Today we celebrate Easter Day, the origins of our actual festival really do not concern me. As a Christian, we look at this day as the day which gives us an eternal future. The following is straight an Evangelical Alliance email.
The Resurrection
We may not like it, but for the majority of folk this weekend won’t hold much spiritual significance. Even the old joke that ‘C of E’ stands for ‘Christmas and Easter’ church attendance doesn’t quite work, as the thoughts of most will centre on stopping the kids eating too much chocolate, worrying about family gatherings and wondering how to avoid the holiday traffic.
Given this, it’s perhaps not surprising that the Archbishop of Westminster’s attack on the Premier League for holding football fixtures on Easter Sunday hasn’t met with much sympathy. As one Guardian commentator put it, this is “church leaders intent on trying to impose the observance of the festival on others who frankly would rather watch the footie.” No doubt, we’ll all know people who share these sentiments.
Isn’t this, though, a fantastic opportunity to explain to people precisely why Easter is infinitely more significant than the football? Imagine if Christians up and down the country could get as excited and enthused about the story of the resurrection as the football fans cheering and screaming on Sunday. And even if football is not your thing, no doubt there are other interests that you can’t stop talking about. The resurrection, though, is surely the most remarkable story - and there’s so much we can say.
It’s the story of the impossible – a dead man rises. It’s the story of the ultimate triumph over evil, as God demonstrates his victory over Satan, and it’s the ultimate story of love and forgiveness. And the resurrection isn’t just a story that sits 2,000 years ago in history. It has meaning, power and hope for us today: meaning that should radically change the way we live our lives, power to transform the darkest situations, hope for even the most broken lives.
We’re called to proclaim the resurrection, but we’re also called to model it on a daily basis. The actions Jesus displayed at the crucifixion were radically counter-cultural: humility, service, sacrifice, gentleness, meekness and faithfulness to God in the face of extreme persecution – actions that caused those around him to discover who he was. When displayed in us, they can cause others to seek to find out why we follow Him. Such actions are often costly – they were for Jesus and we should expect them to be for us too. But ultimately, whatever the cost, because of Christ’s resurrection “in all these things we are more than conquerors,” (Romans 8:37) as the resurrection defeats evil and reveals God’s power. And it’s that same power that raised Jesus from the dead that is at work in us today. Now that is surely something worth sharing – and something that is worth getting far more excited about, even than the football.
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on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am and is filed under The Pastor's Comments.
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Easter Day
Today we celebrate Easter Day, the origins of our actual festival really do not concern me. As a Christian, we look at this day as the day which gives us an eternal future. The following is straight an Evangelical Alliance email.
The Resurrection
We may not like it, but for the majority of folk this weekend won’t hold much spiritual significance. Even the old joke that ‘C of E’ stands for ‘Christmas and Easter’ church attendance doesn’t quite work, as the thoughts of most will centre on stopping the kids eating too much chocolate, worrying about family gatherings and wondering how to avoid the holiday traffic.
Given this, it’s perhaps not surprising that the Archbishop of Westminster’s attack on the Premier League for holding football fixtures on Easter Sunday hasn’t met with much sympathy. As one Guardian commentator put it, this is “church leaders intent on trying to impose the observance of the festival on others who frankly would rather watch the footie.” No doubt, we’ll all know people who share these sentiments.
Isn’t this, though, a fantastic opportunity to explain to people precisely why Easter is infinitely more significant than the football? Imagine if Christians up and down the country could get as excited and enthused about the story of the resurrection as the football fans cheering and screaming on Sunday. And even if football is not your thing, no doubt there are other interests that you can’t stop talking about. The resurrection, though, is surely the most remarkable story - and there’s so much we can say.
It’s the story of the impossible – a dead man rises. It’s the story of the ultimate triumph over evil, as God demonstrates his victory over Satan, and it’s the ultimate story of love and forgiveness. And the resurrection isn’t just a story that sits 2,000 years ago in history. It has meaning, power and hope for us today: meaning that should radically change the way we live our lives, power to transform the darkest situations, hope for even the most broken lives.
We’re called to proclaim the resurrection, but we’re also called to model it on a daily basis. The actions Jesus displayed at the crucifixion were radically counter-cultural: humility, service, sacrifice, gentleness, meekness and faithfulness to God in the face of extreme persecution – actions that caused those around him to discover who he was. When displayed in us, they can cause others to seek to find out why we follow Him. Such actions are often costly – they were for Jesus and we should expect them to be for us too. But ultimately, whatever the cost, because of Christ’s resurrection “in all these things we are more than conquerors,” (Romans 8:37) as the resurrection defeats evil and reveals God’s power. And it’s that same power that raised Jesus from the dead that is at work in us today. Now that is surely something worth sharing – and something that is worth getting far more excited about, even than the football.
Susannah Clark, Public Theology Researcher
Tags: Easter Day; Eternal; future; Resurrection;
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am and is filed under The Pastor's Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.