MP Sir John Hayes calls on people to embrace the message of Easter and end the 'modern culture of waste'
In his latest column, MP Sir John Hayes muses on what we can take from the message of Easter...
This weekend we celebrate Easter, remembering the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Marking the beginning of the Christian faith, Easter tells of sacrifice and rebirth, so evoking a strong sense of springtime optimism, which in turn brings inspiration as we emerge from a long winter.
We are fortunate to live here in South Holland, for this seasonal change is marked by the return of daffodils filling fields and, having escaped, lining drains, dykes and roadsides.
I always associate this blooming arrival with impending Easter, and feelings of hope that accompany the start of spring.
A sense of new beginnings is a time to cherish our families and others we hold dear.
Family and faith are essential components of our sense of belonging. To treasure the gift of familiar love elevates us beyond individual interests, as to know affection and feel responsibility are essential in a life well lived.
From egg hunts, to rediscovering enjoyable things given up for lent, to sharing at home roast new season lamb, Easter is a time of joy, family, and faith.
For farmers in South Holland and the Deepings, Easter marks another point in the growing calendar. On our rich soil, spring crops are beginning to emerge, and new life is born into the world as lambs grow.
We should never take for granted how blessed we are to live in an area with such fertile land, as so much of our local economy is shaped by farming, food and flowers.
During a visit to a local horticulturalist, I learned that they produce 25 million tulips each year (!) - a reminder that our farmers and growers make a huge difference to the local area and further afield.
To ensure that Lincolnshire continues to fill the food basket of England we need the Government to do more to support the agricultural sector by investing in the future of farming.
Policy makers must be confident that now we have left the EU, we can truly grasp the opportunity of making Britain more self-sufficient by making more of the food we consume.
With food security in mind, we should channel the essential message of Easter into our everyday lives to turn back the tide on the modern culture of waste.
When I was a boy, my mother shopped locally for largely domestically produced goods. Now, as we import food from anywhere - and almost everywhere - across the globe, stretching the lines between production and consumption to breaking point, we have made British consumers more vulnerable to worldwide interruptions in supply, and forced our farmers and growers to face unfair competition.
Easter is a pertinent time for a new beginning as we head towards a post global world order in which nations become more resilient through greater self-sufficiency.
If we are to adapt to and thrive in a world where the tide has begun to turn on globalisation, we must take pride in what we produce in this country and appreciate the best of what we have, maturing beyond juvenile preoccupations with all that’s strange to us.
This Easter, I will take time to once again reflect on the sacrifice made for us by Jesus. Such reflection focuses minds on the values that underpin our Christian heritage.
Happy Easter to my constituents.