It's a tragedy

People have been dying a lot recently.

Only in the past week we have seen the funeral of Ronnie Corbett, the death of Victoria Wood and the suitably mysterious decease of Prince.

Today, St George's Day, we remember the mysterious George (about whom we know little more than we know about the Dragon) and the more-mysterious-than-we-often-think William Shakespeare, star of stage and screen (though the screen was a time coming of course).

Four hundred years is a while and thus nobody is saying how much they miss William or that their 'thoughts are with his family' (whatever that phrase means when uttered by a politician).  Simply put we first encountered old William as dead.  We've never thought of him otherwise.  I think he would approve.

A few weeks ago we went to watch Hamlet and although we have seen many Shakespeare plays we had, surprisingly, never seen this famous one.  The subtleties of Shakespeare are legendary, but the one very unsubtle thing about Hamlet is that it is a tragedy.  At the end the major players are all lying dead on the stage (or off stage).  It is not subtle. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions".How true it is and how untrue.As we move through Easter toward Ascension Day the Greatest Drama of All is revealed to be death's crushing defeat as every one of its supposed clients is raised up to stand before the throne of the Man who left death dead.When resurrections come they come not single lives but all as Christ commands.