I err, therefore I am

Although often overlooked, the Easter message is as much about making mistakes as it is about Resurrection. However, getting it wrong and letting go of our perfectionism is the key to a more contented life, says the Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy

- Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy

KINDLY offering advice, a friend once expressed to me his view that the role of a priest or any minister in Holy Orders is to ensure the sacraments are celebrated with due solemnity, that sound doctrine is maintained and the scriptures expounded and interpreted correctly. It's a bit like Noël Coward explaining how to act on stage: simply say your lines and don't bump into the furniture.

In short, my friend's advice amounts to: get it right. There are lines to say and don't fall down the pulpit steps. However, at this time of year, my friend's words always come back to me because the Easter narrative, as told in the Gospels, is actually a patchwork of mistakes, a story about getting it wrong over and over again. Mary Magdalene makes the first error of Easter. Outside an empty tomb, she mistakes the risen Lord Jesus for a gardener. And the disciples mess up by not believing her when she tells them what she's witnessed. Fleeing Jerusalem, two of his friends fail to recognise Jesus in the stranger who joins them on the road to Emmaus; Thomas succumbs to doubting. And who is that man standing on the shore, waiting for us? Part of the point of Easter, it seems to me, is this: getting it right will get you only so far. Mistakes are vitally important.

Reading the Easter narrative again, I'm struck by how we are able through a process a bit like triangulation-to glimpse the 'back parts' of truth (Exodus 33.23) through the muddles and missteps, almost as if the power and veracity of the story is determined by the blunders and errors of its protagonists. Too often, it seems to me, we forget the value in getting it wrong.