Nature’s rebirth and the message of Easter offer hope in a brutal and bewildering world

FOR Christians, today is the most important day in the calendar.

Having given His life for the sake of all humanity, Jesus Christ arose to bring hope to a tumultuous world, and that is a message that resonates now just as compellingly as it did over 2,000 years ago

For those of all faiths, and those of none, it is a powerful lesson.

Resurrection is not only about the corporeal, about the physical body, it is also about new beginnings.

It is no surprise we celebrate Easter in spring, itself a time of nature’s rebirth and renewal. All around us, we see fresh life erupt, on hedgerows, on farms, even in humble window boxes now brightly festooned with the extravagant colours of early blooms. Darkness is banished, replaced by light. Cold yields to warmth. Life triumphs over death.

For the first time in three years, we can celebrate Easter Sunday together as families, with no restrictions on how we gather.

Extended families will sit together at their tables, eating lamb, or turkey, or a vegetable bake. Children who have diligently forsaken chocolate and sweets will make up for their sacrifices by hunting Easter eggs in the garden and eating maybe one too many as the day progresses.

We are living through a pandemic that is not yet over, and we must remember the families for whom today is bittersweet, as they look to empty places at those very tables. For that reason, we must also be diligent. The fear of recent years has dissipated thanks to the scientific miracle of vaccination, but that does not mean we can abandon caution; any spike in the number of infections will place further and utterly avoidable strain on our frontline workers.

We must also look beyond our own comfortable lives.

More than 20,000 Ukrainians who should be celebrating their Orthodox Easter next weekend in their own homes are instead in Ireland today, separated from families, displaced from all that was familiar. Millions more are spread across Europe, refugees on a scale unseen since the Second World War.

They are not the only victims in our often cruel world. Adults and children alike are dying every day, in conflict or from hunger, in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and other points on the globe. Elsewhere, we see people persecuted for professing their own faiths, whoever their gods may be.

Here at home, we have despaired this week at the news of the killings of two men – two sons, two brothers, two gentle and empathetic friends to many – who were innocently living their authentic lives before they were senselessly cut short.

Sadly, in many quarters that outwardly profess their Christianity, these deaths have been used to stoke fear of, and animosity towards, another faith community, one that itself reveres Jesus Christ as a prophet.

That is a disgraceful distortion of what Easter is all about.

If we truly believe, then we understand that Jesus died for all men and women, no matter what their creed, their colour, or who they love.

In a bewilderingly complex and often brutal world, one in which it often seems love is no match for hate, we must remember the true message of today, and it is a simple one. The power of love must triumph for life to survive.

We wish all our readers a happy and holy Easter.