In the week after I was first ordained, in 1979, I was walking through Christchurch's Cathedral Square, dressed in my new clergy uniform of black trousers, crisp black shirt and shiny white clerical collar, when I passed a group of patched gang members.
They were big guys and were laughing and joking, pushing each other around and generally looking menacing in a relaxed kind of way.
When I walked past, an odd thing happened.
They all went silent and looked at the ground.
This was my first lesson in bearing something that has been a particular burden ever since: the power of ordination.
Perhaps it is conditioning or culture.
Perhaps it is, as Urban T. Holmes claims, a deep psychological response to a symbol of the infinite.
However it is explained, the power of the ordained person is real and its size cannot quite be gauged until it has been experienced at first hand.
This power can be very useful: it can be used for example to teach; or to assure people of forgiveness and worth; or to provide a healing access into people's lives at times of crisis or bereavement.
It can also be misused; for example to bolster a fragile sense of self in the ordained person.
In a more sinister vein, it can be manipulated to extract favours, sexual or monetary, from the vulnerable, the awed, the bewildered and the trusting.
Jesus, the one we the ordained follow, was a man with enormous personal power.
People followed him devotedly.
He commanded the respect of large crowds, and people who wielded political power in his contemporary society seemed to take him very seriously indeed.
Jesus seems to have been aware of the dangers of the power he wielded as a holy man and he is often portrayed in the Gospels eschewing control over other people's lives.
More significantly, in the events commemorated this weekend, he is shown forsaking power completely.
In the crucifixion he walks deliberately away from his undoubted ability to either escape or defend himself.
Before Pilate, he gives up even his unparalleled oratorical skills.
In what must be one of the most poignant scenes in world history he is shown being brutalised by functionaries of the Roman state and uttering not bitterness nor regret nor imprecations, but words of understanding and forgiveness.
Naked in the sun, with his arms pinned wide, he is a portrait of absolute vulnerability and openness and weakness.
Of course, it didn't all end there.
The Easter story, of angels and transformation and a great big stone knocked flat on its back, speaks of a truth so universal it seems to be woven into the very fabric of the universe: endings are always followed by new beginnings.
It is odd that one of the features of this story so seminal to the Christian faith is often overlooked by the Church, namely that the two - ending and beginning - are organically linked.
You cannot have resurrection unless you first have crucifixion, and this is a pattern that has far wider application than the events of Easter day.
In terms of Jesus' life, this means that the great personal power he wielded before he was resurrected came precisely from his continual willingness to be vulnerable and undefended.
In terms of the ordained, it surely means the same; that the healthy use of the authority inherent in our position requires the forsaking of our own needs in any pastoral relationship.
For the Church as a whole, it means that careful attention should be paid to the words that are said this weekend.
At a time when the public perception of the Church is often shaped by revelations of personal abuse, sexual predation and financial manipulation, trying to defend the indefensible simply cannot work.
Owning up to the wrongs that have been done in the past is simple justice, but it is also the only way the Church can live and be true to itself.
Seeking to protect the chimeras of reputation and worldly power only makes the Church weaker in that one area that actually counts for anything, namely the ability to draw people into wholeness of body, mind and spirit.
The ancient cry of Easter morning will be heard across Christendom tomorrow morning: Christ is Risen! If the Church wishes to experience the truth of those words, it knows what must happen first.
Guest editorial by Dr Kelvin Wright, Anglican Bishop of Dunedin
