If Easter had not Taken Place?

If Easter had not Taken Place?
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011

What would happen if Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus, had not taken place?*
•Well, if there were no Resurrection, the story of Jesus would have ended with Good Friday.
•His body would have decayed, and he would have become a has-been.

•But that would mean that God does not take initiatives in history, that he is either unable or unwilling to touch this world of ours, our human living and dying.
•And that would mean that love is futile, nugatory, and empty and vain promise.

•It would mean that there is no judgment and no justice.
•It would mean that the moment is all that counts and right belongs to the cunning, the crafty and those without consciences.

•There would be no judgment. Many people, and by no means only wicked people, would welcome that because they confuse judgment with petty calculation and give more room to fear that to a trusting love.
•This the motivation for the passionate efforts made to remove Easter Sunday from the pages of history, to “get behind” it and stop history with Good Friday.

•But these escape attempts result, not in redemption, but in the dreary kind of joy of those who regard God’s justice as something dangerous and therefore wish it did not exist.
•All this makes clear what Easter does mean: God has acted. History does not go on aimlessly, Justice, love, truth – these are realities, genuine reality. God loves us; he comes to meet us.

George H. Kubeck, *Meditation of April 16th from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s book, Co-Workers of the Truth, - Meditations for Every Day of the Year, Ignatius, 1992. This is a classic.