The Easter story of Jesus’ death and resurrection took place across Jerusalem.
The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, recently visited some of the locations of the events of the first Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
He walked the route which Jesus stumbled along beneath the weight of his cross and saw the site of his crucifixion and resurrection.
In a street Jesus would have known, and inside the ancient church built over the place he was killed and the tomb from which he rose again, Bishop Graham recorded Easter messages.
For Good Friday Bishop Graham talks here of walks of witness taking place in our communities in Norfolk and along the traditional pilgrim route in Jerusalem. Standing where Simon of Cyrene lifted the cross from Jesus he prays for all carrying heavy burdens.
In a second Good Friday video, from near the rocky mound where Jesus was crucified, now inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the bishop talks of those waiting and watching at the foot of the cross, sharing the “pain and horror and bewildering agony,” and of holding on to the thread God offers of staying close and bringing salvation.
Standing beside the burial place of Jesus, in a message for Easter Saturday, Bishop Graham says here: “Take time with me just to be still, to be close to the cold stillness of the tomb, to be present there, waiting and watching.” He goes on to speak of those he will baptise and confirm in Norwich Cathedral on Easter Saturday evening – celebrating the first signs of resurrection life around and within them.
For Easter Sunday he tells the story of the women who went to anoint Jesus’s body and found two angels in the tomb who told them: “He is not here; he is risen.” Watch it here. Standing in the great church built over the site of the resurrection he also talks of his deep concern for Palestinian Christians unable to travel to the holy site – but says Jesus is not in the tomb. As bells ring out he finishes “Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia.”
In a final video filmed during his visit to Jerusalem and the West Bank to support Palestinian Christians and the Archbishop in Jerusalem, Bishop Graham is at Jerusalem Botanical Garden. The scientific director shows him a Rose of Jericho – a desert plant which looks dead – until enough rain falls for it to open and to scatter its seeds. “In Christian theology that is a symbol of resurrection,” says Bishop Graham.
