Matt’s Easter Message
The Easter message is much more difficult than Christmas. At Christmas, it’s all about family and peace and babies. Easter is about death, suffering, betrayal and abuse of power followed by the happy ending which doesn’t quite do enough to make it all OK. Even though Jesus conquered death, he didn’t make all the bad things go away, the resolution is the promise that somehow it will all be made good but we don’t really see that apart from a bit of a light show later on. And Jesus never did come back to set everything right. We are left to squabble over our theological differences and argue about whether any of it ever really happened. Meanwhile the realities of death, suffering, betrayal and abuse of power continue with unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe we need to stop waiting for Jesus to come back to show us who’s side he’s on. I believe that Jesus never left us because the spirit of that which opposes violence and embraces compassion for others in equal measure lives amongst us. Easter is a time for us to find courage in the face of all these things knowing that we are not alone.
