Thinking Anew – The end proved to be the beginning

Last June in the UK it was reported that a group of well-known personalities including the actor Stephen Fry had launched what was described as the “first ever annual Celebration Day to remember loved ones we have lost.” One of the founders, Julia Samuel, a London-based psychotherapist specialising in grief, said: “We’ve been discussing this idea for a number of years now and, given the past couple of years with the pandemic, now felt like the right time to launch Celebration Day, to celebrate the legacies of those we’ve loved and who we miss. In a non-stop world, keeping as connected as we might like to the lives of those no longer with us can feel increasingly difficult. We all see Celebration Day as a remedy to this.”

Grief has been described as love with nowhere to go; it can be a very lonely place. When someone dies there is often a gathering of family and friends providing support and comfort but no matter how generous and loving that inevitably fades as life moves on for people while the numbing pain of permanent loss remains with those most affected. A poem by the 19th century English cleric, Canon Scott Holland, sometimes read at funerals encourages people to see beyond grief to the next world and thereby find comfort. However the opening line - “Death is nothing at all …” – has always troubled me. The loss of someone we love, can never be described as “nothing at all” – it is awful. Even Jesus wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus.

The claim that the UK event was “the first ever annual Celebration Day to remember loved ones we have lost” struck me as odd given that in November each year the church does that and more on All Saints Day and All Souls Day. And not only then but in every celebration of the Holy Communion we remember those who, in Newman’s words, “we have loved long since and lost awhile.” And it is a positive remembering with a beyond dimension informed by the Easter hope. We are in good company when we ask questions that hope as we are reminded in tomorrow’s gospel. Thomas isn’t only a doubter, he’s a non-believer and those who are now trying to persuade him that Jesus was in some form alive had had their own doubts earlier. The women who found the empty tomb for example had gone there to complete the burial rituals and finding an empty tomb thought someone had stolen the body or relocated it; many of the disciples were terrified of the authorities and went into hiding believing that all was lost; two others headed home to Emmaus – tired and disillusioned. The notion that the Jesus they knew to be dead was alive which seemed at first to be ridiculous would become a belief worth suffering and dying for. Fr Henri Nouwen writes: “The friends of Jesus saw him and heard him only a few times after the Easter morning, but their lives were completely changed. What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning; what seemed to be the cause for fear proved to be a cause for courage; what seemed to be defeat proved to be victory; and what seemed to be the basis for despair proved to be the basis for hope. Suddenly a wall becomes a gate, and although we are not able to say with much clarity or precision what lies beyond the gate, the tone of all that we do and say on our way to the gate changes drastically.”

Easter does not in any way diminish grief, but our Easter faith adds a dimension of hope which is not man-made, but God given in the person of Jesus Christ in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation. Easter allows us to grieve “not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of (God’s) mercy in the past and waiting for a joyful reunion in heaven.”