101-year-old Co-Founder of the C.S. Lewis Institute

The annual event of Easter commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This verb ‘to commemorate’ involves not only remembering the historical fact of the resurrection, but also understanding the significance of the event to the extent that it impacts our emotions and brings spiritual meaning to our lives.

The festival of Easter should ‘eastify’ us to become more and more vitalized, alive Christians.  This is not just as a ‘memory’ to become annually ‘eastified’, but something to be lived daily as we become vital ‘living Christians’.

Easter was originally called “Pascha”, a Greek alliteration of the Aramaic word which referred to the Jewish festival of “Passover.”  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred during the Feast of Passover as Jesus became the ultimate “Paschal Lamb” sacrificed for the sins of the world.  It is Christ’s blood shed on the cross which provides the covering for our sins just as the blood of the Passover Lambs sprinkled on the doorposts of Jewish homes in Egypt protected them from the judgment of God and the Angel of Death.

The Feast of “Easter,” its Latin name, was established by the first Roman Caesar to become a Christian, Emperor Theodosius in 362 A.D.  This he did on the first (Jewish) Monday after Easter, which Theodosius now called ’the New Sunday’. It was the reminder that Jesus died on the cross on Sunday 33 A.D, at noon, when it suddenly became dark, with the solar eclipse, itself a momentous historical event in the cosmos of planets.

The celebration of Easter commemorates the “Theo-Drama” (a term coined by Cardinal von Balthasar) which indicates that God did not just promise Redemption and Salvation, but He actualized His promise of a Coming Messiah for Israel, in  the Incarnation of his beloved Son, in His human growth, His baptism, in His earthly ministry of choosing twelve disciples, and in Judas being deliberately chosen as the one who would betray Him to be crucified to die on the Cross. All this von Balthasar calls ‘Theo-Drama, as the ACT OF GOD, IN REDEEMING, SAVING, AND DISCIPLING, first ’twelve’ to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, then all the millions of Christians ever since.

Likewise, “Theo-drama” implies for all Christians today, that we don’t just think and believe, to be called ‘Christians”, as members of diverse denominational churches, but as we EMBODY in diverse ways that we truly are Christians.

When we celebrate Easter, let us be reminded that we are living in the End Times which began at Pentecost and the gravity of which are detailed in the light of the book of Revelation. We may then well ask how long God will have patience with those who have been made in his image and likeness, and yet continue to frustrate this divine purpose.

As happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, there is an end time of judgment which each age of Christendom has been warned about again and again. For God has to be revealed fully, both as a God of love and redemption, and as a God of judgment and therefore punishment, as He did with Israel.

For that purpose, all humanity was created to be in the image and likeness of God. One day, sooner than we may realize, this planet may be destroyed just as we see it foretold in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. For God was, is, and always will be the God of Justice, as well as the redeeming God of love.

The question then remains, how do we ‘embody’ the Christian life, for our remaining years as Christians and live our lives as followers of the resurrected Messiah, Jesus Christ.