Whatever Happened to Easter?

In musing on this past Holy week I am struck by the apparent lack of enthusiasm for the Easter season in our culture. Christmas is a big deal with all the hype and commercialism and the prevalent protests speaking out against said commercialism. Despite the indifferentism towards religion in society there is plenty of reference to the birth of Christ and loving one’s neighbor during the Advent season and that is all to the good. But Easter? All we have is a glut of chocolate bunnies and eating pizza on Good Friday and the NCAA basketball tournament! Holy Week does not even seem significant enough to overly commercialize it and nobody cares enough to complain about the commercialism that does exist. My daughter thinks it is because there is no exchange of gifts on Easter. I fear there is more than a little truth to this.

The Joy of Easter

But shouldn’t Easter be "the most wonderful time of the year"?
After all, Easter is supposed to be the celebration of the resurrection of Christ! Before this event the outlook of humanity was " life stinks then you die". Death defined human existence and gave it no significance beyond the grave and thus gave little meaning to our existence, particularly those on the margins of existence (that is to say, most people).

Our Lord’s resurrection changed that. In rising from the dead He demonstrated that death is not the final arbiter of Human meaning. Pope John Paul II wrote;

"The Lamb that was slain is alive, bearing the marks of his passion in the splendor of the resurrection. He alone is master of all events of history: he opens its ‘seals’ (cf rev 5:1-10) and proclaims, in time and beyond, the power of life over death. In the ‘new Jerusalem’, that new world towards which human history is traveling, death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.’(Rev 21:4)" Evangelium Vitae, Pauline Books and Media, Boston MA. 1995, p. 165-166

With His ressurection He blasted the pagan despair into nothingness. There is meaning to human life beyond what happens to us in our 4 score years on Earth. There is a reason for our transcendant longings that death can no longer make a mockery of. Considering this the resurrection should be celebrated with great intensity. The veil of the temple is rent, revealing the nature of the God who brought forth our salvation. This was revolutionary in ancient times. Nothing like this had been proclaimed before.

Western Amnesia

But in its amnesia Western civilization seems to be forgetting that more and more. It is increasingly going back to the despair it had during the pagan Roman empire. Death was so taken for granted in those days that death was used for entertainment during the gladiatorial games. We don’t have that now, not real death anyway. We do it digitally now what with increasingly graphic video games. Then of course there is the film industry and its slasher films.

Our Lord Forgotten

It seems the crowd no longer wants to crucify our Lord anymore, but just ignore Him and pass Him by.

The West has largely forgotten our Lord. It has forgotten the good news that the resurrection brought forth. The joy of life that the resurrection made possible is receding from our memory. In its zeal to form a society that won’t tyrannise people for their beliefs it departing from the very basis for believing in the worth of all people and the brotherhood of humanity. When the West forgets the Christian world view completely, what then will it base its moral structure if not Christ the King?