EASTER 2017
The Forty Days of Lent are over. The Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lamb of God have been celebrated during Holy Week. The tomb is now empty. The flowers symbolize the New Life that has come to the world. Jesus Christ lives! He has Risen as he said he would and his light lights up our world. The Easter celebration is an invitation to come out out of darkness into the light of the risen Christ. In that light we see him and recognise each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. It is that light which summons us to leave the darkness of our lives behind and all of us have some of those. As a result of Jesus conquering death on the cross nobody and nothing can be written off as a lost cause ever again. Year after year when we celebrate Easter we hold as holy the memory of God’s great act in raising Jesus from the dead. We believe that God’s graciousness will be extended to ourselves and that our own death will not be the final word.
Our faith educates our hope that we will participate in Jesus resurrection on the last day. But a question raises itself: is our faith in the resurrection limited to remembering Jesus’ resurrection and hoping for our own on the last day? What happens between times? What about today? The resurrection of Jesus is a proclamation that this outcast from Galilee is the beloved Son of God who cannot be held in the darkness of death because someone else takes action. Jesus did not raise himself; he was raised by God his father. The truth that God raised Jesus from the dead gives hope and help to all those who want that miracle repeated in the midst of life. All of us believe that God’s work continues not least because we believe Jesus’ words: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Our celebration of the Easter Season begins with our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday and continues for 50 days until Pentecost and then it resonates throughout the rest of the year: full of gratitude for Christ’s passion, with joy in his resurrection and, strengthened by the Spirit, we continue our Christian journey this Easter time.
Fullerton T 