What is the Point of Celebrating Easter During a Pandemic?
by N T Wright, Time Magazine:
This time last year the talk was all about what we will have learned when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, and allowing normal life to resume. People, it was suggested, would become more caring, more sensitive, perhaps more green. I see no sign of those utopian dreams today. The only game in town I see coming is the blame game: whose fault was it? Looking back in anger offers more low-hanging political fruit than looking forward with genuine, workable proposals.
But now it’s Easter! Don’t we (masked, anxious, grieving) need that message of new creation?
For most, that will seem a giant mismatch. The world needs hope at ground level, hope with its boots on. Most see Easter as an escapist fantasy, holding out the mirage-like hope of “heaven” hereafter.
Last week, for example, the Late Show host Stephen Colbert, a practicing Roman Catholic, talked about Easter. What’s special about it, he asked his lockdown audience (his wife). “Well,” she said, surprised, “aside from, you know, Christ is risen, and all that?” “Obviously, obviously,” he replied, “and then we all have eternal life, and all that good stuff…” and he moved swiftly on to chocolate, funny Easter cards, and a cute story about a real pet rabbit who seemed to be dead and then came back to life.
I get it: the strange old story about Jesus being alive again, and the vague hope about life after death, doesn’t appear to address the real issues. And since we don’t trust the politicians, perhaps all we can do is enjoy the candy and the cards.
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