The Original Easter
The original Easter must have been just about the most camera-shy of all the great events that have shaped the world. It took place in the dead of night, in pitch darkness, and in a securely sealed cave with no witnesses whatsoever - let alone television cameramen. And it went from bad to worse...
The apostles and their associates might have been all very thrilled by it, and determined to tell anyone who would listen - and lots more who wouldn’t - but Christ himself remained curiously elusive. And not only in telling Mary Magdalen to keep her distance in the garden. Until his ascension he came and went most unpredictably, and even when he appeared - usually out of nowhere - his disciples didn’t recognise him to begin with, and didn’t know what to do about it when they did!
Curiously enough, I find all this very satisfying. Whatever else he was, Christ was no media icon, no publicity hunter, and the transformation which took place in the cave at the first Easter was not to be easily understood, and was certainly not for sale in a supermarket!
The resurrection is properly beyond our understanding because it is simply not within our experience. Even as I say that, I’m aware of those who would rush to contradict me and assert that we live the risen life now. This, however, seems to me just another example of the sort of Orwellian newspeak which can make the Church seem more concerned with fantasy than reality. We do, of course, live in hope of the risen life, and we do occasionally have a foretaste of it in this world. But I doubt very much if many of us radiate the uncreated Divine Light, come and go through solid doors without opening them, and will be ascending bodily into the glory of the Age to Come without having to die first.
St Benedict says that a monk’s life should be a perpetual Lent. But he means a Lent which is followed by the joy and glory of Easter. And it’s that joy and glory which make not just Lent, but life itself worthwhile. Much in our present existence can give us a clue to the joys which are to come, but none of them even begin to be in the same league. So let’s recognise happily that the resurrection of Christ is - for the moment - beyond our comprehension, but let us also celebrate the hope we have not just of knowing about the glories of the risen life, but of actually enjoying them through all eternity.
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