#BTEasterMessage – We’re called upon to respond in faith

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Easter Message: Bishop Michael Maxwell’s

Dear Barbadians and visitors to our beautiful island, I greet you in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, on this glorious Resurrection Day – this beautiful Easter Sunday!

Today we join with fellow Christians across the world to celebrate this significant festival and season in the Christian calendar that commemorates God’s mighty act of raising His Son Jesus Christ back to life after His brutal death and solemn burial.

As we celebrate Easter this year, our world is still fighting the Covid-19 Pandemic, coping with the escalating effects of Climate Change and, more recently, bracing itself for the possibility of a third World War that could be sparked by the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.

Moreover, as we consider the national circumstances in which we currently observe this important Christian festival, we are reminded that our sweet, beloved island Barbados continues to contend with Constitutional Reform as a new Republic facing longstanding social challenges.

We are ever conscious of our island’s persistent water scarcity, the existing threats to our food security and the escalating cost of health care.

At the community level, we daily experience the challenges of praedial larceny, the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases and mental illness, an ever-increasing cost of living, and a high unemployment rate.

It is within this context that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour today.

Notably my friends, the difficult circumstances in which we commemorate God raising Jesus to life today, closely approximate the context of that first Easter morn when, after the ordeal of Christ’s trial and crucifixion, our God, our creator, our source, raised Him to new life!

The backdrop to that first Easter illustrates that our loving God is always at work – even in the midst of the negative experiences of our lives – to ensure that righteousness, joy and peace triumph over evil, sorrow and pain we endure.

Therefore, we should feel encouraged today being mindful of, and forever holding fast to, the truth that our God has the power to give newness of life not simply following our physical death but also as we experience death-like situations in our lives from time to time.

The event of our Lord’s resurrection points clearly to the fact that God has the desire and power to raise us from the direst circumstances.

He can take us to a better place in life – even when it seems that we are experiencing the worst of times as the last two years may have seemed to some of us.

If only we but release our lives and its worries, trusting and allowing Him to guide and deliver us from all the difficulties we face from day to day, we can be assured that He will enable us to realise our true purpose and reach our highest potential in this precious gift called life.

Again, my friends, it is because of Christ’s resurrection that we can have the blessed assurance that if God has brought us to the challenge and allowed us to experience it that He surely knows how to bring us through it and can raise us up once we continue to trust, rely on and give Him thanks in all things.

The truth of Jesus’ resurrection affirms that when life has been shattered through tragedy and pain, the only sure hope and deliverance for the future lies in what God alone can do when we respond in faith to Him!

If then, as individuals and as a nation, we desire to be empowered to overcome whatever challenges confront us and be given the victory, we ought, as Jesus our Lord did, to commend our spirit and the spirit of our nation into the loving, powerful, steadfast hand of God; that He may raise us up, despite the circumstances, to be more than we ever thought or could be in our own strength.

This is the salient point of the Resurrection message for us to take and reflect on at this time. Let us be ever mindful of the importance of commending our lives and our nation to God, as we press on into the future to be the nation God desires us to be as a people.

In conclusion dear friends, I wish you, on behalf of the Anglican Church of Barbados, a safe, blessed and peaceful Easter Sunday and season 2022.

Michael Maxwell is the Anglican Bishop of Barbados.