ONE of the pleasures of this time of the year has been admiring the daffodils, the promise of spring after the cold of winter.

Some years ago someone bought a house in the country, at the end of a long driveway. It had become neglected, and the driveway was a mess of potholes.

So, in the summer, he laid down a new, wider, driveway, topped with chippings.

But, that winter, he began to have second thoughts.

He remembered that the old driveway has been bordered with clusters of daffodils, which had been buried by the new work. “All that beauty gone”, he thought.

But to his astonishment, in the spring, he saw, here and there, a slender shoot come through the surface of the path.

As the days passed, they grew stronger and more numerous, until he found that his daffodils were back again, even stronger because of their struggle to reach the light.

What he thought had gone for ever was there before his eyes.

It was like that with the disciples the first Easter Jesus had been crucified – judicially murdered by the Romans, dead and buried.

But then three days later his disciples found the tomb empty, and Jesus present with them. Death could not hold him, and God raised him from the dead.

That is what Christians celebrate most of all at Easter – the resurrection of Jesus

And we remember that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is offered to us to give us hope, purpose, and strength for living – that power that can turn crucifixion to resurrection.

Death and evil will not have the last word – that is the promise of Easter.

The Rev John Peet

Vicar, Cononley with Bradley