Easter is the most important celebration on the Christian calendar and for Christians it is the defining event in the life of Jesus Christ.
But does it have any meaning for those who are not of the Christian faith, or is it just an opportunity for an extended holiday?
After all, many in society today have no understanding of the Christian origins of Easter.
One caller on an Auckland talkback radio station several years ago gave a good example of this, when she said ''These wretched Christians! First they tried to take over Christmas and now they are trying to take over Easter.''
Who knows what she thought were the origins of Easter!
Easter emerged out of the Jewish Passover festival, because it was during that festival that Jesus Christ was executed by being crucified.
''Good Friday'' received its name because that death was seen as the best thing that happened to the human race - a sacrifice for which we should all be grateful. And ''Easter Sunday'' was the celebration of God raising Jesus from the dead, so putting his seal on that death as the best thing that happened in human history.
But what is the bottom-line message we can all take out of Easter, even if we do not discover the life-changing dimension that Christians find in this event?
How about these words written by the apostle Paul: When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us godless people. Paul is ultimately talking about how Jesus came to give a way for people who were completely estranged from God to become reconciled to him - something that demanded the very life of Jesus. But there is also an example and a call to men and women everywhere in this action of Jesus.
Jesus did not give his life for the best people in society. He did not give his life for those who might be deemed worthy of such a sacrifice. Rather he gave his life for those who were utterly helpless, for the godless - that is, people who had no claims upon God, no virtue to make them worthy, and so were completely at his mercy.
If God did not have mercy on them, they had no future. And this action deeply challenges us all, for if there is an ethical call of God upon our society, and upon the life of each individual in that society, it lies here.
The test of a life is not how we treat those above us, nor how we treat those who will be able to reward us for our good treatment of them. The test of a life is how we treat those who are helpless, the ''least'', according to our judgement of human worth.
And this is also the test of a community, even of a nation. The test of a city, of a nation, is not how attractive we are to tourists, nor how economically successful we are, for Jesus said it is possible to gain the whole world and yet lose your own soul.
The test of a community is how it treats the helpless, those with no political power, those whom self-interest would have us abandon.
That is what Jesus Christ demonstrated in Easter. It is at the very heart of the sacrifice that Christians remember on Good Friday, and the reason they celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday with such joy. For such a God is worth celebrating and worth giving our lives to.
Easter, understood like this, calls each of us to a higher level of living, where we make less of ourselves and much more of those we tend to overlook, who will do nothing for our ego but do everything for our development as people in the image of God. Easter calls for sacrifice.
- Guest editorial by Trevor Geddes, Leader of the Dunedin City Baptist pastoral team
