Easter is upon us.<\/p>\n
From the time I was a child until the present day, I have always been amazed by how differently Americans generally and Christians particularly respond to Easter and Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christmas is impossible to avoid. Regardless of who you are, if you are a resident of the Western world, you have no choice but to reckon with Christmas.\u00a0 The bonanza of films and television specials, the decorations, the festivities, the music\u2014Christmas is ubiquitous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Easter, on the other hand, is not nearly so.\u00a0 A person stands a better chance of sleeping his way through Easter than he does Thanksgiving or even, perhaps, Independence Day.\u00a0 If your average Christian American wasn\u2019t already habituated to this state of affairs, it could only strike him as bizarre.<\/p>\n
By far and away, Easter Sunday is the most significant of holidays for the Christian.\u00a0 Even Christmas assumes importance only in light of <\/em>Easter.\u00a0 After all, it is for the sake of the Resurrection that Christmas\u2014the Birth of Christ\u2014took place at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n By now, there is scarcely a soul, Christian or non-Christian, who isn\u2019t familiar with the story of Easter.\u00a0 Ironically, it is in no small measure because of this familiarity that we have become desensitized to what a truly marvelous story it is.\u00a0 To appreciate it to the extent that it deserves, we must become reacquainted with Easter.\u00a0 And to this end, we must approach it through new eyes.<\/p>\n According to the story of Easter, God, <\/em>the Unconditioned Condition of all that is subjected Himself to the conditions of human existence.\u00a0 The Impassable became passable, the Invulnerable vulnerable, the Incorruptible corruptible. Upon becoming a human being, the Ground and Author of all being voluntarily suffered<\/em> and died. <\/em>\u00a0And He suffered and died for the sake of the same love by which He created humanity (and everything else, for that matter).\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet while God loves us, it is crucial to recall that, as St. John tells us, God is <\/em>Love.\u00a0 The Easter story is the story of how Love\u2014Infinite, Eternal Love\u2014became a finite, temporal human being in order to teach other human beings how to perfect their own loving.\u00a0 Through His Passion and Death Love made it unmistakable that the will to love is nothing more or less than the will to sacrifice all <\/em>for the sake of one\u2019s beloved.\u00a0 When it is considered that there isn\u2019t a single person for whom Christ did not offer His life as a sacrifice, we recognize that the formidability of love\u2019s demand to give one\u2019s life for the object of one\u2019s love is even greater than previously thought, for Jesus\u2019 example beckons us to love everyone<\/em>: the world must be each person\u2019s beloved.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, for as tall an order as this demand undoubtedly is, it is not insurmountable.\u00a0 In fact, if we think about it for just a moment, we will recognize both that <\/em>it resonates with us as well as why <\/em>it resonates.<\/p>\n The experience of love is as familiar\u2014and universal\u2014a human experience as any.\u00a0 Not everyone loves equally well but we are all equal in having loved. Now, regardless of who or even what <\/em>we have loved, there can be no denying that love comes at the cost of pain. <\/em>To love anything <\/em>is to turn oneself over to it\u2014and this means that the lover exposes<\/em> him or herself to the inescapability <\/em>of being hurt.<\/p>\n There is a real sense in which each time we dare to love we will to give up our lives for the objects of our love.\u00a0 Lovers invest their resources in time, labor, and energy\u2014in short, their lives\u2014in their beloved\u2014in spite of the losses <\/em>that they know they will inevitably suffer.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just that, as Robert Frost said, \u201cnothing gold can stay;\u201d even in the midst of their love there will be pain.\u00a0 There are moments when we feel more alone in the presence of our loved ones than when they are no longer with us.\u00a0 Those who we love disappoint, anger, and sadden us, and with each of these experiences, there is the experience of having been betrayed\u2014the experience of suffering a small death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet still, we continue to love.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n The Christian is heartened because he believes in Easter. He knows that his Lord, his God, has experienced what he has been experiencing his whole life.\u00a0 \u201cNo servant is greater than his master,\u201d Jesus declared.\u00a0 The Christian is inspired to continue loving in the face of pain because Christ did the same.\u00a0 The Passion narrative brings into crystal clear focus the brute fact that whatever injustices we think we have endured, Christ willingly endured them, but many times over.\u00a0<\/p>\n He was betrayed, and not just by Judas: His own family members and all of his Apostles, including and particularly those with whom He was closest, denied Him.\u00a0 The legions of people to whose needs and hopes He attended throughout the duration of His ministry turned violently against Him in His <\/em>hour of trial.\u00a0 He was unjustly sentenced to be executed as a common criminal, but even as He was being hammered to a cross, He forgave His accusers and betrayers, and asked His heavenly Father to do the same.<\/p>\n While Jesus\u2019 Passion and Death reveal love at its finest, it is really His Resurrection upon which Christian faith hinges, for it is through the Resurrection that Love\u2019s indomitable character is unveiled.\u00a0 Real, abiding love, God tells us through the Resurrection, is redemptive. <\/em>Yes, the greatest lovers are those who suffer the greatest heartache, but all of the loss and suffering with which love is met, God reassures us, will be redeemed.\u00a0 Even death has been rendered impotent by Love.<\/p>\n This is the promise of the Resurrection.\u00a0<\/p>\n Happy Easter!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Easter is upon us. From the time I was a child until the present day, I have always been amazed by how differently Americans generally and Christians particularly respond to Easter and Christmas.\u00a0 Christmas is impossible to avoid. Regardless of who you are, if you are a resident of the Western world, you have no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n