Thoughts on Easter

by Dan

Easter is my favorite holiday, the only one that really matters. Christmas is a pleasant distraction from everyday life, a time to enjoy family and friends, and, yes, celebrate Christ’s birth. But it’s non-essential. Easter, on the other hand, is the real deal. The three days spanning Good Friday to Easter Sunday are the most important in the Christian calendar — the only truly important days, in fact. As author John Irving puts it in his novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany:

“Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer. “

Which is just a pithy and mildly sarcastic way of reiterating what the apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Cor 15:13-14)

Christianity isn’t a religion built on ideas or practical self-help style information designed to improve your finances, or marriage, or relationship with your kids. It’s not a mechanism whereby God becomes a cosmic ATM, doling out material and spiritual rewards based on your proper application of religious knowledge. Christianity’s foundation is an event: the resurrection of Christ. Either it happened or it didn’t. The earliest founders of the church were quick to admit that, if the resurrection didn’t happen, Christianity itself is a waste of time.

There’s something refreshingly simple, straight-forward, and honest about that. Which is why Easter is so awesome: It’s the day on which all of the noxious trappings of organized religion — denominational infighting, prosperity gospel reductionism, right- or left-wing political hoo-ha, rigid orthodoxy — are silenced in the presence of Christianity’s true message: God’s radical, grace-filled love for humanity as expressed through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Simple. Powerful. Essential.

And so, for me, Easter is a time for prayer, fasting, and contemplation. It’s the real deal.

That’s it.