Easter Message from the ECCT Bishops: "Claiming Alleluia"

Dear Companions in Christ,

Happy Easter! Blessings on this most Holy of Days! The story of the Resurrection of Jesus claims our day, and our lives! Alleluia! We claim and proclaim Alleluia!

We claim the truth of the Resurrection in the honest light of our present stories. What a week we have had. What a Holy Week! Our journey to the cross this year has included our grief at the death of our brother Jack Spaeth, faithful servant to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut for decades, while the same day we watched the historic Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris become engulfed in flames. We hold these two losses and countless others as we journey to the cross witnessing the death of our Lord on Good Friday. Our stories mingling with Christ’s story, our tears a mixture of emotions for the past and for our present as well.

But our faith is an Easter faith! Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead! The tomb is empty, the hope is true! God is the God of compassion and new life and we claim that joy! We see it in the resurrection of our Lord! We know it when we think about our dear friend Jack Spaeth now embraced in the arms of the God he served so well. We know it in the reality that Notre Dame, a Cathedral that has held the prayers of countless pilgrims from around the world for centuries, faithful men and women praying to the God of resurrection, will be restored and have new life.

Claiming Alleluia is an audacious act of life in the face of death. We are to claim such life in our own lives and then share it with others. Mary at the tomb, believing in the truth of the resurrection went and told others what she had seen and heard. Our Alleluias must do the same! Proclaiming Alleluia in word and action, speaking out against injustice and binding up the broken-hearted.

The world needs our Alleluia. God is calling us to claim it and proclaim it! The tomb is empty. New life is real. How shall you claim and proclaim this glorious truth?

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!

The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas                                     The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens

Bishop Diocesan                                                      Bishop Suffragan

Image: (c) 2014 He Qi, Used with permission