So there seems to be a move to fix Easter once and for all, but what do we mean by fix? Easter this year is early, although hot cross buns seem to on sale all year round and Easter Eggs replaced the Christmas goodies at the end of December. Lent is well on the way and we are once more on the Road to Easter, with its opportunity of self examination and meditation.
I'm sitting on the balcony in Malta as a write this and during our February stay on this Mediterranean island and we have been doing what we all do on holiday, people watching. Whilst sitting in a harbour cafe in Marsaskala, we could not but help hear an animated conversation amongst expats on the next table and particularly the comment that we have now grown beyond era of church and belief. I had to smile to myself as there are 359 churches in Malta, perhaps the highest density of Christian places of worship in the world.
Surrounded by all the trappings of of Gospel expression, these winter sun seekers had perhaps missed the whole point of the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God. So too did the first followers of Jesus; their three years formation as disciples seemed to have failed to register that God himself had and continues to make himself known to them.
When Jesus predicted his death following his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, he quoted the prophesy of Isaiaih; "Lord, who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The prophet goes on to speak of blinded eyes and hardened hearts and also of our need to turn see and understand so that God himself might heal.
God's call to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus is for us to turn, see, understand and enter that wholeness that he alone brings. There are now so many things to divert our attention, confuse our understanding and stop us from turning that we might continue to be made whole. In those words of scripture I want this Easter time shout out "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief"and perhaps sing from the bottom of my heart, "fix in us thy humble dwelling" perhaps the best Easter fix of all; what do you think?
For he is risen, he is risen indeed.
