So what happened to Easter Day? It seems to have come and gone in a flash this year and many humans are now focussing their thoughts upon the Spring and Summer. For many, Easter Day is simply a kind of marker in the annual calendar. A time when Winter is giving way to Spring. A time when they get a few days off work. And a time when they briefly remember the story of the resurrection of Jesus.
Photo credit: Pixabay
And when Easter gets pigeonholed like this, it loses all of its significance and relevance. Because what so many of us fail to realise is that we are all active participants in the story of Eastertime. It wasn’t just Jesus that was resurrected on Easter Sunday; it was all of us as well. Humanity and creation came back from the dead, from oblivion, from nothingness to be offered an extraordinary hope for the future.
To understand the relevance of Eastertime, we all need to see our own unique place in the Easter story. Jesus was initially betrayed by Judas who put a greater value upon 30 pieces of silver than upon the life of Jesus and all that He represented. And later on, Peter, one of the closest disciples to Jesus, -denied knowing Him on three separate occasions in order to save his own skin. Both Judas and Peter represent all humanity. The humanity of Jesus’ day, and the humanity in the current world. For who has ever gone through life without betraying Jesus? By having doubts. By turning away. By denying Him or simply ignoring Him. Or by choosing sin over and above righteousness. It’s only when humans recognise their own role in the betrayal of Jesus that they can begin to understand the reality of their own salvation.
As we all know too well, the Coronavirus is currently infecting and contaminating humanity around the world. But so does evil and sin. It’s something that humans can engender themselves or catch from others around them. All humanity is contaminated by sin to varying degrees, and this makes the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and His subsequent resurrection of the greatest relevance to every single human that has ever lived. Humans that fail to see this are in effect stuck in Easter Saturday. In a world that fails to fully satisfy ; a life without true meaning or purpose; an empty void of existence that will end in permanent death and decay.
But Easter Sunday changes all of that. The empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus is not simply the end of the Easter story. It’s just the beginning for all of us. The large rock that sealed Jesus’ tomb has been rolled away to open up a fresh start, a new beginning, and a bright new future for every one of us. If we choose to accept it.
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