LogoNNN
The Norfolk and Norwich Christian community website

Love triumphs over hate

PhilipYoung300Philip Young, Vicar of St Thomas' in Norwich encourages us to celebrate Easter every day and to be in touch with resurrection love.


For the whole of May the church celebrates the resurrection. The triumph of life over death, love over hate, of light over darkness.  

It is good that we take time to celebrate the resurrection as for Christians it is our reason for hope. We need, of course, to celebrate the resurrection every day and the dawning of the day is the best time to remember that each day is the Lord’s Day.

Each day at Morning Prayer we say, ‘The night has passed and the day lies open before us’. This to me confirms our faith that through the resurrection of Jesus all evil has been overcome and that the night of past evil has been overcome by the day of new beginnings.

Light has overcome darkness and, as resurrection people, we are people of the light – ‘the day lies open before us’. In other words the possibilities are wide open for new life and new growth – for growing up into the love of Christ that overcomes the hate that is still around.
 
And what of all the hate and prejudice and ignorance that are still in the world? We have faith that this has all been overcome by the love and openness and knowledge that has been shown to exist in God. Jesus came that we might know that God loves us. Jesus was both God and man and he came to show us too that we are both godly and human and that we need to turn away from darkness and turn towards the light.
 
In the cross and resurrection we see that all the evil in the world is not enough to stop God loving us. In the cross Jesus confronts our HeartPuzzleevil nature by showing us the way of love. He continues loving us even when people hate him and reject him. In the resurrection we see the ultimate triumph of love.
 
This engaging love is what gives us new life. If we embrace it we will experience resurrection and new life ourselves. This is the love that the world needs and is crying out for. We will not overcome dictators and violence by sending more bombs into the situation, we will only be able to overcome the evil in the world by resurrection love, which is also the costly love that was shown by Jesus as he chose the way of suffering and transformation. If we wish to transform the world then we need to use the powerful force of love.
 
We need to die to our selfish needs and rise to the love that includes other people. The human race needs to turn away from violence and hatred and to be in touch with the resurrection love that transforms and renews. There is no way out of a human hell on earth, but by being in touch with the divine love that indwells us all.
 
Will you open yourself up to God’s love and turn away from selfishness and evil?                  

12423 views
To submit a story or to publicise an event please email: web@networknorwich.co.uk