Quotes on Easter - 2007

Quotes that remind us what is at the heart of the Easter story - and that this story does still resonate in the hearts of many who will not be 'watching and praying' in churches over the Easter period.

Easter - an opportunity to encounter the living Christ

We have, every Easter, to strip away the accumulated lumber of two thousand years of rather uneven Christian witness and try to let the event be present in its first, disturbing, immediacy.

For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries through a duly constituted hierarchy that arbitrarily lays down what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary.

This sacrament of Holy Communion is not the memorial of a dead leader, conducted by one of his duly authorised successors who controls access to his legacy; it is an event where we are invited to meet the living Jesus as surely as did his disciples on the first Easter Day. And the Bible is not the authorised code of a society managed by priests and preachers for their private purposes, but the set of human words through which the call of God is still uniquely immediate to human beings today, human words with divine energy behind them.

Easter should be the moment to recover each year that sense of being contemporary with God’s action in Jesus. Everything the church does – celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, ordaining priests or archbishops – is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter. It all ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.

Second, the New Testament was written by people who were still trying to find a language that would catch up with a reality bigger than they had expected. The stories of the resurrection especially have all the characteristics of stories told by people who are struggling to find the right words for an unfamiliar experience – like the paradoxes and strained language of some of the mystics. The disciples really meet Jesus, as he always was, flesh and blood – yet at first they don’t recognise him, and he’s something more than just flesh and blood. At the moment of recognition, when bread is broken, when the wounds of crucifixion are displayed, he withdraws again, leaving us floundering for words.

He gives authority and power to the disciples to proclaim his victory and to forgive sins in his name, yet he tells Peter that his future is one in which he will be trussed up and imprisoned and hustled away to death.

So the New Testament is not a collection of books with a single tight agenda that works on behalf of a powerful elite; it is the product of a community of people living at great risk and doing so because they sense themselves compelled by a mystery and presence that is completely authoritative for them – the presence of Jesus.

They have been convinced that being in the company of Jesus is the way to become fully and effectively human. They are discovering how to live together without greed, fear and suspicion because of his company. They believe that they’ve been given the gift of showing the world what justice and mutual service and gratitude might look like in a world that is a very dangerous place because of our incapacity for these things. They take the risks because they believe they have been entrusted with a promise.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev Dr Rowan Williams in an extract of his 2006 Easter Day sermon, from www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/365.
 

Easter – hope and faith are everything

Here is inter-religious relations at the cutting edge. Yet there will be much rejoicing this Easter among Christians in Baghdad. They have not only one of the fastest-growing churches in the Anglican Communion but also a growing faith. Their resurrected Jesus is growing brighter as their surroundings become darker. For them, faith is all they have left, as everything else has disappeared.

I no longer consider this the most dangerous parish in the world. That portfolio probably belongs somewhere in British suburbia. Everything may be safe; there may be no risk of terrorist bombs or attacks on your church leaders. Yet, this Easter faith may also be bland and safe. The first Easter did not take place in such environs. Jesus was taken, persecuted and slaughtered by the authorities. Yet the Easter story is one of triumph over death and destruction.

On Easter Day we celebrate the destruction of death, as Jesus breaks its chains and shows us new life and new hope. This Easter in Baghdad we will celebrate the hope of this season that one day things will change because of their Easter experience. Here in Baghdad this Easter our faith will be our hope, our certainty and our future. In the midst of darkness Jesus is our light and when we have lost everything we realise that the resurrected Jesus is, indeed, everything.

The Rev Canon Andrew White, a priest in Iraq and the chief executive of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East. Quoted in The Times, 15 April 2006.

Why I celebrate Easter in Church

Like so many people, I am perplexed about belief, disturbed equally by the anti-religionists who dismiss all faith with secular cynicism, and by those who abuse belief: fanatical Islamist and lunatic creationist Christian alike. For years I felt sheepish when I was drawn to church on high days and holy days, believing that I, an agnostic since the age of 18, had no business to be there. I would stay silent during the creed, and hold back from the communion rail. Not now. Fully taking part, I love the very fabric of the building.  I see it as a powerful symbol, visible from across the city, of more than two thousand years of belief.

In an age like this we need such symbols, telling us we must reach up and up. Does the Church matter? It does.  Faced with unthinking multiculturalism on the one hand, and rampant secularism on the other, I believe that both contribute to a sad dilution of the "story" of which I, agnostic or not, feel a part. Hollywood called it The Greatest Story Ever Told -and (like it or not) it is part of our DNA. From the pictures of "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" in my Bible, through the awesome majesty of Piero della Francesca's risen Christ to Stanley Spencer's vision of the Resurrection; from the medieval mystery cycles through the St Matthew Passion to sweet, infant nativity plays; from the Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood, through Dante's Divine Comedy to T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - the Christian story is the shaping spirit of this culture, and therefore my life.

At once the tale of a great civilisation and a personal metaphor for the testing journey we all take from cradle to grave, the faith that built the great cathedrals of Europe still sets millions on a quiet quest to make sense of the world. No matter what beliefs we espouse, the idea of the sacred flows through the calendar of existence, whether we are aware of it or not.

All cultures set aside certain days, holy days, to celebrate and re-enact religious events. The feasts served to reinforce identity; thus at the Passover the Jew understands what it means to be a member of "the people of God" and at Easter Christians unite before the pinnacle of their faith: the Resurrection of Christ. The need for light in midwinter, the sense of new growth in spring; these are the impulses which fixed our ancestors in patterns that still lend an abstract beauty to our lives, transcending even the shopping-fests they have become. Good Friday may take people into a mall instead of into stillness and meditation, yet I cling to the conviction that something in the sight of a foil-covered egg or bunch of daffodils whispers joyfully through the Muzak that, God willing, all shall be renewed.

In The Times recently Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks recalled celebrating Passover as a little boy, suggesting that the tenacity of the Jewish identity "has much to do with the gifts of narrative and memory". He went on: "The French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard once defined post-modernism as 'the death of metanarrative', meaning that we don't have, or don't need, the big stories any more - the ones that tell us who we are, where we came from, and what we are called on to do. I think he was wrong. Without memory, there is no identity, and without identity we are cast adrift into a sea of chance, without compass, map or destination."

His words took me back to Christianity: that narrative which (like all the great world faiths) has compassion at its heart, sets out its own golden rule for behaviour, and offers in the story of Jesus of Nazareth a paradigm of "what we are called on to do". On Good Friday I can sum it up simply as: "Bear your crosses with reticent courage, forgive those who hurt you, and have faith that your spirit will rise up."

It's not a bad compass, directing the quest for a good life, and for meaning. Wander through Glastonbury and you will see myriad shops selling "new age" spirituality in the form of crystals, Celtic crosses, tarot cards, peace symbols and the like, beside books on yoga, mysticism, astrology, feng shui and the pagan Green Man. Not far away the ruined Benedictine abbey reminds you that the town was a sacred Christian site, whatever pagan rites may have been enacted on the Tor. That mysterious mound, the abbey and all the paraphernalia of the high street combine in my mind to represent what might be called "the holy longing": the enduring human hankering for something over and above "getting and spending", for a truth beyond the self, for transcendence and faith. What is spiritual longing, and why does it annoy those who resolutely place their faith (there's a word to conjure with) in the rational? Are we not defined partially by what we yearn for? If so, and the materialistic "must-have" does battle with the religious "must strive", I know which side I am on.

Getting the latest designer furbelow, getting drunk, getting high, getting rich, getting laid - I've had my share of all those, but know them all to be as lasting as a chocolate egg in a child's hand on Easter Day. And as nutritious. Surely it is the lack of something else, the confusion arising from the lack of a great, guiding "narrative", that underlies so much of the despair and conflict in our society? That narrative can be seen as humankind's long evolution towards social justice -which was, in any case, a part of the message of the troublemaker, who drove the moneychangers from the temple, embraced the poor and stood up against the hierarchies in power.

The philosopher Ronald Dworkin has argued that the concept of the sacred is an essential part of human ethics. This I am sure of  - the reduction of the world to the strictly rationalist, scientific and material is responsible for as many ills as the misapplication of religious fervour. Both are intolerant and deny the mysterious, the numinous: that which is beyond humble comprehension. Dogmatic, they have no truck with that confused longing for the "good" (call it God if you will) that drives the spiritual quest of the informed heart. Humanist, agnostic, cultural Christian, wistful seeker, student of comparative religion  - I accept all those descriptions. Good Friday is about suffering and sacrifice, Easter Day shouts joy and faith from the pinnacles of our places of worship. This narrative is that of the human condition -and it is to meditate on that, and to celebrate the hope and grace that is at the heart of the story, that I shall sit in St Stephen's Church on Easter morning, sing Jesus Christ is Risen Today and know where I belong.

Bel Mooney, an extract from an article in the Times, 14 April 2006.
 

What Easter means to me

I think the Easter story has meanings even for an agnostic like me. I accept that it is a Christian takeover of pagan spring festivals. But it is different, because it combines spring renewal with the Crucifixion, and what the Crucifixion teaches is that the sufferer is superior to those who inflict suffering. Merely by willingly submitting to torment, and dying, he triumphs because he remains innocent - and his triumph is, for me, not affected by whether he comes back to life again as Christians believe he does. It is just his pain, his helplessness and his endurance that make him superior.

I know it is irrational to believe this (as irrational as to believe in the Resurrection) but I believe it all the same. I connect it with the innocence of nature which can be crushed by brute force but will always return. As D. H. Lawrence said: "The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy".

John Carey, author and Oxford academic, quoted in The Times, 14 April  2006.
 

The power of the great stories of Passover and Easter 

The two great festivals [of Easter and Passover] are powered by extraordinary stories, ones that could have meaning for everyone - even those who would never describe themselves as religious. Start with Passover. It tells the story of the Jews' emergence from slavery to freedom, from captivity in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago to liberty in their own land. It is the central narrative of the Jewish people, but it is also now one of the key stories of human civilisation. You don't have to be a firm believer in God to feel the power of that story. Any number of readings of the story are possible, with or without faith. Even for someone who has doubts about God, that's a story of hope and inspiration, one worth passing to the next generation.

The Easter narrative doesn't carry the same personal meaning for me, but I can see its power all the same. (Indeed, a regular, if unlikely, aspect of my Passover experiences as a child were Jesus movies on the television: I had a weakness for them then and still do.) It also tells of the emergence from great suffering into a new beginning - from a death on the cross to resurrection.

For Christians, this is a central article of faith. But even those who are not believers can surely see the value in this story. It addresses one of the central anxieties of mankind: why is there so much suffering in the world? Easter says that suffering need not be in vain; that out of great despair, a new start is possible. The core themes remain compelling. Yet too many Britons are oblivious to all this, writing it off either as mumbo-jumbo or as the exclusive preserve of the "God squad". But they are cutting themselves off from the myths that form the foundation of much of world culture.

Even if these stories don't appeal, the way religious people mark them has something to teach the rest of us. For they have found a way to break the usual routine of work-spend-work that seems to dominate so much of contemporary life. At Easter or Passover - or Ramadan or Diwali - they step off the hamster wheel and reflect. A few days, or even a few hours, are set aside as a time not to work or shop, not to acquire more stuff, but to reflect.

This is a need that is not peculiar to people of faith: all of us need to recharge our emotional, spiritual batteries now and then. Which is why I have some sympathy for those keen to block any further extension in Sunday trading hours. Shop workers and others are fighting to keep a few hours clear of the usual stampede of work and commerce. We all have a chance to do that this weekend and we should seize it - whatever we believe, or whether we do at all.

Jonathan Freedland, journalist, columnist and author, an extract from an article in The Evening Standard, 13 April 2006.