To be honest, it’s been a really busy week and so I asked myself, “Why not just use an old Easter post for resurrection Sunday? After all, it’s not as though the message of Easter 2025 is different to Easter 2024 or Easter 1924.” At a certain level that is entirely true – and at another level, entirely false.
To some extent it depends on if you view Easter as primarily a comfort, or as a challenge.
If you see Easter as essentially a comfort, there is a timelessness about the message.
Easter is the reminder that even death by crucifixion could not destroy Jesus. It is the invitation to stand at Jesus’ empty tomb and to hear the words, “He is not here. He is risen” (Lk 24:6).
Why are these a comfort? Because we know that they are words that speak to our own destination after death. Jesus’ resurrection was not so much a return from the dead as a reminder that the grave is not our final location. Jesus returns to demonstrate that there is life on other side of death. It is not the same as the raising of Lazarus or of Jairus’s daughter. They came back from the dead for a while, and then died again. Not so Jesus. He has a resurrection body and it gives us a hint of what our own will look like. Much was the same – and yet he was different. Those who saw the resurrected Jesus recognised it was him – but not immediately. There was similarity and difference. Paul describes the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruit of all those who will be raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:20). In other words, because we have the evidence of the resurrected Jesus, we can be confident that we too shall rise.
All this is immensely comforting. It we are fearful of our own death, Jesus demonstrates that we don’t move from life to death, but from life, through death, to life eternal. For those whose trust and faith is in Jesus, this is good news indeed. Liberating news – comforting news. And it remains that be it Easter 2025, 1825 or 2325.
But the resurrection is not simply a comfort. It is also a challenge – a challenge to live in the light of the resurrection. It is a challenge to put our hope into practice in our current location, and to do so courageously.
Why courageously? Because when you know that death is not the end, you are no longer intimidated by lessor powers.
Put differently, the courage the resurrection calls forth from us each Easter depends on our location. In 1939, it was courage in the face of a world lurching towards global warfare. In 2020, it was courage in the face of a world facing a pandemic. And in 2025, there are very particular situations we need to face with courage.
The global political landscape it fraught. The three P’s of popularism, polarisation and post-truth are tearing us apart. Christians are called to live counter-culturally in every era, and part of our counter-cultural call this Easter is to refuse to lightly label friends as enemies because they see something differently. It is to refuse to dumb complex issues into meaningless sound bites, no matter how popular. Why? Because the risen Jesus tells us that he is not only the way and the life, but also that he is the truth – and out of reverence for the One who is the Truth, we should not be satisfied with indulgent caricatures that bypass truth (John 14:6).
Resurrection courage refuses to be governed by self interest, and looks with compassion at the world God created and loves so much. It remembers that God is not Australian or British or American or Mexican, but that as the God and Father of all, has compassion on all, and a special concern for those who are vulnerable – or as Matt 25:31-46 puts it, those who are naked, hungry or in prison. Resurrection courage is not arrogant, for it knows our hope lies not in our own strength or competence, but in the loving mercy and grace of God. And it knows that the God of resurrection has a purpose in inviting us to participate in God’s mission in the world.
Resurrection courage knows that God alone reigns, and that if we march to the beat of another drummer, we do ourselves, and the world, the deepest disservice.
This Easter, why not stand at the empty tomb of Jesus, breathe deeply, and thank God for the comfort it brings? Then take another breath, and feel the courage it ignites. Why not say yes to the challenges it opens in 2025?
Nice chatting…
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