15 April 2025
The Right Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Chelmsford has written and recorded a message for the Easter season.
As we approach our celebration of Easter, amidst some deeply unsettling times in the world and in the life of our Church, I have found myself once again identifying with the experiences of the disciples during that first Easter. The unfolding events confounded their expectations of who Jesus was and how the Kingdom of God would come.
For some today, there may well be echoes of deeply cherished hopes and beliefs being shaken. What we believed to be certain, now less clear. Yet, hard as it might be, I wonder if this is a good place to dwell, including for the Church. In anxious times, it can be tempting to cling to certainties, in our beliefs and ways of being. Certainty is seductive and comforting, and yet – perhaps surprisingly - it can also stifle faith.
Recently, I watched the Oscar winning movie, Conclave, and was struck by these words of the protagonist played by Ralph Fiennes: “Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”
Alongside our common beliefs which are the bedrock of our faith, there will be many areas where we believe slightly different things about God, or God’s will for us. That is part of the beauty of our diversity as the body of Christ; it is how we strengthen and challenge one another. It is also a call for humility, as none of us can claim, on our own, to know the mind of God.
To live with uncertainty may be challenging and uncomfortable, as it was for the early disciples, but it can also create precious space for faith to grow and for connection with others to be strengthened. To hold even deeply treasured beliefs with a sense of openness and to acknowledge that ‘I may be wrong’, is a recognition that only in community can we encounter the fullness of God. In this we commit afresh to valuing one another even as we continue our journey of faith and discovery, sometimes through deserts of uncertainty.
And so, while we long for the fresh dawning of Easter Day, and for our hopes to be revealed, may we bear one another gently, be quick to forgive, and above all pray for each other, and for a renewed appreciation of all that we learn from one another as we walk the way of faith together.
Can I wish you all a very happy and blessed Easter.
