Bishop’s News with Bishop Justin

I’ve been challenged this week by my team as I thought about what message to share in this most recent Bishop’s News. My last Bishop’s News spoke about the tendency I have to veer towards numbing and nihilism when faced with the intensity and tragedy of local, national and global events.

I was set to explore more of this reality and what it means as the people of God, and no doubt I will come back to it in the future, but the challenge I was given this week was… “it’s Easter: where is the joy?”  

I was given a deadline to find the joy. No panic eh? Thankfully, God showed up just in time.  

So, the joy: today, as I often do on a Tuesday, I’ve driven down to Wellington from Whanganui, but I had a stop to make on the way. I had had a lovely invitation to pop in at Waikanae to the 100th birthday of Reverend Hector Davis, priest in our Diocese. It was my pleasure and privilege to do so. 100 is a very joyful achievement to celebrate. 

Hector has lived a full life. He was ordained priest in 1967, first serving at St Philips in Stokes Valley – a place we share in common.  He was a pivotal leader of St Michael’s Waikanae – also dear to my heart – expanding it to the space we know today.  But well before that, in 1944, Hector served with the Royal Engineers at the D-Day landings in Normandy, a small part of the process which sped up the end of World War II. He is believed to be one of only a handful of people still alive who were at the D-Day landings.  

And even beyond that, Hector and his family talked this morning about how he one of five children, and of them, only one other, his sister, made it beyond the age of four. Hector’s father passed away when Hector was about 6. In his later years, he would spend a decade looking after his wife Joan, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. There’s plenty in this story which is hard, alongside the joy of 64 years of marriage, four children, fourteen grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.  

All this has made me think of all the challenge and change that Hector has seen through his 100 years, and how through all of this, God’s faithfulness has remained constant and true. In this world which feels like it is unravelling and disconnected, we can look to examples of Hector’s life of faith with its change and turmoil and know that we can also have hope for the future.  

And so we find ourselves in a season of resurrection joy. I’m reminded of the words of Jesus in John 16:19-20, which we covered during our Lent Studies this year.  Jesus is talking to his friends about his death to come:  

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 

Whether our lives are long or short, we will inevitably face things that are bring us both grief and joy, often at the very same time. The question is how do we position our lives in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. I think a clue or a cure for the nihilism, depression and denial, which is so tempting, is found in 2 Corinthians 6:10 as Paul reflects on how as Christians we become known by the way we love others, in the self-sacrificing way of Jesus:  

“…and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” 

It is a posture of persistence, integrity and self-sacrifice.  

May the joy of Christ be with you all,

+Justin