I went to church at Easter. It was a perplexing, emotional experience. My relationship with the Catholic church is a fraught one. But one thing I got out of the service was how the story of the Resurrection is one that can resonate no matter whether you believe a bloke called Jesus died at some point in history and then miraculously rose again. I also loved that someone played the cello. Beats an organ. Pretty much anything does.
The priest at the church I visited – St Kevin’s in Bangalow – trod the line so well in his telling of the Easter story. He allowed it to also be interpreted as one of metaphorical death and rebirth (he didn’t invite it, but cleverly used the homily to show how it can be received in the everyday). Even if you believe in the literal version of things (Jesus did actually come back to life after bleeding to death on a cross), what I imagine you – we all – get out of it is a broad message that everything dies and everything comes back, albeit as another form, and that there are lessons to be taken from this process. We acknowledge the sins that Christ died for. So that we can continue our earthly experience with some goodness going on.
I came across this BRILLIANT read about why Easter resists commercialism on Slate yesterday. It addresses the Resurrection. It’s worth reading. James Martin writes:
Well, for one thing, it’s hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not.
Indeed, Jesus is betrayed by his best mate, killed brutally, then rises from the dead. Also, the Resurrection is hard to come to terms with.