Rhythms of the Heart
Easter Sunday
April 8, 2007

Rhythms of the Heart
by Tom Cox

Not a lot happens on Monday mornings in most cultures. For the Western world it is the start of the working week, with survival as the goal of grim-faced commuters. Dean Swift, in caustic vein, called Monday the Parson's holiday, but it certainly isn't a day of rest for the medical professions, with illnesses spiking on a Monday morning.

In the Jewish world our Sunday is the “Monday”, the first day of the week, the day after the Saturday Sabbath. Did this loving troupe risking an early visit to a borrowed grave in what was then the city rubbish dump expect much? We'll never know.

What we do know about Easter Sunday is put best by Pastor John MacLeod. “Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in [three languages] . . . at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble.

Because that's where he died. And that's what he died about. And it is where Christians ought to be and that is what Christians should be about.” Keeping our Christianity confined to a church is like expecting that sitting in a garage will turn you into a car. Jesus died and rose again in the centre of the world, shouldn't we at least try and live this faith in the heart of the world for Easters' sake?

(Comments to Tom at tomascox@eircom.net )