A LEAP IN THE DARK
Luyanda is an eight-year old girl who was born blind
and deaf. We allow those two short words to sink in and we realise that two of
the normal doors we have to connect us to the world are tightly closed against
her. Yet when she feels safe, as she often does, she is a happy little girl
secure in her parents’ love. I only feed on scraps of information about her but
there is one story that says it all. When Luyanda meets people she does it by
touch and one day her mother brought her to meet some visitors to the Special
Needs Project. She went round touching each one of the strangers but when she
came back to her mother and touched her she leapt into her arms.
It is a simple story of love conquering huge
disabilities. It is a leap standing for the ways in which people conquer fear
by welcoming the unknown with hope. We have a sense that that taking risks makes
us more human. We “set out without knowing where we are going” (Hebrews 11:8)
and we arrive.
Each year we approach Easter, each in our own way.
Perhaps we note it and enjoy the few days off associated with it. Perhaps we go
to church and try to enter into the suffering, death and rising of Jesus. But
then we return to our world and carry on.
Or perhaps we think of the Luyandas of our world who actually live the
only death and resurrection we are likely to witness. In the Syrias and Yemens
of today there are untold stories of people conquering appalling conditions and
leaping into the arms of hope..
Can Easter make a difference? Or have we so tamed it
with bunnies and eggs? Or even with devotions and prayers? Can Easter penetrate
our tired familiarity and shock us as the women at the tomb and the huddled
group in the upper room were shocked? As Jesus pierced the resigned “we had
hoped” of the two on the way to Emmaus, can he also breach our defences and
open us to what John of the Cross calls the onward rush of God.
It is Easter! That means all is possible. In the
Passion Jesus breaks through the darkness – sin, hatred, exploitation, death –
to the light. Everything is changed. There are now no limits. The impossible
becomes possible. To be human is to make that leap. May he “easter” in us!
9 April 2017 Palm
Sunday A
Matt 21:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-7 Phil
2:6-11 Matt 26:14-27:66
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