Easter and its proper perspective

Easter is the high holy day of Christianity. It is the most characteristic expression of the Christian tradition. Yet, if we were stopped on the street and asked what Easter is about we would be stumped for an answer. Obviously, most of us would mention Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We might appreciate some mystical and metaphysical meaning that was implied in the resurrection but have little practical sense of what Easter meant to each of us today.

It helps to consider the first Easter to put things in perspective. Jesus’ three year public ministry was a failure. In the end he was abandoned by the crowds. He was abandoned by the curious. He was abandoned by most of his disciples. Only a handful of people stood at the foot of the cross and half of them were his relatives. Only John and Mary Magdalene were at the foot of the cross as his disciples. He had committed no crime but was being put to death to silence him. At that point he was a “stone cold loser”, who was being consigned to the ash bin of history by the leading power. Brokers of his era and location. Jesus even called out to the Father in agony and the overpowering sensation of being abandoned by God.

No doubt some disciples hid in the crowd or listened to word of what was happening and waiting for God to intervene and make things right. They waited and listened and waited some more. Then Jesus died. They thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse but it did. Jesus died. The messiah didn’t kick out the Romans and establish the Kingdom of Israel in its glory once more. The messiah was crushed by the Roman oppressor. Jesus died.

Easter doesn’t occur in the context of glory or success. Any cause for hope was destroyed. Jesus was broken. It is from this dark and painful perspective that Easter occurs.

Each of us has a life path to follow but we can be sure that even the most blessed of life paths has its share of suffering and pain. Not too many months ago typhoon Yutu rolled through the Marianas destroying homes and businesses. Lives were turned upside down. We are reminded every few months on one of the news channels that the Marianas are within the range of Korean and Chinese nuclear missiles. Crime and corruption are announced on the local news each evening. Politicians offer themselves as our saviors, yet host of the time the best we can expect is that they don’t make matters worse. Our individual lives are marked by personal suffering from illness that knocks our feet out from under us or takes loved ones from our lives. I could go on for a long time listing all the issues that poison our happiness. The point I am trying to make is that like the situation on Good Friday, there is little basis for hope in the world around us.

The situation on Good Friday was absolutely hopeless. Yet, two days later the disciples were filled with shock, wonder and hope! Contrary to all human understanding and expectations, Jesus was not dead. A lance had been driven through his lungs and heart. He had bled out. He had been dead. Yet, now he was alive. The disciples began to realize that God would keep His promises. The Kingdom would be realized, just not in the way that they had anticipated. God would not be constrained by human expectations. There was reason to hope!

Our celebration of Easter acknowledges that even in the face of darkness, chaos, cruelty, and the general insanity that plagues the world today there is reason to hope. Our hope is not in any human political saviors or ideology (whether it is capitalism, socialism, nationalism, etc.) but in God, who raised Jesus from death. Christians are meant to be a people of hope, even when others only see hopelessness around them. Based on that hope, we work to make the world a better place, rather than to curse it and wallow in despair.

We may not see the world transformed around us into the Kingdom of God during our lifetimes but when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and do all the other actions called for in Matthew 25 we touch the lives of those around us. We allow God to work through us, bringing hope to them, as well as transforming both them and ourselves.