Every year I find it staggering to think that, throughout the world, what seemed like the last days of one person are celebrated again and again. He arrived at Jerusalem one Sunday in triumph, looking as though he would take over the kingdom; by Friday the crowd had turned against him, and he was handed over to the occupying powers to be killed, as though he were some sort of insurgent or terrorist. That night he was laid in a tomb, and the tomb was sealed. By the morning of the third day, the tomb was empty, and one by one, people saw him alive again, until hundreds had done so; and over the years, thousands of millions have believed their accounts.
Jesus the Son of God would not be made king of an earthly kingdom. Rather, he died as a criminal on a cross and, sinless as he was, was able to bear the sins of all who choose to believe in him. Death could hold neither him nor our sins, and his coming to life was a foretaste of the new life we can all have in heaven when it comes to our own deaths.

And that's what we recreate, and that's what we celebrate.

Happy Easter!
                STEPHEN