Canada

And so the Spring arrives. Holy Week brings in the promise of New Life.

(Though, honestly, it feels like we are stuck in winter-without-Christmas, and Aslan is nowhere to be found.)

Genuinely my bike is frozen to the ground. B-icicles drip off it. Every morning, I conduct my new Spring routine. I open the window shutters and say -
"Oh look, it's snowing."

I'm thinking of moving somewhere milder. Like Canada.

I love the snow, but on the whole, I love it in winter. I didn't expect to be snowed in on March 23rd when I booked a ticket to the St John Passion in York. I missed carols there at Christmas because of the weather; it never occurred to me that Easter would be worse!

That's wrong, of course.

It's not Easter that's worse, just this wretched weather. And the other day, driving up from the south coast I did play the whole of Bach's St John in the car and revelled in its majesty and glory and wonder.

There is a power in hearing the whole story in one sitting, not simply taking a few verses at a time. I'd love to do a modern Passion - to have music and Scripture readings and poetry that took a couple of hours, but led us through the emotions and helped us reflect and feel and hear and left us bewildered and wrung out and in awe.

There. A project for next year. Or for somewhere else.

And though the snow continues to fall, there are rays of sunshine slipping into my mind because I am speaking on Sunday morning, and leading the service in Calverley, and I am beginning to feel the joy of Easter grip me through the remorseless ice of this very long winter.

Truth will out. Sun will rise. Complaints will cease and joy will flow because (hush - it's too soon - but it's unbearably true - ) He is Risen.

We all lose. We all feel the ice and the cold. We all know it.

And yet every year, this week, these days, and the Sunday at the end of it tower over us to declare -

We all win. Because Christ is triumphant. And because Christ is triumphant, so are we. Break the glass upon the pond, smash the stone that stands over the grave, knit together the broken hearts and warm the frozen, despairing hands. Why look for the living amongst the dead?

He is Risen.

(Maybe Canada can wait.)