The Rt. Rev. Dorsey McConnell, Bishop of Pittsburgh, discusses the inadequacy of Easter symbols — butterflies, bunnies, chicks, chocolate eggs — in describing the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“There’s nothing in nature that can actually come close to suggesting what happened when Jesus rose from the dead,” the bishop says. “He was no ghost, he wasn’t a spirit, he wasn’t merely a resuscitated corpse. When showed himself to his friends he was so changed, so completely perfect in his bodily form, that they couldn’t even recognize him except for the wounds of the cross, which were still on his hands and his feet and his side. And that’s not natural. That’s way beyond nature.”
Bishop Dorsey McConnell’s 2013 Easter Message from Andy Muhl on Vimeo.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
