Easter

“What do you enjoy most about Easter?” When I asked that question to children in primary school, their answers included the Easter bunny, chocolate eggs, spring flowers and catkins. Ann and I went with our grandchildren to Chirk Castle last week, where the staff were getting ready for the National Trust Cadbury’s Egg Hunt. You may have noticed there’s a word missing. And the Archbishop of York and the Prime Minister made headlines as they complained to Cadbury’s and the Trust about the missing word Easter.

Much as I hate to disagree with the great and good of our nation, I myself was not that bothered. And anyway, the big poster as we approached Chirk Castle said “Easter Fun - come and join our egg hunt!” - so the word Easter hasn’t entirely been lost. And anyway, if I’m asked what Easter bunnies and Easter eggs have to do with what the Christian festival of Easter, my answer has to be: not very much.

Of course, I like them both. What’s not to like? Rabbits and eggs are symbols of springtime and new life. And of course an egg looks a bit like a stone, but with life inside waiting to burst through the shell, so it can be a symbol for the tomb.

Having said that, egg hunts as a tradition may date from hundreds of years BC. And the name Easter may itself come from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Springtime has long been a time for festival and celebration, and there might well be children probably be hunting for eggs in National Trust gardens even if the Christian Church had never existed.

The Jewish Passover was itself a spring festival, though of course it also celebrated the people’s freedom from slavery in Egypt. Easter as a Christian festival is celebrated in spring because it’s linked to the Passover. That’s also why the date on which it’s held varies from year to year.

The Bible tells us that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place at Passover. Passover begins on the 15th day of the month Nisan in the Jewish calendar which follows a lunar cycle. In fact Passover begins on the first full moon after the Spring equinox, this year 10th April. And Easter is celebrated on the Sunday morning following the start of the Passover.

Spring celebrations and traditions from pagan times were incorporated into the Christian festival of Easter, egg hunts included. But alongside all the springtime fun is the true story of a man put to death in a shameful and barbaric way. His followers were sad, defeated, crushed by what happened, preparing to go home. That was Friday; yet on Sunday and in the weeks that followed, these people came to believe, and to begin to tell the world that he was not dead.

Whatever the Easter story means to you, whether you believe it without question or are still weighing things up, let me spend some time reflecting on what happened that day and what it means to me. I’d like to home in on these three words as I do so: peace, purpose, and promise, and as I do so I’ll be quoting some verses from John’s Gospel, which is where the Easter story is most movingly presented.

So peace is my first word. John tells how in the evening of that first Easter Day, with the doors locked in the place where the disciples had gathered, Jesus came and stood among them. And the first words he spoke to them were “Peace be with you!” This peace is more than just a sense of calm and tranquillity; the Hebrew word shalom speaks of peace that includes wholeness, completeness, wellbeing, security, serenity and harmony of life - and at the heart of it all, peace with God. Today we are reconciled with the one who breathes life into the universe.

Sin is what separates us from God, and therefore from that true peace of heart that is shalom. In John we find this: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” Easter is about God putting things right. Jesus is more than just a good man and a fine teacher; he is the Saviour who frees us from the shackles of sin that we ourselves could never break. His cross lifts from us the weight of our sins, reopens the way back to God. Because he is risen and alive, we are restored to a peace with God that on our own we could never grasp.

And his life gives our life point and purpose. Jesus went on to say to his disciples on that first Easter Day: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. Where will he send them? Everywhere, into all the world. Life throws up big questions: “Where did I come from? Why am I here? What is the point, the purpose of me?” Science and philosophy can only take us so far; for the third question I look to Jesus. Here’s something St Paul wrote in chapter one of his Letter to the Colossians: “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Everything was created through him and for him.” In Jesus we are brought close to God. He lives and we live with him, as Easter people, with lives that have purpose and direction.

Easter gives purpose to this bit of life, but it adds to that the promise of eternal life. At the end of his account of the risen Christ John tells us he wrote these things so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”. To complete the quote I mentioned earlier, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life.” In another verse from John, Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it in all abundance.” Abundant life: not just long life, not just happy life - abundant life.

Jesus offers us a share in abundant life, in his resurrection life. When Peter and John ran to the tomb, they not only found it empty, they found the grave clothes still there. The sense of the Greek text is that the body had simply risen from them, leaving them behind. They were no longer needed. This isn’t a repeat of the resurrection of Lazarus, brought from his grave still wrapped in the grave clothes. This is not a return to the life that was; this is something new.

When Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus in the garden he gives her a message to take to the disciples: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” In those words Jesus plainly tells her that we have a share in what he was done, that we have the same relationship to God. He’d taught his disciples to pray “Our Father, who art in heaven.” At the Last Supper he’d startled them by saying of the bread and wine “This is my body; this is my blood.” But it’s now, at the empty tomb, that these words are proved to be true. This is not a one-off event, but a new beginning in which all who live by faith are promised a share.

Egg hunts, cartoon bunnies, spring catkins; Easter’s a great time with lots to enjoy, and I shall enjoy every bit of it. But at the heart of this service and as we share bread and wine we find the one thing that really matters. We find what is unique and fundamental about Easter, we find the corner stone of our faith. Our Lord is risen, he is risen indeed. Death is defeated, sin has lost its power to enslave us; in this blessed day the way is opened for us, into peace with God, into purpose for living, and into the promise of eternal life.