“Easter is the greatest feast of the Church’s liturgical year”. We are all so used to this idea that it may become rather blah. Christ died and rose again and meanwhile our world goes on, same old, same old. After a lifetime of Easter celebrations, the whole routine could become just one more thing to drag ourselves through. What cure can we find for such deadening thoughts?
There is no resurrection without a resurrected faith community. That might be a good starting point. The death and resurrection of Jesus didn’t just hapen to him, it was something experienced by the community of disciples he had gathered and trained as agents for his mission in the world. He didn’t charge them to set up a liturgical calendar in which to commemorate a one-off first-century Easter event. Death and resurrection was to be an ongoing experience of Spirit-driven transformation not just of individual believers but above all in their communal life. That is certainly what Luke believed, and how he depicts the first Easter events in his writings.
An inescapable conclusion to these ruminations might be this…. We can only celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus within communities of faith for whom death and resurrection are an ongoing reality throughout the year. Lacking that, expect to feel the blahs at Eastertime, and start praying for God’s life-giving interventions in our midst.
You can listen to my remarks on Luke’s Gospel reading for Easter Sunday here …
http://waiapuacademy.org/ptop-yrc/easter-to-trinity/easter1c/