Eastertide Message as London Area Sea Cadet Chaplain

Many of us will have looked longingly at the beautiful weather and wished that we could have been out and about on the water, in the sunshine and enjoying it all with our friends and neighbours. Instead we cannot go out, our Units are closed and we observe social distancing and keep apart from one another.

There is a straight forward reason for this: by staying at home and giving up our usual activities we save lives. Many of us would like to do something heroic to save a life, and we train for it: first aid to get a heart going again or swimming skills to rescue someone from the water. Maybe when we do that training we dream a little about being a hero and doing the right thing in the moment and perhaps receiving a reward for it afterwards. It's much more difficult to be heroic in a quiet way and for a long time. Simply staying in, observing the rules of social distancing, getting on with people with whom we might be cooped up in a small home. These do not seem to be heroic things but actually they are. And they are difficult. In some ways more difficult than that heroic moment which is all done and finished in a few minutes. But this is what we are asked to do.

Self discipline, loyalty, courage: these things are also part of our Sea Cadet training and we need these qualities now in what is not an heroic moment, but a long haul. Those of us who are Christians recently kept Holy Week when we follow the events of the last week of the life of Jesus. It is a time which seems to be very dark in many ways. It begins with a crowd who cheer a celebrity but ends with a baying mob calling for judicial murder and, following a brutal execution, the final scene is the grief of a mother and a group of despairing friends at a grave.

But the tomb is in a garden, and while that might seem like a terrible irony, just like lovely weather on a day when you are not allowed out. But it is in fact a sign of hope. Christians believe the tomb was not the end and that Jesus rose again. The joy of the resurrection is made all the more wonderful because of the darkness which preceded it. Whether you celebrate Easter or not, the preparation we have made and the hope of joys to come sustain us in this long heroic struggle.

We might prefer to have a blaze of glory, when in fact it is a long hard road. But even though we are separated from one another we are all walking it together. The discipline, courage, loyalty and care for others which mark our life together in the Corps is never more needed now. When you do the right thing at home and away from the Unit you support everyone else; so keep at it, and don’t let it get you down.

Thank you for all that you are doing and May God bless you as we go through the time of difficulty and work for the joy which is yet to come.