At the heart of Easter is sacrifice and hope

This weekend is a confluence of different events with similar meanings. The Jewish festival of Passover commemorates the escape from Egypt: freedom won with tremendous sacrifice. The Christian holiday of Easter marks the self-sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross: the liberation, say believers, from sin. And the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force is a chance to reflect upon the sacrifices made by men and women in defence of British liberties, including the liberty to worship one god, many gods or none at all. Freedom of conscience is, for many of us, a sacred right, hard won.

The RAF itself has attained an almost spiritual dimension in the British imagination. They were “the few” who stood against Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Second World War, offering their lives in a fight against an ideology that revelled in slaughter. Nazism’s absence of mercy, love and pity were the hallmarks of fanaticism.

It was another fanatic, Redouane Lakdim, who recently went on a killing spree in France before taking control of a supermarket. It was the heroic Arnaud Beltrame, a policeman who volunteered to be swapped for a hostage, only to be murdered by Lakdim. Mr Beltrame was a former paratrooper who had served in Iraq and a practising Catholic – and never has the contrast between a terrorist and a genuine soldier been clearer. The soldier, like the RAF pilot, acts in defence of human life. The terrorist steals life.

Today many Christians will attend church, where the Easter message of sacrifice is mixed with hope. Christianity is not, as the ancient Romans initially suspected, death-obsessed, but rather suggests an alternative to the finality of death: everlasting life. Jesus’s resurrection is offered as proof that redemption is possible for those who seek it and that life has a purpose: to live it well and in the service of others.

We are lucky – honoured in fact – to have countless men and women around us who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for wider society. It is hard to put oneself in the mind of Mr Beltrame as he entered that supermarket, or the pilots of the RAF as they flew towards the sun, but their actions are a perfect manifestation of what Christians mean why they speak of love and sacrifice.