For a new day has dawned and the way to life stands open

For a new day has dawned and the way to life stands open

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Alleluia, Christ is risen!
He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

A happy and blessed Easter to everyone.

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We have come at last to the great day of Easter. We’ve been building up to this day throughout the season of Lent, and especially the last two weeks of Passiontide, and on to Palm Sunday, through Holy Week, to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday to this glorious Easter Day. Today we can rejoice with Christians through all of the past twenty centuries, because our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has broken the chains of death and hell, and risen to a glorious new life.

We can look at the world in a fresh light today; for a new day has dawned and the way to life stands open.

The Church can be filled with fresh faith and hope; for a new day has dawned and the way to life stands open.

Easter is my favourite season of the Christian year. With Christmas we seem to rush headlong into it, never pausing to draw a breath. But with Easter, we build up to it slowly, we take the time to really prepare for it throughout Lent. And it hasn’t, quite, been overtaken by the commercialism and cynicism that haunts the Christmas season. Yes, we have the Chocolate Easter Eggs on sale virtually from Christmas onwards; but there isn’t the same mad spending spree, with huge debts mounting up for people, that we have at Christmas. There are signs of new life everywhere, at least in this hemisphere — I spent a wonderful couple of hours looking at the new life that’s growing in nature last week.

But there’s something far more important than all of that: Easter is also absolutely central to what the Christian faith is all about. Without Easter and the resurrection it symbolises, Christianity is nothing. St Paul tells us: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14). The whole of Christianity rests on this fact, that Christ has defeated the chains of hell and death, and was raised to new life. That is what we are celebrating today, this brand new day that has dawned.

May you know the warmth of Christ’s love this Easter, for a new day has dawned and the way to life stands open.

God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Additional Collect for Easter Day
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

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Alleluia, Christ is risen!
He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

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