Spring season of renewal

In truth, most of us — believers or not — could benefit from the sort of introspection Good Friday urges and the spiritual renewal that Easter offers. For it’s always useful to recall that life is difficult, that our promise often exceeds our performance, that doing the right thing is not always easy

It’s the season of rebirth and renewal and hope, a colourful time of blooms and bird chirp and baseball, a balm for the soul, a feast for the senses.

And, as usual, not a moment too soon.

The world, as ever, is a troubled place, roiled by war, hunger, cruelty, depraved and absent leadership, routine folly, bad luck and misadventure, gross injustice, appalling inequity and the inevitable consequences of our own short-sighted actions.

In short, in the realm of human affairs, the power-point headlines of the moment are an oft-told tale.

It seems that relief from the problems we cause ourselves with our hubris and selfishness and ingratitude, our biases, lack of generosity and blinkered judgment is a recurring need.

Consolingly, there’s not much about the pain of being human that isn’t covered in the story of the three days from Good Friday to Easter Sunday that will be marked again this weekend by Christians around the world.

Abandonment and loneliness, betrayal and injustice, callousness and cruelty, power and duplicity, the madness of crowds, unspeakable suffering, loss, grief and remorse.

In all, Christianity’s foundational events — the story of Christ’s death and resurrection — run an astonishing gamut of emotions, with a compelling cast of characters and villains.

The Holy Week story sets out the central tenets and rites of Christian worship. In the doing, it has bequeathed lessons and comforts that continue to sustain humanity, and enduring turns of phrase that still grace the language.

The Last Supper. Thirty pieces of silver. Washing one’s hands of responsibility. The crosses one must bear. The Judas kiss. Doubting Thomas. In truth, most of us — believers or not — could benefit from the sort of introspection Good Friday urges and the spiritual renewal that Easter offers.

For it’s always useful to recall — as that epic Bible account tells us — that life is difficult, that our promise often exceeds our performance, that doing the right thing is not always easy.

Most important, it reminds us that the catalyst for almost everything durably good in our existence is love.

The human circumstances in which the protagonists of the Easter story find themselves — the moral dilemmas, the failures of nerve and commitment, the guilt and remorse — are human perennials.

The emotions that Good Friday stirs are difficult. Its themes resonate with the loss, pain and hardship so typical of most human lives. It is a time of grief, reflection and acknowledgment of the parts of us that need healing.

The story teaches that there is seldom victory without struggle or sacrifice and that some things can only be seen with eyes that have wept. But just as winter gives way to spring, from darkness comes light, from near-despair, hope.

Understandably, most of our attention during the Christian observances of Holy Week is invested in Easter Sunday, the most joyous holiday in the liturgical calendar. Easter sees colour and flowers restored to churches, along with an array of delicious and delightful secular trappings. There are bunnies and parades, the odd bonnet, dyed and painted eggs, all manner of chocolate and marshmallow and scavenger hunts of jelly beans, all conducted as spring begins to blossom.

If Good Friday is sombre, a time for fasting and mourning, the darkest of all dark nights of the soul, Easter is celebratory, an occasion for renewal, family gatherings and feasting.

The story of Good Friday and Easter endures because it contains both unfathomable mystery and so much that is palpably human. It abides as a moral compass and delivers a story of resilience, of promise, of aspiration.

It makes clear that most of us, at some points in our lives, require healing or renewal, that what might seem like the end can be a new beginning, that it is always possible to do and feel better.