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Radio 4,2 mins

Catherine Pepinster - 08/04/2023

Thought for the Day

Available for over a year

There was a time when a legacy meant a gift left in someone’s will. A donation to a charity, perhaps, or to a kindly neighbour. But in recent years it’s come to mean something else besides – what a person of significance leaves by way of achievements. People talk about the legacy of US presidents like Barack Obama. Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy was to show how important being committed to duty was, obituary writers said. I’ve even read about Sir David Attenborough’s legacy as a naturalist, which seems a bit previous, given he’s thankfully still with us and making programmes like Wild Isles. But what of Jesus’ legacy? Yesterday, Good Friday, Christians commemorated his death on a cross, a life cut short by a cruel execution. Today, Holy Saturday, is when we recall what must have been a time of utter devastation for his disciples. They had had such hopes, such belief in this man, for whom they had given up their normal lives, to wander from place to place, as he preached his message of love and fellowship. Now it seemed that it was all over. In their grief, there seemed to be nothing to hold onto, nothing that one might call Jesus’ legacy. But all that changed with what Christians commemorate tomorrow, the moment of Jesus’ resurrection, a sign that he could overcome even death. The idea that Christ had risen, that death could be transformed by life and that the hatred shown in the ghastly execution of Jesus, was overpowered, must have stunned the disciples. The Gospels report that at least one of them doubted it at first, but their encounters with the risen Jesus confirmed that he was a man with a message worth listening to after all. Someone’s legacy, if it is to last, depends on those that come after. They must believe it is worth spreading the word about the person and what they stood for. Perhaps the world might have have heard a little about Jesus of Nazareth, if he had been just another victim of a Roman state execution a couple of thousand years ago on a hill in the Middle East. But it is the combination of his message and how he lived, together with his followers’ belief in his resurrection, that meant he became more than a footnote in history. When the Easter Vigil takes place this Saturday night in churches up and down the land, it will begin in darkness, and end in light, to signify that Christ, light of the world, has returned, risen from the dead and revealed in the Gospel testimonies of his followers but also passed on through the faith of generations of Christians since.

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