We’re not sure how much crossover there is between the local congregations of churches and our weekly newspaper-reading audiences.
While editors and reporters might consider reading the local news as a religious act (fervent and faithful), local church leaders might be right to scoff at the comparison. We mention all this because Easter takes place this Sunday, April 21, and our news pages this week include Easter service announcements, Easter egg hunt photos and other Eastertime activities.
Easter is more than just a church sermon and the retelling of the Christian story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is also the time of Jewish Passover and the height of spring, all times to celebrate new growth, hope, renewal and community. Traditional Easter egg hunts are sponsored here by civic clubs and pancake breakfast fundraisers are served by local volunteer fire departments and others. Lots of ham dinners will be shared on Easter by local families. They might not be attending a church service, but they will find other ways to share gifts and messages of love and faith.
Newspapers are not usually where you find stories about love and faith. Bigger headlines are given to church scandals and accounts of synagogue bombings than to prayer circles. But at smaller newspapers like ours, we think Easter happenings are big news, even if we leave the sermons and worshipers to their privacy. Easter Sunday is the holiest day of the year for Christians. It is the day the savior Jesus Christ rose from his tomb and ascended to Heaven, following his crucifixion on Good Friday. Easter is not just for Christians. The Islamic faith believes that Jesus was a prophet and a messiah. His birthplace of Nazareth in today’s northern Israel is now a predominantly Arab and Muslim region and is known as the Arab capital of Israel. Counter to Jesus’ pacifist teachings, his birthplace is under brut Israeli control, fighting against Palestinian sovereignty and Hezbollah rockets.
The Holy Land of Jesus and his disciples has long been a violent landscape of heavy Israeli military firepower, political refugees and clashing religious cultures. The greater Middle East with Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt is a checkerboard of war zones, geopolitical hotspots and terrorism.
Could it be time for the promised Second Coming of Jesus? Bible scripture tells us that mankind will arrive at the brink of self-annihilation and will have the powers to see the entire world and all of civilization all at once. (Is this a reference to our modern internet?) Then, at the darkest day of mankind, Jesus is supposed to come save us. (“At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30)
Of course the Bible tells us many other things, too, and we prefer to dwell on the more hope-filled and joyous exultations. We can rejoice in our local bounty of good land and great communities, but we also are aware of distant dark clouds of national divides, bombed churches, angry mobs and religious bigotry.
We’re not expecting Jesus’ Second Coming, but we are caught many times asking, “What would Jesus do?” when we encounter news about refugee children kept in cages or cover-ups for church bishops found guilty of sex abuses.
Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindu leader from India, once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Gandhi was a pacifist like Jesus, and both men also were civil activists and led social justice movements.
This Easter finds us needing this kind of religious and cultural leadership once again. It would make a good Easter prayer.
—Rollie Atkinson
