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Last week a junior doctor caring for patients with Coronavirus wrote a profoundly moving article. He described his experience of listening to the daily press conferences. Politicians, he said, seemed almost godlike. Offering their birds-eye view; the politician-god must map, plot, plan, intervene, and turn the tide. By contrast, he talked about how un-godlike and vulnerable he felt; his time now filled with constant attention to the smallest and most detailed tasks, one patient at a time: listening, observing, adjusting, gently moving. What moved me most was the doctor’s description of the ways he forms a connection with his patients on ventilators. He has never heard his patients speak, or seen them with eyes open, and so he searches for glimpses of their personalities in medical notes: are they married, have children, do they like to run? In human terms, his article tells the truth: this is a crisis that happens one unique, unrepeatable person at a time. It's tempting to read Easter as the last, glorious chapter of a tragic story, book closed, Christ’s victory of life over death, good over evil. But there is something to add to our reading. Theologians in the early church referred to Easter as the 8th day of creation, the first day of a new way of living. It is the beginning of a new, unfinished chapter that invites us to start living our story differently. Resurrection is personal, and it is for now. It is as much a gift for the living as for the dead. This is what the women who visited the tomb on the morning of resurrection find through their tears. But this gift is also a challenge and an invitation. Resurrection is social because its personal. We are all given to all for the protection of every human life. The junior doctor I started with finishes his article by saying ‘I didn’t get to meet my patients but what I want to say to them, with all the force of my care is: it’s all for you. Everything we have. Your life matters.’ Resurrection is not about the birds-eye view, it is about every brave and risky act that brings care and sustains life. It is an invitation to play our part in an unfinished story that raises a broken world to new life.
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