An Easter Message from Bishop Hollingsworth

April 18, 2011

Last week the willow trees across the diocese reached what I consider to be their most beautiful color, the light green that comes when their leaves are just beginning to emerge. It only lasts for a few days, at most. When they foliate more fully, the color darkens, but for just a short time they radiate a gentle green that is unique to them. It is my favorite color in nature, and I delight every year when it briefly makes its appearance and signals the new life that will soon spring up in daffodils and forsythia, pussy willows and crocuses. At this latitude of the northern hemisphere, the weeping willow and the cycle of nature in general support our anticipation of the Easter event; they make it easy to think of newness and resurrection, they provide a comforting and comfortable image of life after death. In some ways it seems as if the seasonal cycle of the natural world obliges us with an Eastertide spiritual aid in “sense-surround.” It provides for us a relatively uncomplicated connection to the Resurrection, the way Easter eggs and baby chicks do.

But what about Sendai Province and Haiti—where are the signs of new life there? What about Afghanistan and Gaza—how do we understand resurrection in such war zones? In countless public school classrooms across a state facing an eight billion dollar deficit, and in foreclosed neighborhoods and shuttered factories from Youngstown to Toledo, what does the empty tomb of Jesus mean in these places? What weight does Mary Magdalene’s claim “I have seen the Lord” carry in these situations? Is there something beyond the willow’s verdant hue and the altar’s lilies that speaks out of the harsher realities of life, and speaks to the harder experiences of living?

Of course there is. God’s loving response to the painful suffering of life and the difficult losses we face is as faithful as the returning blossoms of spring. It is you. When you speak truth to power, you are the risen Christ. When you attend to the injured and the ailing, you are the risen Christ. When you advocate for and sacrifice on behalf of the one who has less, you are the risen Christ. When you place your cloak around the shoulders of the one in need, you are the risen Christ. When you offer God’s love in the places where it is yearned for but not easily recognized, you are the risen Christ.

You are the willow’s green and the forsythia’s bloom, the lily’s splendor and the empty tomb. You are the light of Christ. Thanks be to God.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.
Bishop of Ohio