wfn.org | ACNS3413 Easter message from the Primus of the Scottish

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3413     |     SCOTLAND	 |     16 APRIL 2003 

Easter message from the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church

[The Scottish Episcopal Church] In an announcement today, the Most Revd Bruce
Cameron, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, said, "This year, it is not
possible to observe the central celebration of the Christian calendar -
Easter - without it being overshadowed by the war in Iraq. The military
action now seems, thank God, to be at an end. But its consequences will be
with us for a long time. 
"The media has brought this war into our homes in a way no other previous
conflict has been communicated. We have watched the technological brilliance
of modern warfare, and witnessed the aftermath of its destruction in terms of
human lives.

"Also, it is only now that we are becoming more fully aware of the hidden
suffering of the Iraqi people through years of an evil and tyrannous regime. 

"Politicians, religious leaders, soldiers, journalists, speak with words like
'liberation', 'peace-building', 'justice'. But do these words have the same
reality to people as their suffering? Do they constitute real hope, or are
they passing dreams? This is where there remain imponderables in our present
world situation. The removal of a tyrant and his regime does not
automatically bring freedom. The cessation of war does not necessarily create
peace. The imposition of democracy is not a guarantee of justice.

"John Habgood, former Archbishop of York, preached at a special service in
Glasgow at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. His words still ring true
today. He spoke of how 'the perplexities about innocent suffering go back to
the roots of all religious traditions - Jewish, Christian, Moslem. In the
end, guilty and innocent suffer together - and often the innocent more than
the guilty...a sad acknowledgement before God of the appalling suffering
which war and its aftermath have actually brought in their train.' But, he
says, this is not a cause of despair. 'Jesus, himself the innocent sufferer
in a city he knew was doomed, revealed all suffering as encompassed within
the suffering of God.'

"In the events of Good Friday we are faced with many facets that are
reflected in today's world - human suffering, injustice, powerful but corrupt
leaders, deserting friends, soldiers doing their duty. To those first
disciples of Jesus, his crucifixion seemed to mock any fragile hopes they
had.

"But then there is Easter - not simply, I believe, a story about an empty
tomb, nor a denial of the suffering and death of Jesus. It was a discovery of
faith that took those first disciples and millions since, beyond the broken
fragile hopes of Good Friday, and transformed them into a vision - a
practical vision - to which they committed their lives.

"And that vision? Let the words of Fr Harry Williams, author of The True
Wilderness, offer an answer: 'Easter is a proclamation about mankind, about
the world. All that separates and injures and destroys has been overcome by
what unites and heals and creates. Death has been swallowed up in life.'

"Let that be our Easter prayer - above all for the people of Iraq."

__________________________________
For details about the Enthronement of the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Most Revd Rowan D Williams, visit http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

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