Friends, welcome to Easter! I wish all of you a “Happy Easter!” We can gather to rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ! We can celebrate Jesus, crucified and risen – and revel in Christ’s victory over death. We know Easter as a day -- an event -- and a season in the church year. But, poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins has a provocative line that invites us to think about Easter as a verb. Yes, Easter as a verb. In his epic poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, about the sinking of the Deutschland and the drowning of five Franciscan nuns (in 1875), he gives us this rather famous line: “Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.” Easter is not a noun, but a verb -- an activity in us. A cresset is a lamp or torch, and Hopkins has also turned that from a noun to an adjective. He prays for the Christ to ‘easter,’ in the face of tragedy and loss. Those eighteen words are a prayer, fit for any time – not just at Easter: “Be as a dawning or day break – bring a new day for us. Be the gift of a new and shining day amid the dimness of our days – in these particularly dark or difficult times. Be a transformative influence in our lives.” Hopkins expressed the hope that Christ's resurrection becomes an active, inner experience -- offering new life and hope. He understands "Easter" as something that can occur continuously in our lives, allowing for personal resurrection, and spiritual renewal. The Christ can be found in dark times. And we do well to remember that part of the proof of Christ’s resurrection was the amazing transformation of the first disciples from incredibly fearful and cowardly, to bold ambassadors with the gospel. Whatever your circumstances this Easter, may He easter in you. Grace and peace,  Reverend Jim Cairney