An Easter Message

It was the sheer enthusiasm and commitment of the earliest Christians that drew people to join them in such large numbers.  We see this during Eastertide especially clearly, because we read through the Acts of the Apostles at Mass on the Sundays and weekdays of this most special season.  People were drawn by the preaching and proclamation of the apostles – those same apostles who had hidden themselves away fearful that they, too, might be made to suffer for their faith in Christ; those same apostles who must have felt shattered and let down at the ultimate failure of Jesus’ earthly life, as they would no doubt have seen it at the time of his crucifixion.  St Luke tells us, in the Acts, that on the strength of Peter’s preaching to the Jews ‘on the day of Pentecost’ that they ‘must repent’ and ‘be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of [their]sins’  on ‘that very day, about three thousand were added to their number’ (Acts chapter 2, read at Mass on Tuesday of the Easter Octave).

I sometimes wonder what would be the effect if we and Christians more generally could display this kind of boldness and confidence today.  I wonder whether the reason why the Church in the West is declining numerically is because we do not actually believe firmly and fervently enough.  What is our attitude to Jesus and his saving work?  Do we believe that he is the incarnate Son of God who, having been put to death, was raised bodily to new and eternal life for the forgiveness of sins and so as to be able to open up to us the fullness of life?  Do we really believe this?

If you stop and think about the central Gospel claims, which I’ve just set out, it’s hard to see how we can be lukewarm or indifferent to them.  There is no halfway house.  Either these claims are true, or they are a grotesque delusion which have led many people down the ages and across the world to what could only be described as pointless deaths.  Here is what the well-known Christian writer, C.S Lewis wrote on this theme, back in 1952:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic…or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to (Mere Christianity).

With all good wishes and prayers for a joyful fifty days of Eastertide.