EASTER TIME TO REFLECT
EASTER is the most significant event on the Christian calendar and while it is a period of sorrow, brought about by the death of Christ and marked by Good Friday, it is also a time of great spiritual happiness.
The latter is observed tomorrow – Easter Sunday – when the Christian church marks the mystery of the resurrection.
Good Friday is a misnomer that probably evolved from the term “God’s Friday’’, the day Jesus Christ was crucified, suffering on the cross for the sins of all. Were the story to have ended there, it would remain a compelling account of a man’s passionate desire to make a better world and to give mankind a fresh start, offering up himself on the cross.
But it did not end there. Christians believe that what followed was the resurrection – the cornerstone of the religion that requires the leap of faith Christians make, delivering the proof that Jesus truly was the son of God.
His suffering on the cross and the suffering that continues to burden people, even at a time of Christian celebration, remains a matter for contemplation and for Christians, requires enormous faith at times.
Few of us do not know suffering. Family members die; friends or neighbours receive bad news; little children are afflicted by terrible diseases; jobs are lost…
We live in a suffering world that often confounds us. Sometimes we question how and why things happen to inflict such pain.
On the Gold Coast, we are about to enter a wonderful period of celebration as the city stages the Commonwealth Games, becoming the focus of a family of nations around the world.
Yet life and the slings and arrows that come with it continues, which means that beneath the excitement of the Games that will lift us all, some will still be suffering.
Family tragedies will still unfold in hospital emergency rooms; brutal men will still terrorise women and children behind closed doors; the drug ice will still ruin lives; and across the world dictators and tyrants will continue to challenge the resolve of the West to try to keep the peace, and ideological lunatics will still plan dreadful crimes that murder and maim innocents.
Tomorrow, the Easter message is about the resurrection, the divine mystery it entails and its reaffirmation of life and hope. It is what we all do with that message that really counts.
We are creatures with free will, which means we do not simply sit back, allow bad things to happen and ask why.
Faith and a belief that life can and will be much better should drive us all to act, so that we care for family, friends and neighbours; so that people do not have to suffer in silence; so that funds are raised to find cures for cancer and childhood diseases; so that the criminal activities of those who sell the misery of methamphetamines are halted; so that our nation finds the resources to help not just the rich but also the poor, and finds the courage to stand up to tyrants and make the world a better place.