After my limited input last week, this time it’s my turn to give my – belated – thoughts on Easter.
I’ve been thinking that it’s not so much about the doctrine but about the story. We are invited to inhabit the story of Jesus, to allow his life to give shape to our own. The early church understood that: baptism was a richly symbolic re-enactment of life, death and resurrection. Believers took off their clothes, went down into (and under) the water and rose again. ON the other side they were given a new set of clothes and anointed with oil. Christos is Greek for anointed, so they were literally taking on the role of Jesus. (And the Greek nickname – Χριστιανοι – implies ‘little Christs’.)
They inhabited the story. They assumed its shape into their lives. This is important because the church places such a great emphasis on doctrine: but it is the stories which really connect. Story eats doctrine for breakfast.
And that is the great invitation of Easter. We are invited to inhabit the story of Christ, to embody it ourselves. Our rituals also embody it: in baptism and eucharist, we not only retell the story, we take possession of it as it were.
There’s a lot more I need to think about here: but we are not just invited to believe things about Jesus, but to follow him. To live out his life. And that means the whole of the Easter story: the triumph of arrival, the challenge to the system, the sacrificial death and the surprise of resurrection.