The film ‘Love, Actually’ may be your favourite Christmas viewing, but I encourage you to watch the opening scene this Easter.

It shows the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, with a somewhat gushing voiceover by Hugh Grant about the importance of love. The sight of families and friends being reunited with loved ones after long flights is really quite moving.

The scene contrasts these images of love with the terrible events of September 2001, when airport terminals became instead places of fear, pain, sadness, grief, and anger.

The film seeks instead to redeem that place. A place of sorrow becomes a place of love.

For me, this is what the journey through Holy Week is all about. Places and people redeemed by Love at Easter.

Think about the places of significance in the Easter Story.

The upper room, where Jesus shares a meal with his disciples on the night before his death, knowing that one of them will betray him.

The ‘green hill far away, outside the city wall’ where Jesus died.

The tomb in the garden where Jesus is buried, where the disciples would have mourned the loss of their Lord.

And yet, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, these places of sorrow are redeemed by Love.

The upper room becomes more than a place of betrayal. It becomes a place of love because Jesus is with his loved ones who love him in return, where he washes their feet to show how much he loves them.

The green hill is not only the place where Jesus died. It is the place where the love of God is revealed – there is no greater love than this, as the gospel says.

The tomb in the garden is no longer the place where Jesus’ body lay but the place of Resurrection, where Mary Magdalene sees the Risen Christ.

This is the message of Easter – people and places redeemed by Love.

Today we celebrate the power of God’s love which redeems us and transforms the world from a place of sin and death into a place of light and life.

As we remember the people of Gaza, the Congo, Ukraine and Yemen, we pray for resurrection love to break out in every crucifixion situation.

This Easter, in a world full of darkness and uncertainty, may you know the love and joy and hope of God’s redeeming love.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Happy Easter!