Easter, 2025

 I haven't set foot in a church for a number of years. It's complicated. 

Back in 2016, not long after I stopped going to church, for perhaps the first time in my life, I really absorbed the true meaning of Easter, hands down the most important holiday in Christianity.

It turned out that in all my years as a practicing Christian, specifically of the Roman Catholic faith, Easter, never truly lived up to all the expectations. Coming after the season of Lent, with its solemnity,  meditation, devotion and sacrifice, all in buildup to the great day, when that day, the great victory of light over darkness, of life over death finally came, it always turned out to be a little underwhelming. I always expected, as many Christians do, to be filled with the Holy Spirit in a rapture of joy and happiness. However. my typical response to Easter for the first fifty plus years of my life was basically the refrain to an old Peggy Lee song, "Is That all There Is?" 

But as I realized after one painful Easter season, you can't have Easter without first having Good Friday. 

And what a horrible Good Friday my family and I experienced that year.

That weekend I recalled the following words written by the Prophet Isaiah, read in church every Good Friday, which took on a new relevance for me when read outside of church:

See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him—
so marred was his look beyond human semblance
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man—
so shall he startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it. 

Who would believe what we have heard?
To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem. 

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all. 

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
nor spoken any falsehood.
But the LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity. 

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.
Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for their offenses.

Then the next day, Holy Saturday, the day where for many years I spent hours in church during the Easter Vigil, I found myself in of all places, a Patti Smith concert, where in between songs, in honor of the day, the legendary artist (who revealed her spiritual, but non-church-going self), read these words from the Gospel of Matthew:

Now late on the sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, who hath been crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, even as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, He is risen from the dead; and lo, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word. And behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 

The eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

This proved once and for all the words of Christ when he said:"Wherever two or more gather in my name, I am with you."

Even when I was a church going Christian, I always was far more interested in the teaching and philosophy of the religion, than in all the nuts and bolts. In other words I was never too concerned whether Jesus really did perform all those miracles including rising from the dead. 

To me what really mattered was the meaning behind all that stuff, what non-believers would regard as mumbo jumbo. And the true meaning of the mumbo jumbo above can all be distilled into one word: love.

Or as John the Evangelist wrote in his Gospel:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

And what that mumbo jumbo means is that if we are to follow Jesus, we must to the best of our ability, do as he did, love one another.

That's all.

The rest of Scripture as a contemporary of Jesus, Hillel the Great once said, is commentary.

Happy Easter!