Reflection for Easter Day 2022 – Let the Ladies Go (and tell the Good News!)
Well, I should know better, I suppose! My last reflection was a remembering of past Easters – both good and not so good memories.
I could not have anticipated that this one would be spent in isolation – and the subsequent yearning and deep feeling of missing out!
But this is our new normal, and really, why would I expect that everything would automatically go as planned!
Certainly, the women in Luke’s gospel who walked to the tomb in the dawn of that first Easter morning, taking their prepared spices, would not have expected their lives to be completely turned upside down on this day. They had been the only followers to remain at the cross, watching while Jesus drew his last breath. They must have been a sombre but faithful party that early morning as they walked to the burial place, prepared to anoint the body.
But changed their lives were. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them – when confronted with the empty tomb and two dazzlingly-clothed messengers - all suddenly remembered what Jesus had told them while he was still alive.
In that instance, everything changed for them – what had been told had come true – or more aptly – what had been promised had come to pass, had been delivered. No wonder they were initially terrified!
And I suppose you could not blame the ‘apostles’ for their disbelief and dismissal of the women’s ‘idle tale’. But at least one – Peter – was disturbed enough to run to the tomb to discover the amazing truth for himself.
Wherever this Easter finds you - particularly if you are like me with my strong case of FOMO - I pray that this Sunday you feel some of that amazed joy of those first witnesses to the fulfilment of God’s promise.
He is risen indeed!
And in memory of those wonderful women – and all things female and Easter ‘eggy’ – catch the wonderful work of Let the Ladies Go! - the rehoming of laying hens considered ‘spent’ after laying every day for 18 months.
Blessings
Ceri
