When we read when we read the Gospel accounts of the resurrection we note how varied  these experiences were.  There is always a mystery, a greater depth,  new things to uncover about the transformation possible because of  Easter.  If we delve beneath the surface of these Easter encounters, we do not find human strength and resolve ,and certainly no blasts of the trumpet or an elaborate liturgies. Instead we find fragility: people who are often at their lowest point, whose whole world has collapsed. In the case of the disciples it is because they believed Jesus to have disappeared for ever. And for us we always come to an Easter celebration  with pressing questions that we want to put to God’s today .  These questions may not be answered immediately or in the way that we want or expect – but Easter is not about putting a heavenly lid on this earthly experience : it is about interpreting earthly experience  in the light of  Christ.  So it is vital that we bring those questions and trying not to hide behind them amidst all the confidence and triumphalism Easter.

This holding together of life and death , light and darkness , sorrow and joy is one of the reasons why  this piece of work  given to me by my friend Nigel Dwyer  is so important . in his workshop he  produced  an image of the resurrection  in the  symbolic  clarity  and likeness of that  glass egg  but surrounds it  with a crown of thorns . it is all placed on a copper base which  refracts the light  and holds  the reality of that Crown in place . It is almost as if the clear brightness of the light  in the egg  bursts out of  the  dangerous  sharpness  of the  points  on that crown of thorns .

So let  us bring  OUR  questions , our Fears,  are vulnerabilities into  the Easter narrative . we are offered freedom to accept  and live  God is risen life  of encounter,  renewal and  forgiveness . This piece of art reminds me that  Christ  encounters us all  in our fragility  and in our love  today  and every day .