There have been so many babies this week!

It’s been an unexpected way for me to spend Holy Week.  My own children are now teenagers so I don’t get to have time with babies as often as I used to. From time to time, I have the privilege of baptizing children at congregations that I visit as bishop.

But this week I got to see babies in real life! On a visit to Ulster County I had the chance to meet two children of our clergy. Both were born in the last six months. They are beautiful and precious and just beginning to explore the world around them.

I also had the chance to meet a baby born two weeks ago while her mother is in custody on Riker’s Island, the New York City jail. The facility has more than 7,000 women and men in custody — and, now, one baby. We visited for the long tradition of prayer and foot washing for Maundy Thursday.

This baby, alone in the Riker’s maternity ward, is beautiful and precious, too.  

The locations couldn’t have been more different, an Irish restaurant in the rural Hudson Valley and the nation’s largest jail.  But in the most important way, all three children are exactly alike. They are formed in deep love and will carry unending grace throughout their lives.

Easter and the resurrection's story of hope in God's Goodness

There’s a modern Christian worship song that I heard recently whose refrain proclaims “I sing of the goodness of God.” It’s not a usual Episcopal hymn, but I like the spirit of the music. 

It’s background story also includes a baby. The songwriter Jenn Johnson was driving down a dirt road when she got a call that she would be able to adopt a child. She began to sing. “From the moment that I wake up/ Until I lay my head/ Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.”

Today is Easter. Christians across the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the new life that God’s love brings to the whole world. Today, we sing of the goodness of God.

That’s the message of the Easter passage from the Gospel of Matthew. In all four gospels in the Christian bible, women have the care and courage to visit Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion. 

All four gospels mention fear. It’s understandable. The women arrive to find the tomb empty. It’s alarming. Their friend is gone. Then: Angelic figures proclaim Jesus’ resurrection, which also must have been confusing. It was beyond what Jesus’ friends could dare to hope. So, there’s fear.  

In this empty tomb moment, only the Gospel of Matthew says that the women also left with “great joy.” It’s amazing. They haven’t yet seen Jesus. Nothing is certain. But they hope. They sing of the goodness of God.

That’s the message the women share with their friends — and that the Christian faith shares with the world.

Birthright liberation is Easter's promise — and call to us

We need that message right now. We live in a moment that feels like what the women must have experienced. So much in our lives has changed. The world feels uncertain, at best. Fear offers a normal response. Yet today calls us to more — and deeper.

The Christian faith offers a story about God. It also shares a truth about our humanity. Through our creation and Jesus’ life, we all have dignity within ourselves. Through Jesus' death, we have solidarity with God and with each other. Through Jesus’ resurrection, we have liberation for our souls and for the world.

We’ve been arguing as a country about “birthright citizenship” that we had thought was settled by the U.S. Constitution. Everyone born here is a citizen here. Our courts are considering the challenge now.

Easter offers us “birthright liberation.” Every child who is born, every living soul, is transformed by God’s love.   No one is outside.

The women who visited Jesus’ tomb, the disciples with whom Jesus walked, were the recipients of this gift. So were leaders of the day who put Jesus to death and the crowds who cheered them on. God’s love isn’t conditional or limited by all the brokenness that we cannot let go in our disagreements and differences. No one is outside.

All three babies whom I met this week have received this gift of “birthright liberation,” so have all of their parents whether they are priests of the Church or whether they are incarcerated.

So do all the babies born in Tehran this week, and in Havana, and in our own cities and towns across New York.  We are given a birthright formed in deep love and carrying unending grace. Our lives sing of the goodness of God.

That’s why it’s the moment for an immediate ceasefire in the spiraling war in Iran and across the Middle East. It’s the moment to stop starving Cuba and end targeting our own citizens because of the brokenness that we’ve created for ourselves.

We can argue through politics and policies. But we cannot deny each other food and water, light and life. That’s what’s happening now. It’s wrong and it must stop.

Our differences are real. But our shared humanity is greater. That’s true across the faith traditions of the world.

It’s absolutely the message of this Easter Day. The women at the tomb felt the fear of the world’s hardships.  They also shared great joy in the gift they had received. In our own moments of fear, in the middle of our world’s hardships, we can also share joy and hope. Because we sing of the goodness of God.

The Rt. Rev. Matthew Heyd has served as the 17th Episcopal bishop of New York since 2024. The Episcopal Diocese of New York is comprised of New York City and its northern suburbs, with congregations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties.

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