokes in us. I discover on Easter Day what life in all its fullness means. I see the transformation that takes place in the lives of the women who discover the empty tomb; I enjoy the way in which Cleopas and his friend find a new purpose when the stranger on the road beside them turns out to be the risen Christ walking with them and I just love the way doubting Thomas finds his faith renewed in the company of the other disciples.

But what’s it all about and what’s it all for?

Well here’s what it does for me. Because I believe in this life in all its fullness I want everyone else to experience it and to share it. So, it makes me I rage when I see social exclusion, it makes me angry that we don’t put enough effort into peace-making and it fills me with indignation when I see a mother who can’t feed her child.

This year I’ve seen what war does to people and I’ve seen the way in which the poor are left endlessly poor.

I therefore have two great hopes at Easter – the first: that the poorest of the poor will enjoy the new life of the Kingdom ahead of people like me and the second: that inspired by our Easter faith Christians across the world will become ever more passionate in their efforts to see that the least and the last get a chance to enjoy life before death.