Looking to Easter

I have just re-read “The Easter Stories” by Trevor Dennis, a great preparation for celebrating Easter in a few days time. I find Trevor Dennis’ style of writing, with its emphasis on story, very engaging and extremely helpful in reflecting on Scripture. I like the way in which he interacts different passages and stories, letting them speak to each other and illustrate each other, and that is a device that is prominent and helpful in this particular book. “The feeding of the five thousand is not a ticket-only affair, nor like the Last Supper is it behind closed doors. The men, women and children who are there do not have to prove themselves worthy to receive. The meal happens out in the open, with no boundaries, no walls, no fences, no doors. All the people have to do is turn up, and stretch out their hands to receive. Then the kingdom of God can come, and they can have their daily bread and God's name can be hallowed.” I also liked the way in which he draws the reader to look at the events being retold through the eyes of particular participants in the story. “So the women in Mark do not encounter the resurrection. Resurrection, of course, is not what they have come for. They have come for the marking of death. They have come for the wrong reasons, for when they reach the tomb they find that death has been undone. In any case they need not have bought their expensive spices for, so Mark has told us, an unnamed woman in the Bethany house of a leper called Simon, has already broken a ‘jar of very costly perfume, genuine nard’ and poured it all over his head, and Jesus has declared that she has anointed his body for burial (14.3-9).” All in all, these stories and reflections provide a great commentary on the events of Easter. “So when Matthew speaks of earthquake, the dead bursting from their tombs, an angel descending to a tomb and rolling away the entrance stone with his little finger (I cannot stop myself adding a little more drama still), he is trying to understand the momentous character of the events. They are truly of cosmic significance, and just as Jesus' birth in Matthew's Gospel is marked by the movement of a star, so Jesus' death and resurrection are accompanied by a movement of the earth.”