Bishop of Ripon: Easter’s story and the true triumph of life in Yorkshire

TODAY is Saturday (no surprises there), and for me this particular Saturday always feels a bit odd: the in-between day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when I am left twiddling my thumbs, and eyeing up the chocolate egg for tomorrow.
Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.
Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.

I suspect that this feeling isn’t shared by many people, indeed a recent letter in The Yorkshire Post suggested we’d be better off without religion (‘‘Better with no religion’’, April 10).

Its reasons weren’t altogether clear, though it seemed to have something to do with the rather dire state of global politics. I beg to disagree. The very next day, the front of many national and local newspapers presented the first photograph of a black hole. ‘‘We have seen what we thought was unseeable,’’ said Dr Sheperd Doelman from Harvard University in the United States.

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The traditional Easter cross is erected on Otley Chevin.The traditional Easter cross is erected on Otley Chevin.
The traditional Easter cross is erected on Otley Chevin.

Subsequent days saw various comments reflecting on what the photograph represented (and numerous theories about what it all meant). The statistics on its distance and size were mind-boggling, so much so that I could only stare at the image with awe and wonder.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, a day when Christians celebrate Jesus’s resurrection. It’s a pivotal part of the Christian faith: you can’t have Jesus’s death without his resurrection, and you can’t have his resurrection without his death.

We don’t (of course) have a photograph of the event, though I was invited to ‘‘view’’ the resurrection at an education conference in 2018 by way of a virtual reality experience.

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A symbol of hope - the traditional Easter cross on Otley Chevin. Photo by James Hardisty.A symbol of hope - the traditional Easter cross on Otley Chevin. Photo by James Hardisty.
A symbol of hope - the traditional Easter cross on Otley Chevin. Photo by James Hardisty.

When I donned the goggles all I could see was the inside of a cave, and then a bright flash of light, and that was it. I wouldn’t call it disappointing, but it didn’t inspire me very much. Easter Sunday is much more than an event to be captured on film.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been profoundly inspired by two experiences: firstly an Easter journey in Brompton-on-Swale Church of England Primary School, where every class presented an aspect of the Easter story.

Crowds of parents and families walked their way around the different classrooms, which included a stint outside for the Garden of Gethsemane scene, where Jesus prays while his friends the disciples struggle to stay awake. The children were telling the story, making it their own, with the teachers encouraging and supporting (and one producing an exceptionally fine crowing cockerel sound for the scene where Peter denied he ever knew Jesus). It was inspiring.

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Secondly, my Holy Week journey started last Sunday (Palm Sunday) with a pilgrimage walk from Buckden to Hubberholme deep in the Dales. It was absolutely freezing cold, but a healthy crowd gathered on the Village Green in Buckden, and off we set with Maggie ‘‘the donkey’’ (a very fine pony) leading the way, accompanied by the children of The Playhouse, a local church drama group who stopped at various points to dramatically retell the story of Jesus’s final journey into Jerusalem.

Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.
Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.

Maggie disappeared at one point, taken into a farm for a bit of a walk round while we stopped to sing, but we soon found her, and off we set again. By the time we arrived at St Michael and All Angels’ church in Hubberholme, the crowd had grown, and the little church was packed to the rafters with all creatures great and small.

Our service included brief moments of silence, and I was impressed with the panting dogs who even managed to join in, even if just for a few seconds before beginning their breathless tunes again.

Further reading of some of the articles about the black hole photograph (my favourite being a description of it as a giant spaghetti hoop on a universe of toast), revealed that in fact it wasn’t a photograph of an actual black hole after all, rather an image of its ‘‘event horizon’’, where an object approaching it passes the point of no return.

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You can’t actually see a black hole, because no light can escape from it. So what was I looking at then? Not so much seeing the unseeable, because the unseeable can’t be seen. I still don’t really understand, which brings me back to my initial reaction of awe and wonder. A couple of weeks ago I was out and about on a farm visit, which included a stint on the ‘‘lambulance’’.

Off we set over the fields checking on the ewes. Some were yet to lamb, some had just lambed and looked rather stunned at the result. On balance, I probably saw more death than life that day (it’s not all a happy ending sadly), but the very last thing I saw was a lamb being born. It came out backwards, and the ewe had to be given some assistance (I will never forget the look on her face as she strained to give birth). That image of new life is one that has remained with me because my response was one of amazement. It happened, and I was there.

At times we can miss the little miracles that happen in our midst every day, the things that we often take for granted. It is true that there are considerable challenges currently facing our region, in its diverse contexts.

The Yorkshire Post has reported on many of them in the past fortnight. But for every difficulty there is a story of hope; the forging and strengthening of our communities, of people who are committed to working collaboratively for the good of us all. The Easter story, far from being a story of failure, is one of messy triumph. Messy because the story is littered with brokenness and confusion; a triumph because life itself proved to be stronger than death, and therein lies our hope.

Happy Easter (almost)!

The Right Reverend Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is the Bishop of Ripon.