Easter, as Richard Dawkins rightly said, is a pagan name for a festival that most other languages render more closely to the original ‘Passover’, or ‘Pesah’ which of course was the festival taking place in Israel at the time Jesus was crucified. It was the passover meal that Jesus fulfilled with his enduring words over the unrisen bread ‘This is my body given for you’, and over the wine cup ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood’, (more effective than the lamb’s blood on the door lintles when the angel of death passed over in Egypt).
So, over the long weekend we met first on Thursday night to commemorate that meal, then again on Friday morning to consider the bitter cup of John 19:29 fulfilling Psalm 69:21.
On Sunday morning, in light of the extraordinary nature of the whole of creation, we just considered how natural it is that the author of it would rise victorious over it. To mark the occasion and make it all the more poignant, Glyn, who has been a Christian for a few years, but had not been encouraged to be baptised before, was baptised during the service. A visual and personal dramatisation of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. We rounded the service off with a Church meal – roast lamb!
