“The Instinct of Hope” is a lovely little poem by John Clare. It’s a kind of natural theology – Clare’s hope isn’t quoting anything by St Paul or even St John’s Revelation. It takes its cues from the natural world, as seen in the changes of our seasons.

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
‘Tis nature’s prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E’en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?

As I write this, we’re looking forward to the Bainton Primrose Festival. I hope the weather was good by the time you read this! The primroses are once again blooming gloriously, having kept their heads down since last May. The “small violet” that Clare writes about is, in Bainton, a wonderful apricot colour. And they are up and blooming in the dappled light through the St Mary’s trees. We bury our dead in churchyards knowing that while they are places for the dead, they are also bursting with life – the promise Clare can sense.

Once two good men and a group of faithful women took Jesus to what they thought would be his last resting-place. The tomb one of the men had been saving up for himself – “indeath, no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave.” He was buried in the hope of the Resurrection at the end of time. He was rather more impatient than that, and rose on the third day.

And if God created this world through his Son, it would be no wonder that we see those “instincts of hope” everywhere. In the turning of night to day, from winter to spring. In those spring flowers that die every year, and rise to new life the next. The heavens declare God’s praises, and reveal the nature of the Word of God, Jesus, God’s Son. Who died, was buried, and rose again.

The hardy among us will be out at Hills and Holes at 6.30 am on Easter Day, to celebrate the risen Son as they observe the rising sun. The Pasque flowers will hopefully be blooming, the primroses will still be going strong. And all nature will declare the glories of our risen Lord.

Christ is risen – he is risen indeed. Our hope beyond hope, glorious beyond our imaginations, and yet still our saviour and our friend. Happy Easter. Revd Gary

“Pause for Thought” this month comes from Gary Alderson
Rector – Barnack with Ufford, Bainton, Helpston & Wittering
Telephone: 07503975588