The key Easter lessons for society at a time of crisis – Archbishop of York

BEWILDERING calamities are nothing new. Nor is the question “Why is this happening to us?” In the 1st century AD, Jesus was challenged to explain one shocking fatality which must have been dominating local news.
Dr John SentamuDr John Sentamu
Dr John Sentamu
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It was the gruesome slaughter of Galilean worshippers whose blood was mixed with their sacrifices by the despotic Governor Pontius Pilate. Why? Were those victims worse sinners than everyone else?

No, said Jesus. Nor were the 18 people who were killed when a tower fell on them. And Jesus followed that with a comment which probably offended many who heard it: you who are asking the question had better watch out.

Dr John Sentamu today writes his final Easter message for The Yorkshire Post as Archbishop of York.Dr John Sentamu today writes his final Easter message for The Yorkshire Post as Archbishop of York.
Dr John Sentamu today writes his final Easter message for The Yorkshire Post as Archbishop of York.
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Unless you repent, you too will perish. Earlier, he had urged them to be as adept at reading the signs of the times as they were at forecasting the weather.

Like it or not, that’s where we come in. Covid-19 is killing thousands of people, bankrupting businesses, savaging economies and spreading fear throughout the world. Some are suggesting it could be a “divine” response to humanity’s waywardness. What are we to make of it?

The American Friar Richard Rohr offers this penetrating thought: “Right now, I’m trying to take in psychologically, spiritually, and personally, what is God trying to say? When I use that phrase, I’m not saying that God causes suffering to teach us good things. But God uses everything, and if God wanted us to experience global solidarity, I can’t think of a better way.

“We all have access to this suffering, and it bypasses ethnicity, gender, religion and nation. We are in the midst of a highly teachable moment.”

Clergy are having to improvise this Easter due to the coronavirus lockdown.Clergy are having to improvise this Easter due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Clergy are having to improvise this Easter due to the coronavirus lockdown.
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Thoughtful people are coming to similar conclusions, prompted by their enforced isolation. They realise that the current emergency is more than an unpleasant pause, while we wait for normal service to be resumed as soon as possible. It’s a wake-up call.

Life will never be the same again.

Wartime Britons were faced with the question “Is your journey really necessary?” We must ask it of ourselves, routinely and regularly from now on.

The airline industry, which was already in difficulties, will be drastically pruned. The burgeoning luxury cruise sector has been badly hit and is unlikely to recover fully. It means, sadly, that many employees will have to find new professions.

Dr John Sentamu is the outgoing Archbishop of York.Dr John Sentamu is the outgoing Archbishop of York.
Dr John Sentamu is the outgoing Archbishop of York.

The plus side is that the skies and seas will be less polluted, and our carbon footprint reduced. Greta Thunberg could easily say “Yippee! We could reduce global warming by taking drastic actions”.

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We’re reconsidering our priorities. The 2020 Tour de Yorkshire and the Women’s Race have been cancelled. Peter Box, Chair of Welcome to Yorkshire, explained: “The race is a great spectacle, but we all know that the health and well-being of everyone across the region, and the country, is frankly more important than a sporting event.”

We are also discovering that 24/7 shopping is an unnecessary luxury. Buying as a leisure activity has come to an abrupt halt. We can now distinguish what is vital from what isn’t. The Ten Commandments urge us to take a break from non-essential activities for one day in every seven.

It wouldn’t be difficult to restore a healthy Sunday, which makes space for worship and the crucial inner-reflection which, with time on our hands, we’re rediscovering away from the clamour of the high street.

The Tour de Yorkshire is a coronavirus casualty.The Tour de Yorkshire is a coronavirus casualty.
The Tour de Yorkshire is a coronavirus casualty.

The Ten Commandments, by the way, are for everybody – not just those who choose to opt in. I was quite surprised when I visited Tonga in 2015 to find that Sunday was a total shut-down of everything, apart from the emergency services which were allowed to carry out their work. The rest either walked on foot to church or stayed at home. I have never experienced such a voice of calm anywhere.

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Another side effect of the pandemic, dreadful as it is, should make us realise that we have been chasing fantasies; life could be better when lived differently.

In a new book, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks traces the route of a moral relapse which has put individualism and self-esteem in place of what is good for all of us: “I” has displaced “We”. The selfie rules. But he argues the “I” can have no identity unless it belongs to a family and other groups, what Desmond Tutu calls ‘Ubuntu’ – “I am a person through other persons. I am because we are”.

The coronavirus crisis is helping to reintroduce a sense of belonging. All over the world phonelines and the internet are carrying the heartfelt message, “How are you?”, from distant acquaintances as well as friends and family. An elderly clergyman told me that new neighbours, whom he hardly knew, simultaneously dropped notes through his letterbox one day, giving their mobile phone numbers and offering help.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks shows how individualism has infected business. He suggests that ‘markets without morals’ caused the banking disaster of 2007/8. Greed dominated banking then and it still does. But it can’t continue. When the immediate crisis is over, there will be a colossal bill to be paid. That’s strangely reassuring, for it proves that we are prepared to spend trillions to safeguard as many lives as possible.

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The CEO of Shell took a 50 per cent cut in his wages last year after seven employees had died and revenue had shrunk. It sounded altruistic. I shook my head when it transpired that it still amounted to £8.7m. But that’s peanuts compared with the boss’s salary of Bet365. She paid herself £323m last year. That would be a ludicrous sum – even as a reward for inventing an anti-viral drug. It’s actually a recompense for running a gambling company and equates to a year’s pay for more than 100,000 nurses. Gambling trades on human weakness and is a blight on a civilised society.

Business doesn’t have to be like that. Yorkshire-based Julian Richer, founder of the nationwide Richer Sounds chain of hi-fi shops, and regular winner of the ’retailer of the year’ award, gives 15 per cent of his profits and a lot of his time to charity. Now he has handed over control of the company to its employees. He writes that “treating people well is good for business”.

Today is Good Friday. It represents the worst and the best aspects of human history. The worst, because it reveals the depths to which we can descend. It’s the day Christ was crucified by a conspiracy of religion, fake news, politics and populism. The best, because it’s God’s assurance of his unqualified commitment to a rebellious human race. God is the God of life; his anger is his refusal to see darkness and evil consume his creation. His love is “as fierce as death”. In Jesus, everything finds liberation.

Sunday is Easter Day, and despite the necessary curtailment of services in Church this year, it represents God’s triumph over evil, for all people and all time, demonstrated by Christ’s resurrection. Light a candle and put it safely in your window.

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In between Good Friday and Easter is Holy Saturday, marking the pause between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection when, humanly speaking, he rested in the tomb where he had been buried. It identifies him with those who had died before him. We reflect on it with gratitude, and anticipation of the joy to come. This year, we can turn it to direct advantage by discarding our old life like a worn-out chrysalis, and starting anew. That’s what Christian Baptism signifies, and Holy Saturday was a traditional day for it.

One day, our current predicament will be over and an antidote to this dreadful virus will be found. But it will be followed by other pandemics.

As Patron of Antibiotic Research UK, I have been reliably informed that most of our antibiotics are losing their effectiveness in treating bacterial infections. Primarily because the bacteria which are older than the human race are fighting back and unless we find an effective replacement, many infections will remain untreatable.

Bill Bryson, in his new book about the human body, explains that of the hundreds of thousands of viruses which are known to exist, only 263 species are thought to affect humans.

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He wrote it before the coronavirus turned up. His research shows that although our knowledge of how our bodies function is growing apace, there’s even more we don’t know. Why, we are still ignorant of what causes yawns and hiccups!

But we don’t lie awake worrying about them. I’m reminded of the late Peter Berger’s book, A Rumour of Angels, which is an antidote to pessimism. He asks us to picture a child waking from a bad dream and crying out for its mother: “She has the power to banish the chaos and restore the benign shape of the world ... she will speak or sing to the child ... ‘Don’t be afraid, everything is in order, everything is all right’.”

Berger challenges us to accept that this is either a lie, or a statement about reality.

Rabbi Hugo Gryn, in his book The Beauty and the Horror: searching for God in a Suffering World, wrote: “People sometimes ask me ‘Where was God in Auschwitz?’ I believe God was there himself – violated and blasphemed. The real question is ‘Where was man in Auschwitz?’”

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The 18th century poet and anti-slavery campaigner, William Cowper, was disturbed by terrible mental illness for most of his life. All but one of his six siblings died in infancy and his mother died giving birth. He was bullied at school, though clever.

I’ll conclude by asking you to consider two verses of one of Cowper’s hymns, which begins “God moves in a mysterious way”. They carry a hidden Easter message:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flow’r.

Dr John Sentamu is 
the Archbishop of York.

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James Mitchinson

Editor

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