Although not a Christian, I believe in Easter. Or more accurately, I KNOW Easter is real. Not that I know just what happened about two thousand years ago to that small group of disciples. But we know that something remarkable and unexpected turned them from a cowering group of losers into confident people who knew that Jesus’ message and acts had truly come from God. From then on, they did not doubt that the power of Love was stronger than death, that nothing could curb God’s message and actions if only people did them. It’s too bad that we don’t agree with them. 

                Here in Kingston, several churches amalgamated their traditional Good Friday services. Individually, they simply didn’t have enough people. Each congregation is dying, with an average age of around 70.

                To me, this is tragic, but good news, for although they are ‘good Christians’, they are plainly not Easter People. The people of Easter were imaginative, questioning, open to newness, not hindered by the past or traditions. They quickly became scandalous, judging everything by a single criterion: Growing in Love.

                Churches could hardly be more different. No institutions in our culture are more rigid and less open to newness of any kind. One of the first acts of Christianity, when it became formalized under the Roman Empire, was to ban prophecy of any kind. No new ideas or voices were allowed. All was controlled. Any change or questions were threats, and ‘of the Devil’. The words may be different now, but the assumptions are the same. Easter may be observed, but rarely done or allowed. It is celebrated as something that once happened, and that is seen as enough.

                What an eternal shame. Especially now, we need Easter people, no matter what faith they profess (or don’t). We need people who know, or even suspect, that, in joining with others in Love, they can take on whatever the world throws at them, and that, in the end, Love will outlast everything. Believing this is only the start. How about doing it, becoming changed, even as those few were, so long ago? Our beliefs hardly matter if we don’t enact them. I hope church people will start doing this, becoming Easter People. But I doubt it. Their traditions are just too strong. It’s so much easier to sing about Easter for a few weeks than to change our lives and to actually grow in love.

                But it’s something we all instinctively know is the smart and good Way to live, no matter our supposed beliefs or religion. True Easter People will be of all stripes and backgrounds. The old differences won’t matter. They will set their neighbourhoods on fire, and eventually, the whole world. They will get in trouble. They will know true Joy, knowing that their Way is more important than anything else. This possibility is what we should be celebrating on Easter Sunday, not just something that a few people experienced long ago. That was important, but not nearly as important as what we do with it today.

                Why not?

                Anthony, still celebrating and trying to do.