Thought for the week: For Christ is risen, and in Him, all things are made new
There are some individuals whose lives become so closely inter-woven with the life of the Church that it is hard to picture it without them.
The sudden death recently of fellow contributor to this Saturday column, Dean Houston McKelvey, has left exactly that sense of loss.
I first knew Houston long before I was accepted for training for ordination. In those days, I would occasionally lend him a hand transporting Sunday School materials across Northern Ireland for deanery and diocesan meetings of Sunday School teachers. Houston appreciated it. He always understood that the quiet, faithful tasks were the ones upon which so much else depended.
Years later, long after I was ordained, our paths crossed again in a different setting. Houston invited me to preach in Belfast Cathedral (St Anne's) on more than one occasion when young people were receiving their certificates following organ tuition. He loved championing the Church – celebrating the provision of organists and choir trainers for the future - not only in skill, but in faith, discipline, and reverence.
Houston was very much his own man. Yet beneath that forthrightness lay something steadfast and deeply rooted. He was a loyal servant of the Church of Ireland, committed to preserving its ethos and practice, and ensuring that what had been handed down was not carelessly set aside. He believed that faithfulness, and loyalty to the Church, mattered.
It is that word – faithfulness – that feels especially appropriate as we stand on the threshold of Easter. For Easter is not simply a festival of bright flowers and familiar hymns. It is the proclamation that, even when all seemed lost, God remained faithful. The events of Good Friday appeared to close the story in darkness and finality. Yet the message of Easter Day is that death does not have the last word. The Resurrection of Christ declares that life, hope, and redemption break through where none seemed possible.
In a week when we have been reminded of the fragility of life, that message speaks with renewed clarity. The loss of someone like Houston McKelvey is keenly felt because his life bore witness to something enduring, something not easily shaken by the passing of time or circumstance.
Easter invites us not only to remember, but to look forward with hope. The stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, and the risen Christ calls us by name. In Him, sorrow is met with comfort, loss is held within promise, and even death is transformed by life.
As we give thanks for those who have shaped us, we do so in the light of that first Easter morning when grief gave way to joy, and despair to alleluia. For Christ is risen, and in Him, all things are being made new.