title: Why Easter is the best week of the year
description: >-
    Based on a talk given to my colleagues at
    <a href="https://www.scottlogic.co.uk">Scott Logic</a> for Maundy
    Thursday, 2024.
pubDate: 2024-03-30

content: |
  As you might have noticed, it is Easter this week! So I'd like to take five or
  five minutes of your time to share why I – and about two billion other humans
  going about the place just now – think Easter is the best week of the year. And
  it's got something to do with a special Christian ritual called Communion.
  
  Communion, at its heart, is about as simple a ritual as you can get. You get
  together with a bunch of other people. You share some bread, and you share some
  wine.
  
  And it’s because of this ritual that so many people regard Easter as the best
  week of the year. I want to explain to you why that is, and more than that, I
  want to convince you that Easter is the best week of the year for you, too!
  
  If you’ve passed by _The Hub_ at the top of Johnstone Terrace here in
  Edinburgh recently, you might have notice the banner which is draped over
  the railings just now – reading, ‘RITUALS THAT UNITE US.’
  
  Now, that might seem like an odd idea. But wouldn’t that be great, if we
  actually had a ritual which could unite us? Because the world could surely do
  with a bit more unity right now. The world seems so divided, and sometimes it
  seems like there’s no hope for real unity.
  
  We can see that in our politics. We’re divided about foreign policy, about
  taxation policy, about trade policy, about environmental policy.
  
  And the conflicts that we have in this country seem pretty trivial when we
  remember the conflicts that are playing out in other parts of the world right
  now. In Israel and Gaza. In Sudan. In Russia and Ukraine.
  
  And there’s plenty of conflict happening on the small scale, too. Often it’s the
  smallest-scale conflicts which hurt us the most deeply. Your landlord pushes you
  around. That friend you trusted like no-one else in the world lets you down. The
  partner or spouse you loved like no-one else in the world – you end up fighting.
  
  It’s possible that you’re going to be reading this right now with a heavy heart
  because of a broken relationship in their life. And doesn’t that hurt more than
  anything else we know?
  
  When the world is groaning so heavily under the weight of conflict, and some
  banner on _The Hub_ tells us a ritual can unite us, that seems so out of
  proportion to the scale of the problem, doesn’t it? What can a ritual do? A bit
  of old superstition? An excuse to divide people, maybe – what can a ritual do
  to unite us?
  
  Well, two thousand years ago, a man had a meal with his friends. Together, they
  shared a meal of bread and wine – which, in that time and place, was the most
  ordinary meal imaginable.
  
  And yet, in that most ordinary event imaginable, something was happening which
  was totally unimaginable. As this man, Jesus, shared the elements of this meal,
  he made some extraordinary statements about what he was doing: ‘take, eat, this
  is my body’ – ‘drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant.’
  (The word ‘covenant’ means a promise.)
  
  He told them he wasn’t just giving them bread and wine, he was giving his body
  and his blood, and a promise.
  
  Before Jesus ate another meal, he was flogged and nailed to a cross. His blood
  was spilt and his body broken, even to death.
  
  And yet, that wasn’t the end of the Easter story. Because three days later,
  mourners turned up at Jesus’ tomb to pay their respects, and found the tomb
  empty, the stone rolled away. Then they became the first of crowds of
  incredulous eyewitnesses to see Jesus, the same Jesus who was killed on a cross,
  alive.
  
  Some magic trick, right? But this matters a hell of a lot more than just some
  magic trick. Because Jesus became the first person in history to prove that you
  really can both have your cake and eat it. He gave his life, and lived! As a
  result, we can have his life and our own. We can join with Jesus through the
  ritual of Communion which he established, and thereby, through Jesus’ body, join
  together with everyone else who takes part in that ritual, as one body. Then we
  can start living our brand-new, full-fat, original-recipe life overflowing with
  generosity where we too can both give our life to others and enjoy it ourselves.
  Indeed, Jesus taught us and showed us that it’s precisely by giving our lives to
  others that we get to truly live ourselves.
  
  This is why, in spite of all the division which persists in the world today, two
  billion people regard this week as the best week of the year. Two billion
  people, from every nation on Earth, speaking thousands of languages, of every
  age and culture and gender and race, who defy the divisions of this world to
  insist on joining together as one body in Jesus.
  
  Because Jesus’ new covenant, his promise to all of us, is that in an apparently
  hopelessly divided world, there exists real hope for unity. And that’s why
  Easter is the best week of the year.
