Date: April 2, 2024
Finally, Lent comes to an end. We have walked the journey of Holy Week. We have watched as our Savior suffers and dies. And we have finally been given permission again to celebrate in the hope of the resurrection – we can say, once again, Alleluia.
It was Rowan Williams who writes challengingly about the Easter season. He makes the powerful point that we can “enjoy” Lent because we get the world is broken and we are fragile. All of this is familiar and makes sense of our experience of ourselves and of the world. Then Easter comes along. Suddenly, we get the reminder that our state of brokenness can be healed; the world can be transformed; and we are intended to be agents of change and of hope. Easter is God’s assertion that the world need not be broken and painful. And we are part of the Church that needs to do the hard work of bringing about change.
So, welcome everyone to the Easter season. It is a season of hard work. Welcome to the challenge of Easter.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary