EASTER: IT’S NOT JUST HISTORY

There is an on-going debate, unfortunately, among fundamentalists and those who are not about not only the historicity of the Bible but also its factual truth. There are those who maintain, for instance, that Genesis’ six-days-of-creation story are actual fact when, in fact, the creation story is a profound parable whose meaning it would take volumes to explain. I have a volume or two on my bookshelf attempting to do just that. On the other hand it is easy, and simplistic, to say, as some bumper stickers do, that “The Bible says it. I believe it!” Good for them!

The Bible is filled with stated historical facts, many of them truly factual, many others embellished to emphasize a religious point. When we read Exodus, for instance, we are told that 600,000 people made the march from Egypt to the Promised Land over a period of forty years. The actual number is closer to 6,000, perhaps even 600. And did it take forty years when one could actually walk that distance perhaps in forty days? The point the biblical writer wanted to make is that God fulfilled his promise to save his people and, by God, God did – in an extravagant way at that, no matter how short a journey or how long it took.

And yet while the Bible is historical, it is much more than history. It is even much more than religious history. History, if it has any meaning at all other than a record of past events, must be relevant in the present as much as it was when the events remembered took place, if not more so. History is supposed to teach us something. We are to learn from it if only to not repeat the mistakes of the past. We ignore those lessons to our own pain, as history has also taught us.

Thus, in so many ways, the past, history, must be a present reality even if in a different manner and mode than what it was when it first took place. Easter, our remembrance and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, was a one-time historical event. It happened on a certain date in history even if we do not know the exact date. Yes, there are those who claim it never happened, that Jesus was never raised from the dead. They have a perfect right to deny that the resurrection really happened, like those who deny people landed on the moon. To each his own.

But in truth it does not matter what non-believers believe about Easter. What matters is what you and I believe, More importantly, what matters even more is what we are doing about it, what our personal response is. Each of us needs to ask ourselves a simple question: “Does it really matter to me that on that first Easter Sunday that Jesus was raised from the dead?” And if it does, the next question I must ask is, “So what? What effect does it have on my daily life?”

Those are faith questions that are asked generically by this historical event. But they are answered only on a very, very personal basis. No one can answer those questions for me nor I for another. My response, as every response, will be unique even if those responses seem to be quite the same. But respond we must if we believe that what we celebrate on Easter is much more than an historical event, that, in fact, it is personal.