Anglican priest and writer Herbert O’Driscoll contends there is a danger in Easter, and that danger is we come to church on Easter Sunday already knowing the outcome of the Paschal drama. We already know Jesus is risen!
“Knowing what is going to be said and sung, we are hardly shocked by this unimaginable, unprecedented, and indescribable event. It is just another one of those feel-good “happy endings.” We are no longer "drop-jawed... gob smacked... with the hair on the back of our necks standing straight up... " because familiarity has bred, not contempt, but a “ho-hum, of-course-he-rose-on-the-third-day” attitude. The Cross, in this familiar thinking, is hardly a scandal, but "a short pause on the entrance ramp to the Victory Superhighway... a highway lined with bunnies and baskets, colored eggs, and country club buffets.”
Well, that may be just a tad snarky.
Still, at Easter we are invited to rediscover that “drop-jawed, gob smacked, hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-our-necks” feeling once again. For Christians, Easter can never be anything so trivial as bunnies and baskets and colored eggs. In the Easter event, we are summoned to true amazement; we are called annually to rediscover the audacity and the improbability of it all. That once a man, who claimed to be the Son of God, was crucified, died, and was buried and, three days later, rose from his grave. And, in rising from this grave, he overcame his death (and all death) and transformed all that is evil and dark in the world forever.
Yes, the danger in Easter is that we know just enough not to fully appreciate the power of this mystery. So, come to the place of the mystery once again. Come to the tomb to be surprised once again. Don’t settle for any of the tame, domesticated versions of Easter.
Insist upon the wild, radical, and original one... and prepare to be transformed.
Faithfully,
