Easter: A Time to Ask Questions

A reflection by Rev. Jon Humphries, St Matthew's Uniting Church Baulkham Hills

Easter is a time when people often reconnect with Church.  For some, Easter and Christmas are the times when the pull of past attendance or the pressure from families and culture draw people back into church buildings. Easter is a great time to reconnect with Church. It is a story of hope and renewal packaged in resurrection following crucifixion. 

Easter opens us to being able to ask questions and challenge some of the often-simplified understandings about God and the story of God's redemption and salvation.

Easter is a story of God's love, after all "for God so loved the world that he sent his son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." John 3: 16

 However, there is no mention of the cross in this. In the verses which comes before this, Jesus says:

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. John 3: 14-15

Easter opens an opportunity to think about God, and if God exists and loves us, what does Jesus mean for us? Why would God become human in the person of Jesus and what does the cross and the following resurrection truly mean for us in our lives today? The stories in the Bible around the events that we celebrate at Easter have people not believing that what happened could be true. There are people show doubt, don't recognise Jesus at first and struggle to work out what it all means. 

Easter needs people to come and try to work out for themselves what it means. It is not just about believing some stories or some theology or doctrines. The stories are important, but they all seem to point to how we each can meet Jesus, who was Immanuel = God with us, in our own way and discover something in that encounter which is transformative and life-giving.

Easter is a time for connection with God and each other and an awakening of faith as we find God at work in our lives in ways which might begin with doubt, but end in a call to a life of meaning and purpose.