Easter Sunday
April 24, 2011

Breaking the Chains
by Tom Cox

One of the loveliest things about Easter is that it …moves. However
its unpredictability irritates some in our modern age of calculation
and highly defined living. Easter is a bit like an unexpected relative
popping their head around the door. And that is as it should be. You
can’t tie down Resurrection and new life to some defined date. It
happens any day and every day.

Resurrection is not resuscitation, or some Buddhist reincarnation.
Resurrection means something ended and died and despite all this new
life sprung up again. There is no tip-toeing around a tomb. No amount
of flower bedecked artificial grass can cover the cavernous gap left
in a human heart standing by the new graveside of a loved one.
What tomb do we need to leave and rise from?  The tomb of “you’re no
good” “you’ll drink/gamble/do drugs again.” What stone of unbelief-
either that of others in us, or lack of faith in ourselves do we need
rolled from the tomb?  Sometimes we don’t  have the personal, inner
strength to make that move. We are literally grounded down by life and
by circumstances.

If that is your story as you pray in a full Easter Church with maybe
less than a heart replete or full with Easter joy, then this is your
day. The day of Resurrection, the Sunday of all Sundays, the day of
life. There is hope, where life has ended, life will begin- new and
wonderfully different.

News reporting at a time of global economic crisis all seem to seek to
reinforce the gloomiest financial forecasts.  It appears that once
traders have formed a certain view of the economy, they tend to put
greater reliance on evidence that supports that understanding and play
down, if not overlook, whatever may contradict it.

Was it ever any different. People are more or less the same down the
centuries. The First Century was no different in mindset and approach
to our cynical age. Take the first followers of Christ. Their view was
that it was all over. Their hopes lay buried with him. In some sense
we need to speak of the resurrection not of Jesus but of we his
followers. We are on this 95th anniversary of the Easter Rising a
“Risen people” – or are we? We live in Ireland with unfinished
building projects, could I be a builder of peace, with no room for
falsehood or corruption, for abuse or manipulation, for violence or
racism. The followers of Jesus were changed- what about us? Do we,
…could we ….live the eternal message of light and life?

(Comment to Tom at tomasmacconchoille@googlemail.com.)