Happy Easter
Happy Easter. It’s a curious phrase. We say Happy Christmas, and that feels easier to understand, the birth of something hopeful. But “Happy Easter”… I’ve always found myself pausing at that. For those who heard me on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, you’ll know why. I don’t find the story particularly happy. Not in the usual sense. Perhaps hopeful is a better word. Of course, Easter has come to mean other things as well. The turn in the weather, lighter evenings, signs of spring returning. And yes, chocolate. It’s hard to be entirely unhappy with a chocolate egg in hand, unless you can’t eat chocolate, in which case Easter may feel a little unfair. But when I come back to the story itself, I find something more unsettling. On Good Friday, I spoke about Jesus as a scapegoat, someone who challenged the system of his time and, because of that, became the one who carried its weight. The system did not change. Instead, the individual was removed. We still recognise that pattern. When s...
