The main hazard I found as I cycled this winter was – not ice, fog or gales, but the sun.
The track from Cambridge along the Barton Road often headed towards a low sun. I couldn’t see other users of the path until I was almost on top of them, especially if they were wearing dark clothes, and I could often only see their silhouettes. Going the other way, all was crystal clear, the low, bright sun highlighting every fold of a jacket and mudguard of a bicycle.
I see a parallel with Passiontide and Easter. From one perspective the last week of Jesus’ life was ominous and threatening. Its nadir is Friday, surely a bad day as the Son of God died tortuously hanging on a cross – and rumours of his rising from the dead sounded like make-believe wishful thinking. Then I look at it all with the sun of God’s love shining from behind me.
Jesus’ death is not a meaningless tragedy, but God’s self-giving love blazing gloriously through the darkness of a violent and selfish world. His resurrection is not a vague rumour, but the first sign of an age when all evil and even death is utterly defeated.
No wonder is it that the church says in joy on Easter Sunday: ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia’.
