Someone wrote recently about his fear of death and his certainty that all that would happen to him would that he would be buried in a hole in the ground, where he would remain. For Christians death is not an end but a beginning: a gateway to where our life reaches its fulfilment. Christ’s resurrection changes the meaning of every moment of existence. We are horrified by the events in Eastern Europe and other theatres of war, and despair that the perpetrators of the atrocities reported daily might ever be called to account. The risen Christ, however, promised to be with his people always, and he works - often unrecognised - in his daily encounters with them. We must be reminded that he sees everything that happens and there will be a reckoning.
Even those who heard him speak of his rising from the dead were slow to believe, even with the evidence of the empty tomb and the grave cloths on the ground. Mary Magdalene only recognised him when he called her by name; as she embraced him she must have had a glimpse of the world beyond.
Gerald Manley Hopkins has an image of Jesus as a falcon, as complete master of the air:
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
high there, how he rung on the rein of a wimpling wing
in his ecstasy!
(From The Windhover)