The annual feast of Easter celebrates what is at the core of Christianity as a religion as well as the profound spiritual experience it engenders. It concerns the transforming and revolutionary historical event of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth from the gloom of death and the darkness of the grave. This event marked the turning point in the life of his close disciples and followers who were inundated with fear, a sense of insecurity and sheer bewilderment when the religious and the political authorities banded together to do away with their master.
The Risen Lord Jesus appeared live to his dear disciples in their hideouts where they gathered to pray and to strengthen one another.
He accompanied them on their journeys listening patiently to their stories of grief and shock and revealing to them his identity as the Risen Lord. He was at their beaches waiting for their return after weary nights of being at deep sea ready to refresh them with food and to provide pleasant company.
It is paradoxical that his glorified body still carried the wounds of his crucifixion.
Religion, an antidote
However, now bleeding no more, they on the contrary, carried healing and solace to many others wounded either physically, psychologically or spiritually. Easter, is, therefore, good news spearheading newness that can give a sense of freshness to our life.
Besides, Christian Easter 2019 is made more significant by the coincidence that Christians commence the Easter week as Sri Lanka countrywide is already caught up in an aura of jubilation with the celebration of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year. The Risen Lord Jesus gave an imposing commission that his disciples go and teach all nations to observe all what he has taught with the pledge that his presence will always abide with them till the end of time.
The Easter events formed the new platform for the teachings of Jesus Christ to reach the ends of the earth.
Christianity with its message of God’s love for mankind and the call to all people for change in their life to one of neighbourly love, unlimited forgiveness and sharing, continues to open itself to all cultures and civilisations across the world even as modernity with the idolatry of hedonism, materialism, individualism and secularism keeps ever threatening the noblest and the highest of ideals that can still be espoused by modern man.
The opening of Christianity beyond the boundaries of the land of Jesus into the so-called non-Jewish and gentile territories like the cosmopolitan centres of Athens in Greece, Corinth, Colossae, Philippi, Galatia and Thessalonica of the ancient Middle-East lit the spark of universalism of the religion that was to reach even the imperial city of Rome and its adjacent provinces.
Christianity was bringing the Jews and the Gentiles together destroying all discrimination based on religion, religious rites, ethnicity, race, language and even gender.
Women and children who were marginalised in a patriarchal, hegemonistic and autocratic society of the time which ostracised and denied them their fundamental human rights were welcomed into the centre of social life.
It was a woman, in fact a converted public sinner who was privileged to experience the Risen Lord first and eventually became the ambassador of this good news to the other disciples of Jesus who hastened to the tomb to verify the truth of this strange event.
Jesus had blessed and took into his fond embrace the little children that were brought by their mothers seeking his blessing and eventually in the course of his teachings held them as signs and symbols of the Kingdom of God challenging the adults to be child-like if they desired to enter the Kingdom of God.
Jesus had strong words of rebuff to all who would happen to make themselves sources of evil and scandal to the children declaring unequivocally that it were better that such people be cast into the depth of the sea with a millstone hung around their necks.
Crimes against humanity
How relevant and powerful a teaching is this today as we confront an evil world of child labour, sexual abuse of minors, ill-treatment of all kinds, child soldiers and hundreds of thousands of children who are denied basic health, food, clothing, shelter, education and above all a warm home of parental love, security and care!
What about the curse and scourge of illegal abortions that continues to kill even in our own motherland a scathing number of over thousand innocent unborn babies a day! And lo, now rages the demon of drugs! Are these not crimes against humanity too?
These evils against life have to be rooted out indeed, if a culture of life is to be propagated and the culture of death with its multiple threats to life is to be arrested.
For life to be renewed and society to be reformed, social change for the better is vital.
Taking into consideration the national socio-economic, cultural and political scenario now in vogue, a radical social change in attitudes, values and ethics is imperative if a brand new chapter of a modern Sri Lankan history is to be written.
There is much social evil with fraud, waste, and lack of responsibility, transparency and sheer callousness clouding the path to prosperity.
The immense losses incurred in some of the national projects are incredibly scandalous and destructive….. call it economic suicide, if you will.
National politics are in turmoil with the clash of diametrically opposed ideologies creating disagreements and dissension even within the governing authorities. Lack of a unified vision retards corporate action.
Sadly, even at this last hour, the public are being treated not to real issues but are swamped with gossip about a plethora of election-issues to the detriment of losing touch with serious problems confronting the nation.
The post-Easter period of the earliest Christian Communities records impressive gestures of embracing spiritual ideals and courage, social amity, community support and sharing of goods as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles of the Bible.
The three great missionary journeys of Paul the Apostle and his great letters to communities across the ancient middle-eastern cities with his final destiny in imperial Rome, bear ample evidence of the religious, cultural, ethnic and even political renewal that took place with Christianity entering these territories.
Though in Sri Lanka, we happen to have the Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican traditions that came with successive colonial powers, the basic beliefs and commitments of all Christian communities in the island, are the same.
They wish to work together with all of goodwill in inter-religious collaboration in building a country that has been battered by a 30-year horrible war and at present due to various circumstances is experiencing a difficult time of economic down-turn and political instability.
Easter pledges hope and newness of life. One can still with a strong sense of determination rise over the dust and dirt of misfortune and chart a course of action for a new landscape of joy, hope, unity and prosperity.
To this national endeavour, each religion in this country including Christianity will bring its own particular charisma and spiritual resources enriching our common spiritual patrimony as a country which is an admirable oasis of the world’s most ancient and living religious traditions.