Spring has arrived and I’ve already sent my Easter cards to friends, family and church members. I note that there are few images of churches, crosses or of Jesus Christ on the cards. As a parish priest in Angell Town, with a large congregation and a community in which many go to church, it would be easy to forget that the decline in Christian images on cards is part of the story of the wider world.
In a 21st-century pluralist society, many people have no real idea of what Easter means for Christians, apart from being glad for an excuse to eat chocolate and for the day off on Easter Monday.
While many people still do engage with Christmas, at least the gift-giving and perhaps a bit of religion in baby Jesus or children in nativity plays (especially angels), very few comprehend Easter, with its story of suffering, death and resurrection.
The same few are probably the only ones who may have noticed that Pancake Day was followed by a day with the solemn-sounding name of Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. During the 40 days of Lent (it’s actually 46 — but Sundays don’t count), many Christians give up stuff that they can do without, often saving money for good causes, and/or taking on things to help the community around them .
They do all this as a way of marking the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert resisting temptation and reflecting on the central beliefs of their faith. Maybe some see it as a bit of a trial, especially young people if they have given up social media as part of the Lent fast.
All of this is in preparation for this week before Easter Sunday, called Holy Week, recalling the final days of Jesus’s life and crucifixion. Every Christian will attend a service inside or outside a church. Indeed, Holy Week begins not in church but on the road on Palm Sunday, as Christians remember Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey.
There were a fair number of donkeys on the road last Sunday as part of the Palm Sunday celebrations, though not in Angell Town as I never remember to book one in time. That did not stop us going out into the estate, walking, singing and giving out palm crosses as a reminder of the beginning of that final week’s journey.
During the week Christians will also mark the day (Maundy Thursday) Jesus went to his friend’s house for a meal and started by washing the apostles’ feet.
At the meal he told them to remember him when he is gone whenever they eat and drink bread and wine, and later that same evening he was betrayed by a friend, Judas Iscariot. After a sham trial the next day — now called Good Friday — his mother and the women who followed him found themselves at the foot of the cross on which he was executed and crucified for daring to challenge the social order of the day.
The despair of the Friday is overturned by Christ’s resurrection from the dead on the Sunday, as light and hope to the world. Easter Sunday is the most important Christian festival, and the one celebrated with the greatest joy.
For non-Christians, these stories will have little or no resonance but there are some ways in which the Christian and the secular world intersect.
Some may have heard of the Queen giving out Maundy money on the Thursday (actually as a reminder of Jesus’s commandment to love one another). Many will already have eaten at least one hot cross bun, and I don’t suppose there is a need to explain the significance of the cross on the top. There are not too many mums, even non-Christian ones, who name their sons after Judas.
In the Jamaican community everywhere, and certainly in Brixton, people will be getting ready for the great fish-fry on Thursday night to make sure there is enough to share with family and friends on Good Friday, a traditional time to abstain from meat-eating on the day that marks when Jesus was killed.
Finally, on Easter Sunday, for non-vegetarians the family Easter roast dinner means lamb, though many will not know that it’s a throwback to the Bible and sacrificial lambs, and Jesus being named as the Lamb of God who died to save the world.
In Angell Town on Easter Sunday the church will be filled with flowers, bells will be rung, poppers popped, sparkling wine served to the adults and Easter eggs given out to the children. In preparation for writing this article, I asked a cross-section of the community inside and outside the church what Easter meant to them. They said prayer, celebration, thanksgiving and sharing with those less fortunate. They also said new beginnings, and for Christians that is the real meaning of Easter. It is not a day but a season of new beginnings.
The Rev Canon Rosemarie Mallett is the vicar of St John’s in Angell Town
END
Be the first to comment