I’m betting your church, like mine, was full this past Sunday. I’m sure the music was amazing and your pastor/priest gave a stirring sermon/homily specially designed to reach the people who were there only because it was Easter.
You’ve heard of “C & E” Christians – those who only come to church for Christmas and Easter. That people come at Christmas makes sense. On the surface, the Christmas story is “nice.” There’s a baby being born and there are all those beautiful decorations and beloved carols to be sung. What’s not to like?
That churches fill on Easter testifies that the Church has done a good job of branding Easter as the “most important holiday.” What’s surprising about Easter attendance is that there is nothing “nice” about the Easter story. As Father James Martin notes in his article, “The Challenge of Easter” published in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend:
“The Easter story is both appalling and astonishing: the craven betrayal of Jesus by one of his closest followers, the triple denial by his best friend, the gruesome crucifixion and the brutal end to his earthly life. Then, of course, there is the stunning turnaround three days later.”
Let’s face it – Easter is a complicated story. This lynchpin that holds Christianity together is not something that can be appreciated in an isolated Sunday of worship, no matter how glorious churches make their services.
Packed houses on Easter demonstrate that Christianity still has some kind of claim on the nominally churched population. But the falloff in attendance the rest of the year shows us more-than-nominal believers that we need to do a better job of communicating why Easter is so important.
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