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Easter is coming...

    Spring is just around the corner, and the shops are full of Easter eggs and pictures of flowers and rabbits and chickens, for Easter will soon be upon us!

    One of my favourite Christmas (yes, Christmas!) poems begins “Christmas is really for the children,” and the first verse is full of references to the traditional Christmas story. Here’s the second verse:

Easter is not really for the children unless accompanied by a cream filled egg.

It has whips, blood, nails, a spear and allegations of body snatching.

It involves politics, God and the sins of the world.

It is not good for people of a nervous disposition.

They would do better to think on rabbits, chickens, and the first snowdrop of spring.

Or they’d do better to wait for a re-run of Christmas without asking too many questions about what Jesus did when he grew up or whether there’s any connection.

(Written by Steve Turner, in the Oxford Book of Christmas Poems, OUP 1983)

We all (well, nearly all) celebrate Christmas, but in our society Easter is a festival completely swamped by the celebration of new life in the natural world. Christians are joyfully determined to celebrate the great good news that Jesus Christ is risen! Hallelujah! The baby of Christmas has become the Lord of glory whom death could not hold. Our God has brought him through the agony of Good Friday to the explosion of joy on Easter Day.

Yet our Christian faith calls us to get involved in the affairs of our time, just as Jesus was caught up in the conflicts of his everyday life. Christianity makes great promises about God’s presence in our lives through His Holy Spirit, about His love and care for us, and about His plans for our lives and the way we can get to know what they are. It also challenges us not only to worship Him, but also to serve Him in lives of practical action to help others, and involvement in the issues of our day.

So Christianity is about justice for all people, including producers and immigrants and ethnic minorities. It is about responsible living, and concern for the environment and pollution and climate change.

The great truth at the heart of the Easter festival is that God’s power is greater than all the powers of evil. Jesus died and lives again so that the work of his kingdom might go on. That’s what we are called to work for!