An Apologia: Eastertide or the Great 50 Days, running from Easter Day (this year, April 17) to the Day of Pentecost (this year, falling on June 5), grants an opportunity for a deeper dive into the mystery of the Christian claim of the resurrection of Jesus.
Whenever I am reminded of this fearsome, gruesome aspect of our humanity of the shedding of blood, I behold afresh the wonder and the power of the Easter story. Involving a death on a cross, Easter testifies that God (truly, Life itself) stands on the side of the scapegoat, the victim and, involving resurrection from the dead, proclaims that there are to be no more scapegoats, no more victims.
“No more!” This is the cry from heavenly places and deepest earth!
“No more!” This is the cry from the heights of our reason and the depths of our hearts!
This is not the way life was meant or is to be.
Yet this world, our world has not understood or embraced this message of the crucifixion and the resurrection, this message of the cross and the empty tomb. And in that as yet invincible ignorance, our world and we continue to seek and to make sacrificial victims.
I wonder. What in heaven’s name and what in the world would life look like if we acted as if the Easter message was true? If we, with the words of our lips and the deeds of our lives said, “No more”?
Coming, An Addendum…
© 2022 PRA
Illustration: Resurrection (1896), James Tissot (1836-1902)
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 