“We are an Easter People”.
This idea can be traced to St Augustine, but was brought into modern consciousness when Pope John Paul II used it in an address on a visit to Australia in 1986. There is also a deep theology around the idea that the defining characteristic of the early church was an identification with the central mystery of Easter.
The Church has been described in many ways over its history, from the “bride of Christ” to a fortress, a pilgrim people, a body with hands, feet and head, or a community of sinners. All these characterizations can be true. The church is no more a single thing, described by one characteristic, than any society or even any individual.
But what does it mean to be an “Easter People”? For Saint Augustine, Easter is a time of celebration, a time of hope, a time of joy. John Paul II picked up particularly on the link to joy, which was emphasized in the full saying he used: “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”
This Easter there are many who are feeling anything but joyful. For those who find themselves newly arrived at this point, it is good to recognize that there have been many throughout history who had little cause for joy – those led into the Colosseum, or the Concentration Camps, or the Gulag, those living in Sudan, or Gaza, or Ukraine, and many others.
Are they not Easter People?
Is Easter about feeling happy?
Jesus didn’t come to make us happy. The manner of his death, and his desire to be one with us, to invite us into that death, couldn’t make that any clearer. The early martyrs clearly understood that. And they also knew they had been saved, that death had no power over them. That seems contradictory doesn’t it? They were about to be killed, probably in horrible ways, but they were joyful because they knew death had no power.
Enslaved people managed somehow to sing Hallelujah. The depth of their faith was such that although they understood that their bodies could be owned and abused, their souls, their spirits, their true being, could still be free.
Jesus didn’t say that we won’t die. He said of himself that he would die. But he also said he would rise. And he said that we also will rise, if we follow him. And where do we follow him? – through death into life. That’s why we are an Easter People with alleluia as our song. Our joy is an act, not of perverse foolishness, but of defiance. We defy evil, we announce Alleluia, we declare ourselves willing to suffer and die (as we will one way or another), following our Savior, who broke open the gates of hell.