An Easter Message from Matthew Maury, Tearfund Australia CEO (2021)

When we read Luke’s narrative of the Easter Sunday story we see that the day begins with fear and confusion. Returning to the tomb early that morning the women find it empty and are caught off guard by two heavenly ‘strangers’ who say to them:

Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember what he told you…

As we look back over this past year we have been living through our own times of fear and confusion.

Through this year we also have had our eyes opened in new ways to see some of the brokenness in our world that, in ‘normal times’, often remained hidden.

I have also heard many people express a deep longing to get back to that ‘normal’. But is normal really good enough? Does what we call normal reflect the world as God intended it to be?

Remembering the empty tomb, and all that it means for each of us as followers of Jesus is as important for us today as it was for Luke, Mary and the disciples.

Twelve Months on from when this crisis first began, the long tail of COVID 19 continues to bring havoc to the lives of the most vulnerable.

Easter is a time of the year when we focus on the good news that the hope of the empty tomb means that death no longer has the last word.

At Tearfund, we seek to be an organisation whose ethos is shaped by that message of the empty tomb. To be people who proudly pronounce that the sting of death has indeed been overcome, that Christ is Risen.

We follow a living Jesus whose redemptive work continues today. We see that embodied in the courage and vision of our Christian partners around the world, as they are working to create a new normal in communities around the world, for more than 1.75 million people

We see it through the witness of Christians around Australia raising their voices and prayers for a more just and compassionate world.

This Easter - we again thank each one of you for your partnership in the work of Tearfund and pray this year that you too will experience the power and enormity of the empty tomb to change each of us...and indeed the world.

Christ is Risen

– Matthew Maury

CEO, Tearfund Australia