Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that the ongoing suffering in Darfur and in Southern Sudan show how much Christians have still to do in order to bring the reality of Easter to the world.

In his Eastertide Letter sent to the heads of Churches and confessional families throughout the world, Dr Williams says that his experiences in Sudan earlier in the year revealed worrying signs that the slowness of aid was compounding what was already becoming a silent tragedy.

'A visit ... to Sudan brought home just how little and just how slowly we respond to each other according to the laws of the new creation. The mechanisms by which international aid is delivered are so slow that the people of war-torn Southern Sudan, even a whole year after the peace agreement, are still waiting for basic aid, and too few voices are raised in the wealthy world to protest.'

'In Darfur, neither national nor international forces have found a way of breaking the cycle of brutal violence and terror. Too many of us human beings, it seems, are content that death should be at work in others so long as our own life is unaffected.'

The Church, said Dr Williams, should live in testimony to the transforming power of the resurrection 'Easter reminds us that the reality of the new world truly has arrived in our midst. It really is possible to live differently. The cost may look frightening, but its outcome is for all. So we should give thanks that our world has been turned upside down by God in Christ; and we should be asking how we may live more fully in that world, accepting death for our selfishness so that the life of Jesus may be seen and experienced in peace justice and reconciliation.'

Ends

Note to editors:

The Eastertide letter is sent each year to around 50 of the most prominent Christian leaders. Recipients include heads of Churches throughout the world including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic, and Lutheran Churches and various confessional and ecumenical bodies.

Text of letter:

'Death worketh in us, but life in you', writes St Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:12. This statement comes at the end of one of St Paul's greatest meditations on how we come to share the reality of the new creation, the world into which the Risen Christ brings us. The apostle, the preacher, the bearer of good news, has to recognise that he or she must, like John the Baptist, give way to Christ, must stand back so that the glory of Jesus can be seen. And all the trouble and suffering that comes upon the bearer of the good news must be seen as God's gift, stripping us of self-satisfaction, so that what others find in us is not self assertion, self-aggrandisement, but Christ. Our ordinary selfishness must die so that others may find life around or through us.

Life in the Risen Christ is a life in which we all live for the sake of each other's life. The life to which we are called is not a possession we can lay hold on once and for all but a gift we must receive at the hands of another, just as they receive life from us. This is why the Church is a unique, God-created reality. The very pattern of its life resists and refuses what are often the ways of the world.

A visit at the beginning of Lent this year brought home just how little and just how slowly we respond to each other according to the laws of the new creation. The mechanisms by which international aid is delivered are so slow that the people of war-torn Southern Sudan, even a whole year after the peace agreement, are still waiting for basic aid, and too few voices are raised in the wealthy world to protest. In Darfur, neither national nor international forces have found a way of breaking the cycle of brutal violence and terror. Too many of us human beings, it seems, are content that death should be at work in others so long as our own life is unaffected.

Easter reminds us that the reality of the new world truly has arrived in our midst. It really is possible to live differently. The cost may look frightening, but its outcome is for all. So we should give thanks that our world has been turned upside down by God in Christ; and we should be asking how we may live more fully in that world, accepting death for our selfishness so that the life of Jesus may be seen and experienced in peace justice and reconciliation - 'that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving (eucharistia) of many may redound to the glory of God' (2 Corinthians 4 v 15)

With joy in the Risen Lord, I extend to you and to your Church my warmest greetings and prayers for a holy Paschal Season.

+ Rowan CANTUAR:

For further information: www.archbishopofcanterbury.org