Easter

This time of year is characterised by a change in season and new life blossoming all around. It is also dominated by Easter, an event that provides the end game to the Christmas story with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This edition will focus on this festival and ponder its meaning.

Lee Ann Womack captures the astonishing events of that first Easter in a song called Something worth leaving behind, reflecting on key figures from history:

Hey Jesus, it must have been some Sunday morning

In a blaze of glory, we're still tellin' your story

Similar to Christmas, the Easter festival is dominated by commercialism as chocolate eggs are sold in every supermarket. These eggs are the sweetest part of Easter and meant to symbolise the stone that was rolled away from Christ’s tomb. Traditionally, the custom was for normal eggs to be decorated or dyed red and rolled in order to crack.

The story of Easter begins a week before the Crucifixion as Jesus Christ came to Jerusalem on a donkey, having heard of all his miracles, there were crowds there to mark his arrival, some of whom were proclaiming him as the Messiah and others who were just carried along with the excitement without much comprehension of what was happening. The Jewish rulers were keen to capture Jesus since he was viewed as a threat especially since reports emerged of Lazarus making the greatest comeback since…whatever the metaphor was prior to his own phoenix from the flames reappearance.

Jesus was arrested on trumped-up charges later that week and then put on trial where he told the rulers that he was the Messiah, which invokes a charge of blasphemy and the death penalty. One of the most famous moments of the trial is the fact that the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, tried everything to set Jesus free and famously washed his hands of his fate after giving the crowd the option of having Jesus freed or a notorious criminal called Barabbas.

Jesus Christ was then crucified on what we now know as Good Friday. This was a particularly barbaric form of death that was favoured by the Romans as a way of crushing dissent, especially political prisoners who could’ve been perceived as a threat. The process was particularly cruel with a nail through the heels and wrists, some crucifixions were upside down and there was different horrors visited upon the unfortunate victim.

The Gospels highlight that Jesus Christ was whipped, made to wear a crown of thorns and given vinegar wine to drink. He was also pierced in his side though by this time, the Canonical accounts report that he had given up his spirit. Even on the cross, it is reported that he showed compassion to one of the thieves who was facing the same death sentence. There are also accounts of the sky going dark, a time that was considered to be used for punishing Christ with the sins of mankind and the Jewish Temple curtain being torn in two, a symbol that everyone could now approach The Almighty directly.

The story took an amazing turn two days later with the tomb of Jesus being found empty and many sightings of him being reported by his followers in the weeks afterwards. The Apostle Thomas, famously doubted until he saw the risen Christ for himself, a reaction that could be viewed as being poignantly human rather than a sign of moral failure. The Resurrection was the one aspect of religion that separates the claims of Christ from other prophets and belief systems, causing persecution at different times in history. In the last few years there has been a resurgence in persecution among the Christian church in nations where the Islamic State movement has taken hold, a fact that was discussed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter message and was also mentioned by each of the three leaders of the UK’s biggest political parties.

Just as in the first century, the Easter story is viewed as controversial and inspirational in equal measure. For some, it is a stretching belief too far but throughout the centuries millions have regarded Easter as the extraordinary intermingling of horror and hope that an Almighty God initiated in order to reconcile mankind to him. Ultimately, it the decision to accept or reject is one that each person will reach with their own conscience. The essence of Easter is shown by Christian songwriter, Graham Kendrick, with these lyrics from one of his early songs, How much do you think you are worth:

Do you think they'll miss one in a billion

When you finish this old human race?

Does it really make much of a difference

When your friends have forgotten your face?

If you heard that your life had been valued

That a price had been paid on the nail

Would you ask what was traded,

How much and who paid it

Who was He and what was His name?

If you heard that His name was called Jesus

Would you say that the price was too dear?

Held to the cross not by nails but by love

It was you broke His heart, not the spear!

Would you say you are worth what it cost Him?

You say 'no', but the price stays the same.

If it don't make you cry, laugh it off, pass Him by,

But just remember the day when you throw it away

That He paid what He thought you were worth.