While it is still easter for a couple of weeks in the Church I want to share this slightly adapted reflection from my local vicar:

The doors were locked. The disciples huddled behind them not out of laziness or indifference, but out of fear, real, bodily fear. The world outside was the same world that had crucified their Lord three days earlier. Nothing out there had changed. The powers of empire and religion still held their grip.

Then, into that locked room, the Risen Christ walked, uninvited by circumstances, undeterred by walls, and He spoke peace.

We live in a world that locks its doors. We see it in the anxious scrolling of news feeds, in the quiet dread that has settled over so many communities, in the weight people carry into our churches on a Sunday morning.

The headlines do not read like Easter proclamations. Climate anxiety, geopolitical fracture, economic hardship, the recent floods and even tornado's that have hit New Zealand. The wars and rumours of wars happening in the world and even rumoured genocides. The stone blocking Jesus tomb seems, to many, very much still in place.

But here is what the Resurrection insists upon: Easter is not an escape from the world's suffering. It is the declaration that suffering does not have the last word. Thomas, beloved doubter, is not rebuked, he is met. Christ shows him the wounds. The Risen Lord does not arrive scrubbed clean of Calvary; he arrives bearing it, transformed but real.

This is our calling as Easter people: not to pretend the world is fine, but to be the presence of the Risen Christ within it, breathing peace into locked rooms, showing up for those who cannot yet believe, bearing the wounds of our communities with resurrection hope. We are still full of joy, not because we are naïve, but because we have seen the Lord. And that changes everything. Our job is to Go into the world Carrying that Hope to others, while others may sow violence and hate, we must sow peace and love.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

Alison.