Easter holidays are coming and right
across Australia plans are underfoot, as they are for any holidays, on the best
ways to enjoy a good break from work and school. There’s footy to watch,
sailing on the river, camping in the bush, perhaps a tour away from the traffic
congestion to somewhere more exotic.
Australians look forward to
holidays. Maybe somewhere along the line some one may pause to ask if anyone
knows what the holiday is for. Amongst the shrugs a voice plaintively utters
something about chocolate eggs and bunnies so a toast is raised to chocolate
bunnies and the show moves on.
The media don’t help that much.
Amongst all the special days in the year, when did you last see or hear Ash
Wednesday mentioned? The day before, certainly, but the season of Lent has now
been all but forgotten in the public eye.
Conspicuous
consumption continues its reign uninterrupted by little known seasons like
this.
Mentioning Lent does not boost
sales, the market cries. Closing down for respect for Good Friday is considered
a nuisance. Paying penalty rates for working Sundays and any other special day
when work has to be done is grizzled about. In all, we are encouraged to forget
the reason for the season.
The culture we now live in today is
at pains to airbrush the name of Jesus from society. It is socially taboo to
talk about him even to mention him as an historical figure. Certainly, bringing
to anyone else’s attention, his self-sacrifice on Good Friday, particularly if
others are in the middle of a good time, is being the wettest blanket of all.
Try raising the reason for the season this Easter.
I had an unforgettable experience
the first time I walked into Holy Spirit Catholic Church. As soon as I’d come
through the doorway, there confronting me was a life-sized, life-coloured
crucifix with the bleeding Saviour of this world draped awkwardly from it. In
that church there was nowhere else to look. I was left in not the slightest
doubt what it was all about.
It’s easy for even us disciples of
Jesus Christ to become so caught up in the business of church and of life itself
that we can erase from our minds that it is all about Jesus. Jesus is no
narcissist even in an age where narcissism is thrust into our faces almost
everywhere we turn and that is the point. Where “fake news”, “alternative facts”,
and “disinformation” become fashionable, the idea of self-sacrifice is shoved
off the radar even at Easter.
So, what we are called to do during
the rest of Lent coming up to Easter is to ensure that in the living of our
lives this time is all about Jesus. Put your head inside the doorway of Holy
Spirit Church and get the picture. Everything else is meant to fit behind the
one whose kingdom is not pre-occupied in bombing civilians or cornering the
global market but rests in the spirit where love, joy, peace, goodness,
gentleness, and self-control become currency for now and the future, just as Jesus
showed us in spades.
Yes, it’s all about Jesus and the
sooner the world is exposed to this truth the better it will be for the future.
