We celebrate Resurrection Day 2021 with great delight. Locked up last year we all missed something, and not just the parade of the Dragons in Bendigo, let alone the many events like the big Bardifest in Nathalia. All communities had their specific activities to celebrate the inheritance established by our predecessors, of the Easter weekend. They even made Good Friday a holiday so people could make that day a Holy day…that is not so in many parts of the world!
Why do we do it?
Why are we disturbed by the slow but successful move to turn this day into a secular day?
Well, many are the reasons. Principally, because of the handing down of the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus.
The many teachings of Jesus had not penetrated until the women led by Mary of Magdala proclaimed,
“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”
Then the men arrived!
John followed Peter and went into the tomb and proclaimed,
“He saw and he believed.”
All the words spoken by Jesus until then, in a sense, were just so many words.
“Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead”.
And so, began the witness of millions who in so many different ways have “entered the tomb”; eyes have been opened, testimony again proclaimed, and belief arrived at.
We are still experiencing what Paul experienced in proclaiming the Resurrection.
………Laughed at in public in Athens,
………..Mocked by his own people,
…………..Scourged and beaten by various Civic authorities, but unwavering in his proclamation of the truth –
“Christ is Risen.”
We, too, depend upon witnesses as well as the scriptures, and the testimony of those who proclaim and give their lives in service.
May we joyously proclaim, “Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed.”
A wonderful Easter to all.
Mons Frank