11th April, 2021.
​
My dear friends,

I expect that like me, you were very saddened to hear of the death of Prince Philip on Friday. I had hoped that His Royal Highness would celebrate his hundredth birthday, but unfortunately it was not to be. Prince Philip leaves a rich and inspiring legacy of service.
​
I am sure you will join me in remembering Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family in your prayers. Below are some prayers which have been issued for our use at the time.
With my prayers and warmest good wishes,

                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
Blessed are you, Lord our God, lover of souls:
you uphold us in life and sustain us in death:
to you be glory and praise for ever!
For the darkness of this age is passing away
as Christ the bright and morning star
brings to his saints the light of life.
As you give light to those in darkness, who walk in the shadow of death,
so remember in your kingdom your faithful servant
PHILIP, Duke of Edinburgh,
that death may be for him the
gate to life and to unending fellowship with you;
where with your saints you live and reign,
one in the perfect union of love,
now and for ever. Amen.
 
Eternal God, our maker and redeemer, grant us,
with your servant PHILIP, Duke of Edinburgh,
and all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion and glorious resurrection:
that, in the last day, when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
 
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of thy glory and dominion,
​world without end. Amen.
EASTER 2 – 11th APRIL 2021
​
Gospel: St John, chapter 20, verses 19-21
When we read the Gospels, we have the benefit of hindsight. It wasn’t so clear at the time. When we read the various accounts in the four Gospels about what happened after the Resurrection, the word ‘confusion’ springs to mind.
​
            The disciples had all abandoned Christ in the garden of Gethsemane on Maundy Thursday night. Indeed, Peter had crept back into Jerusalem, only to deny him three times; and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him, had committed suicide. Only St John had come back, to keep Christ company at the foot of the cross on Good Friday. Christ’s disciples, his Mother, and their womenfolk, were, we should say these days, traumatized by what they had seen, done and experienced. The carpenter from Nazareth, whom they had come to recognize as the Messiah, the Son of God, had been cruelly and shamefully put to death – and they hadn’t been able to stop it.

            I remember the first time I saw someone die, there was a great sense of the soul leaving the body. One minute he was alive – unconscious, but still alive – and then, after a last breath, he was quite clearly dead, and the body he had inhabited was an empty shell. The disciples, who saw far more of death than most of us, knew that once you are dead, you are dead. The loving, redemptive work of God seemed to them to have been extinguished by the wickedness of man. No wonder their thoughts were not quite straight. Christ had spoken to them of being put to death and rising on the third day, but all that had been forgotten.

            Then came the Resurrection. A series of tantalising experiences. First the womenfolk had a vision of angels inside the empty tomb. Then Mary Magdalen, who had remained behind after they had fled, saw the Risen Lord outside the tomb. Next there was the strange business of Christ’s appearance to Clopas and his friend – rather distant followers of his – on the way to Emmaus. They recognized him in the breaking of the bread – which in itself says something to us about the meaning of the Eucharist – and then he had vanished from before their eyes.

            We need to remember that the disciples were not together. They had fled in different directions for fear of their lives, some back to Galilee.

            As the rumours of Christ’s resurrection began to spread, so it seems that most of them reassembled behind a locked door in Jerusalem to discuss this turn of events. Remember that up until now Christ seems only to have appeared to people on the periphery. Suddenly, Christ appeared amongst them and greeted them, ‘Peace be with you.’ And he gave them power to forgive sins.

We see here some of the characteristics of a Resurrection body: Christ could suddenly appear in a locked room, and yet his was a proper body. Christ’s body was not merely resuscitated, for then he would still have to die. His body was transformed by the Resurrection.

The disciples were overjoyed by this meeting. Christ had risen from the dead. They began dimly to perceive that God’s love had triumphed over evil.

But Thomas, one of the disciples, hadn’t been with them. When he joined them, he responded gloomily to their cries of ‘We have seen the Lord.’ ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,’ he said, ‘and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

Thomas has been called ‘Doubting Thomas’ on account of this remark, I suspect rather unfairly. He was no more doubting than the others had previously been. He was confused, and probably clinically depressed. He never said he didn’t want to believe, only that in that instant it was difficult.

A week later, the Risen Christ appeared once again amongst the disciples. This time Thomas was with them. To his embarrassment, Christ invited Thomas to put his finger into his side and believe.
A few years ago whilst visiting an art gallery in Bologna, I chanced upon the most disgusting sixteenth century painting showing Thomas poking his finger right into the wound in Christ’s side, painted with gory biological accuracy. I felt quite queasy! Of course, if you read the Gospel carefully, it never says that Thomas took up Christ’s offer. ‘My Lord and my God,’ exclaimed Thomas, fully accepting and confessing Christ’s divinity, as we should. ‘Have you believed because you have seen me,’ asked Jesus, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
The Gospels give us accounts of Christ’s resurrection appearances up until his Ascension. Christ appeared to his followers and he used them to spread the news of his Resurrection. At the end of today’s Gospel, St John wrote: ‘these [things] are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’

We might be tempted to wish that we could have seen the Resurrection, to have touched and heard Christ. But we live by faith. We, in our way, meet the Risen Christ in prayer, in the lives of other Christians, in the faces of the suffering and marginalised, and supremely in the words of the Gospels and the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist.

‘Blessed are those,’ Jesus said to Thomas, ‘who have not seen, and yet come to believe.’