Easter Special
VIEWPOINT
The streamers don’t broadcast the best message of all, says Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury
I’m always nervous when I climb the pulpit steps to preach at Canterbury Cathedral, especially on Easter Day. There are a few things that put me at ease: I’m fairly local, so the travel time isn’t huge;
I’ve spoken in church before, so I know my way around a sermon, and I’m getting used to the robes by now. However, the fact the BBC is broadcasting it live, keeping up an important commitment to religious content stretching back 100 years, slightly raises the stakes.
My nervousness is primarily whether I will do justice to the world-changing message of the Christian faith: Jesus who was dead is alive. So, whether people are listening in on purpose or just happen to have the radio or TV on, this is news for us all.
I’m heartened that there continues to be an appetite among viewers and listeners for faith broadcasting, and it seems to me that we should treasure this. Last year, 18 million people in the UK – and many more millions overseas – watched the King’s Coronation. Behind the pomp and pageantry, at its heart this was a Christian church service in one of our most cherished places of worship. Elsewhere, a storyline around adult baptism created division in The Archers in recent months, and on BBC2’s Pilgrimage, seven celebrities of different faiths are following an ancient religious path in north Wales.
So, despite the question mark that hangs over the future of religious broadcasting in the age of streaming and my personal anxiety about preaching live on the radio, I will do all I can to amplify the Christian message that Jesus’s resurrection brings a certain future, particularly at a time when for many hope feels thin, if not non-existent. It is my strongest belief that Easter Day speaks directly to our lives and deaths. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus because it is the ultimate good news.
If this event didn’t happen, then every church building, all Christian worship and ministry, is in vain. But because we are convinced it did, this news is too good to keep to ourselves. After all, Jesus’s disciples didn’t, and instead they went out into the world to tell of what they had seen, leading to the creation
