An Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop
Diocesan Press Service. February 6, 1975 [75049]
the Rt. Rev. John M. Allin
The Easter message proclaims the good news of the conquest over sin and death. Sin separates. Death destroys. Sin separates us from one another. Sin separates us from God. Sin is the sting of death.
The source of Christian faith is the power of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The keynote of Christian faith is that God raised Christ Jesus to life after death by crucifixion. Separating sin was overcome by reconciling love. Destructive death is displaced by love renewing life. The barrier of final separation has been breached. God, through Christ, has opened the way to life and reunion to all who faithfully follow the Christian way.
Christian conversion, the turning from sin and death, occurs to those who believe Jesus was raised to life again after his death on the cross.
The need to be loved and the fear of separation and annihilation are powerful dynamics in human experience. Humanitarian sympathies and appreciation of human potential are strong motives. The concept of human dignity and the ideal of justice do stimulate human endeavors for good. Lacking the hope rooted in the faithful witness of the Easter message, however, and with no experience of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, there is insufficient motivation to live each day with the promise of eternity. Lacking an experience of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, eternal existence becomes a devastating threat. The peace of annihilation at least offers an escape from despair and loneliness, from frustration and conflict, even if potential is never fulfilled nor justice realized.
The Easter message is that Jesus Christ offers to all who believe him the way to truth and life wherein fulfillment and acceptance, justice and peace are found. Believing him, and in him, is to respond to him, to obey him, to follow him, to grow in his love, to experience his power. By his power comes the motivation to let our sinful ways die and be reborn, regenerated, converted to him and in him. Jesus Christ would gather all into communion with God and would empower us to share that blessed community with God and would empower us to share that blessed community wherein the hopes of eternity are fulfilled and the threats of isolation and destruction are forever removed.
This is the hope the Easter message proclaims. He who was dead is alive again. Hear! Believe! Respond! Be filled with hope and know his love and peace now. Those who know his love and peace are prepared for eternal life.
JOHN M. ALLIN
Presiding Bishop/Episcopal Church