These Easter days represent the high point of the Church’s year as we share in a story of hope that has been heard for generations, stretching back two thousand years, and yet has never lost its power to excite wonder and joy. Why does this story continue to grip us when we’ve heard it so often? I think it has to be because it’s a story that finds life in you and me. The story of Jesus, his struggle against evil and suffering, and God’s power to heal and forgive and make new again, is our story too. On Holy Thursday we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, and then we have the tender image of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in a gesture of love and service, showing them in the process how he expects his followers to behave towards one another. That’s the ideal, the Kingdom of God made real. But then on Good Friday, the world as you and I frequently know it, steps in. We see what happens to Jesus as it happens to innocents everywhere. Real goodness in the world can get spat upon, beaten and executed. Good Friday is every day for many innocent people around the world. But the stone rolled away from the tomb is God’s answer to the cruelty of Good Friday, for at the Easter Vigil we celebrate the victory of light over darkness, of life over death. The great stories of our faith have all taken place in gardens. In the Garden of Eden, God walked with man in the cool of the day, and all was harmony and ease until the power of evil entered human hearts. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus took on that power of evil and seemed to be overcome by the treachery and injustice of the world. But in the final garden of our faith, the garden of the empty tomb, God gave his answer which should resound in our hearts in even the most difficult of situations: Christ has died, Christ is Risen and Christ will come again. To all Christians, especially those who are experiencing darkness and death in their lives at present, I wish the choicest graces and blessings of the Risen Lord this Easter. +Seán Brady Easter 2004 ends |