THE Bishop of Bangor – the Right Reverend Andy John – has prepared a video message for Easter.

In his message, Bishop Andy, who is from Aberystwyth, talks about ancient battles as well as the battles of today, and how the Resurrection offers us hope.

He also addresses the furore over Cadbury’s decision to drop the word Easter from its eggs.

Bishop Andy in his written message says: "The furore has been short lived: ‘Cadbury faces social media backlash over Easter eggs’ read the headline.

"The decision to remove the word Easter from the eggs is unlikely to generate a wholesale boycott of Cadbury products and as one observer wryly put it: ‘All this fuss over Easter eggs is ignoring the REAL issue: Why does chocolate taste better when it’s shaped like an egg’?!

"Witticisms apart, I can understand where the complainants are coming from – one more example of a secular company distancing itself from our Christian roots. The symbol of the egg, after all, is all about new life, the very message of Easter. So, perhaps they have a point?

"It’s interesting that the first Easter wasn’t full of such delicacies nor controversies, though it had its share of scandal with people being accused of grave robbing and skulduggery.

"The real energy was found when some women turned up and found a human body had disappeared.

"A stone had been rolled away and the only clue was some of the cloth left behind. And that’s the point of course: the living don’t need the burial clothes of the dead.

"Making the all too obvious point, a smartly dressed stranger asks the question: ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’

"I’m sure we’ve faced tough times in the last year, situations we could even describe perhaps as deathly given how serious they have seemed to us. Easter tells us that Jesus steps into those dark and hard places of life and brings hope and newness. This is what the resurrection means and it is at the heart of Easter.

"This season really isn’t about ‘How do you eat yours?’ or whether it’s Cadbury or Galaxy. It’s about finding God with us in the thick of life and death issues. It’s about putting Easter back in the whole of life and not just on our Easter eggs."