I suppose that it is unavoidable to compare Easter with Christmas, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Christmas is in deep winter, when our nights are dark and the weather is cold. Our images are of snow-clad landscapes and city scenes. And then the story is definitely a family story: a mother having a baby, in hard times and yet adored by all sorts of visitors: shepherds from the fields and wise men or kings from far away.
And yes, Christmas is about parties and presents, the gathering of the family and contact with people also from far away. What is there not to celebrate, and to celebrate as a family? Family-friendly, child-centred, and a prominent place for women.
Easter? This is different. It is in the spring, and our spring flowers are there to decorate the church. But no, this is not the mid-winter party season. The visuals are all pretty sombre: three empty crosses on a small hill by the roadside. The image is of death – not exactly family-centred.
But then this is a very special death, laden with theological language. Who died and why are both the stuff of serious and thoughtful reflection. And then the images of Easter are of – well, an empty tomb. A place with nothing there – and that is the point. If Christmas is about a child born into the world, Easter is about the same child who was executed in the most barbaric manner that the authorities could contrive. So they took down His body, wrapped it up and put it into a tomb. The rest could wait until after the Sabbath.
And then it happened! A flash and a bang and He was gone. The tomb forced open and yet the grave clothes neatly folded up and put aside. Nobody saw anything – but the reports began to trickle out. Dazed, confused and to many, quite irrational. Beyond believing or understanding. The mind just could not comprehend it. The women who first reported it were either too dazed to say much, or when they did, they were not believed. It was all too fantastic, beyond reason and experience. Certainly not in the realm of practical men of affairs.
But instead of subsiding, the mystery grew. More reports were coming in, and He was seen by more and more people until it could not be explained away or disregarded. Now all the assumptions about getting and spending, of living this life as best one could, of negotiating the powers that be and all the other pressures and tensions of life were all being redefined.
And the reason was simple. Death was not the end. In fact it was just a beginning. So the certainty of judging one’s own life and conduct also had to be re-evaluated. If death was not the end then there really was that other realm where the author of life and the victor over death had an even greater say over life in this realm, and where it was leading us. All our choices and actions could be reviewed by one who is greater than death itself. All our relationships and transactions, priorities and assumptions, were going to be subject to the word and will of one who is demonstrably greater than all the rulers and armies and finances of this world.
Easter is more than a celebration of the victory of life over death. It is the starting point of a whole new agenda, this time determined by Jesus Christ, the One who rose from the dead. He who had tasted death and yet was wholly vindicated by God, His Father, and had been given the seat of authority, second only to God Himself.
Easter is the beginning of a new mystery of life: not just where and how it starts, but where it leads and what it means. All those petty rivalries over money and possessions and status soon begin to look trivial, even irrelevant. They might be important to those who have nothing else to look for, but to those who are drawn into the mystery of Easter, they are so small-minded and insubstantial.
What happened in the small hours of that first day of the week is not just the centre of church life. It is also the turning point of the whole of human history. Jesus did not die or rise again for the church – He did it for the whole of humanity.
The church is only the gathering of those who have received the message and responded to it.
Every blessing this Eastertide, Sydney Maitland
