Fr. Michael Plekon on Easter

A reflection on the meaning of Easter

Most Christians, except for the Eastern Orthodox, will celebrate Easter on April 5 this year. For an increasing number of people, Easter is about chocolate, rabbits, egg hunts, and dyeing eggs, but why? Easter is the feast of the Christian year, even greater than Christmas, because without the raising of Jesus from death, what would be the point of Christmas?

As I say that, I remember that Christmas is about gifts, trees, lights, family, and feasting. Oh yes, and the baby Jesus. Even today, many would honestly ask, what is so important about the birth of a baby over 2,000 years ago?

Easter is an old English name for the spring goddess. It is the result of those who brought Christianity to what is now England wanting to use the language and culture of that place. In many languages, the word for Easter is one variation or another of Pascha, which in turn comes from the Greek for Pesach, or Passover, the great Jewish festival of passing over from slavery and death under the Egyptians to freedom and new life. God did all this, so the first Christians continued the name for Jesus’ passing over from death to life.

But then as now, the Easter experience starts with Jesus and extends to all of us. The icon or image of the Resurrection, called the harrowing of hell in earlier times, shows Jesus leading Adam and Eve and all their children, you and me, out of the realm of death to new life forever with God. This we confess each Sunday in the Creed, in the Eucharistic prayer, and in taking the bread and cup of the Eucharist, the bread of life and cup of salvation. Perhaps more than any other feature of Jesus’ good news, it was this promise and gift of life always with God, new life, that attracted so many in the ancient world. What about now, today?

Other religious traditions such as Judaism and Islam also revere one God and believe that God wants us to be with him, and with each other, past death. It is a deep, basic yearning in the human heart. Death is certain, like taxes, right? And aging, and illness. Yet we do not throw the gift of life, of love and family and friends, of learning and celebrating away just because there is an end for each of us. Too bad if you doomscroll your days and nights away. Is it not better to at least wager a belief that God will stick to his promise?

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, said in her sermon on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, that God always has something new to offer us. God is full of surprises.

Just as the teenage girl Mary of Nazareth, despite fear and panic at God’s messenger Gabriel and the news that she would have a son who would save the world, that is some news, Mary held on to faith, the trust that God would make good on his promises. Mary was there and asked her son to help the host family when the wine ran out at a wedding in Cana. She followed him around Palestine as he healed and taught and gathered his friends to share a meal every night, where our Eucharist comes from. She was strong enough, though breaking apart inside, to see him suffer and die on the cross. She was also one of the women who came to the tomb only to find it empty. Tradition says Jesus first appeared to her when he was raised. He was, in the end, a good son.

Against what their eyes and ears told them, Jesus’ mother and friends saw that he kept his promise to be with them, to live always with them. This is the heart of Easter. Not a magic trick of a dead body being revived. Rather, Easter is the hope that God has that we all live forever with him and with each other.

No matter how bad the news around us, no matter how disappointing our political leaders may be, no matter the sad things we all have to face, sickness and loss in family and friends, God said he would always be with us, as one of us.

Christ is risen.

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