Ten days before Easter a friend of mine started to post the countdown towards the Feast of the Resurrection on his Facebook page. Somehow I was struck by this simple gesture as it reminded me to ponder a bit deeper on the Feast. In actual fact, we were already given 40 days of Lent for the proper preparation which also marks the importance of these days.
May I just invite you to pause a moment and to ask yourself: Now, after the feast, how do I feel the joy of Easter? Is there an inner happiness or was it just another Easter celebration because we celebrate it every year? And honestly, isn’t the experience of a Good Friday so much closer to us than the idea of the Easter resurrection?
We’re so much more familar with the cross and with pain. Every time we listen to the news we hear of signs of the cross and certainly each one of us can tell a thing or two about experiencing a cross in our own life or in the life of family or friends. There are breakdowns, failed relationships, unemployment, worries and arguments. There are still wars, catastrophes and injustice in our world. Taking all this into consideration we must be ‘Good Friday experts‘ with all the situations where life is hindered and can’t be lived fully - and we run the risk of being stuck with the cross and the Good Fridays in our life.
Yet, there is more to it. Thanks be to God, there is the message of Easter. Exactly into our daily life with all the heaviness of the Good Fridays falls the message of the Resurrection. In the Easter Gospel the resurrected Christ aks the women who had just left the empty tomb to: ‘Go tell my brothers to set out for Galilee, there they will see me.‘ Why for God’s sake, did he tell them to go to Galilee? Why not just meet him right here and now in Jerusalem? Why this long way round, back home, from where they came?
Galilee is the place of the beginning. In Galilee something new had started for the disciples; their life story with Jesus. There, in Galilee, they met Jesus for the first time, in the midst of their daily routine, while fishing. Back then they simply had to follow Jesus, so big was their fascination and his attraction. Wherever he was, heaps of people came to listen to his words and his words were no empty words as we see in the miracles: the sick were healed when they talked to him, lepers become clean when he touched them and even the dead became alive.
Jesus knows well why the disciples have to leave Jerusalem with all its pain, horror and all the frightening experiences. In Jerusalem they would be stuck with death which would paralyse them so that they couldn’t move on. The disciples needed a change of scenery. They had to set off in order to rediscover themselves. After they had found themselves again, they would be able to find Him, no longer among the dead but among the living, in Galilee.
The way to Galilee eventually turns out not to be a way back, not an escape back into the past where everything might have been better. The way to Galilee is the way to go ahead. Galilee doesn’t mean that all will be the same as in the past, but rather, it means that all will be new.
Easter isn’t just Easter when we finally sing ‘Halleluja‘ again. I personlly think I celebrate Easter when life lives. Christ didn’t run away, but he set off. It’s Easter when we set off from the Jerusalem in our life and move on to Galilee, a place in our life where the risen Lord can show himself to us, where he can reveal himself to us. Galilee is the place where our hearts burn because we realise: Jesus is alive and because of his resurrection I can live better and through Him there is more life in my life!
Easter then may really become a feast of happiness when we no longer celebrate it as an annual feast or something that just happened ages ago. Easter happens any time when the message of Easter and faith encounters our own life.
We were given 40 days to prepare ourselves for the discovery of the Galilee places in our life, for Easter. We’re also given 50 days after Easter to really rejoice. We know all about feelings of pleasant anticipation but let us also really embrace the joy that remains with us after the feast.
Let‘s keep our eyes focused on the fact that life is stronger than the dead, just as light is stronger than the night. As ransomed people, let us then share the experiences of our own Galillee. I would love to hear about them.
May you all experience the Resurrection as life comes to you in every one of its moments – you may not have named them Galilee yet. Happy Easter!
PHOTO: An Easter parade in Hyde Park, Sydney with St Mary's Cathedral in the background.