Thinking about Easter, thinking at Easter, or thinking with Easter?

This year in getting thinking about Easter, I “Googled” – “What is Easter?”

"Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar. It celebrates the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, three days after he was executed. The Easter story is at the heart of Christianity. In Easter celebrations there are two important days, Friday and Sunday. Easter Sunday marks Jesus' resurrection. After Jesus was crucified on the Friday (now known as Good Friday), his body was taken down from the cross, and buried in a cave tomb. The tomb was guarded by Roman Soldiers and an enormous stone was put over the entrance, so that no-one could steal the body. On the Sunday, Mary Magdalene, followed later by some of Jesus' disciples visited the tomb and found that the stone had been moved, and that Jesus' body had gone. Jesus himself was seen that day by Mary and the disciples and for forty days afterwards by many people. His followers realised that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Christians call this the Resurrection."

Join me in some Easter thinking with the question; “is the Easter season worth thinking about?”  Methinks yes.  Now one may well say; “So you should Reverend, it’s all part of your profession.” So what? - I, and most likely you also have thought about Easter for a lot longer than we have ever pursed (or retired from) a life-profession. 

Now thinking from personal recall; my Easter-thinking starts with childhood experiences like getting hard sugar-candy eggs that rattled. And knowing that some families went to Sunday-church especially at Easter, we didn’t; also hearing that those families got their eggs after church – we got ours on Friday. I recall seeing supplies stocked up at the local grocer’s store, and witnessing at least two chooks, lay-down-their-lives; but not in their expectation of resurrection, but my anticipation of a great Sunday dinner with extended family. At those meals there was listening, listening to the adults talk about how things were in the old days and how they these are days. Come to think about it, I was not contributing into adult conversational intercourse, as “children were seen and not heard” – but like any child I was thinking! When you get thinking about it, our Easters didn’t just happen. In both your and my family’s worlds they were (and still are) patterned. In some way we all “do Easter.” 

So much for thinking about Easter, I’m also for thinking at Easter.

We call Easter a holiday, in fact a “four-day public holiday” – statutory even. Yet Easter is Easter; simply put it’s essentially the major Christian festival – a serious think-time, focusing on God’s thoughts and actions into our world and families. 

Now to think with Easter, is thinking within its 3R’s; redemption, resurrection, and reconciliation. On Friday Jesus is not merely dying; He is acting in securing redemption for humans personally, communally, and provisionally. Resurrection on Sunday is both historical and contemporary; resurrection reality then, is a personal, and communal potential now.   The “third-R” - reconciliation is what we do with Easter, what Easter can do or does to us. Wishing you happy thinking . . . happy Easter.