As I write this the sun is shining. Today it`s warm outside even without a coat on; the days are lengthening and I`m reminded that the old English word for Lent meant precisely that – ‘lengthening’: days feel longer; light remains until early evening; spring seems to be seriously on its way.

In the long distant past, and after enduring the darkness of winter, communities feared that the sun would never shine again. They understood little about seasonal cycles and lived with the profoundest of all fears, that the unyielding cold and darkness of winter meant that the gods were punishing them. That was a belief that lingered for hundreds of years and so those gods had to be appeased, even by offering them human sacrifices.

But now most of us know enough to believe that the sun will shine again and that life will return to the land: Spring restores our belief in the likelihood, if not the certainty, that we don`t live in a wasteland constantly stricken by ill fate, though we know natural disaster can still strike and have a devastating effect as we witnessed from the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

The Spring Equinox on 21st March heralded the beginning of spring. In the Christian tradition Christ is reborn at Easter time; in the ancient pagan traditions there are numerous gods of rebirth. In Greek mythology, Persephone embodied Spring when she returned from her 6 months in the underworld and became the symbol for new life, especially the new growth of the grain harvest. The rebirth of Spring feels like miracle enough for many of us: days of light and sunshine and colour: birds in song, trees coming into bud, a warm sense of wellbeing. Rebirth can take many forms but always, always it is the message that life and love are irrepressible.

Rev. Margaret Kirk