Last week I had the privilege of conducting a solemn and reflective service on Good Friday evening, as well as the great joy of preaching about the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Day. With all these roller-coaster thoughts of sorrow, pain, death, and Jesus’s victory over death swirling about in my head I came across two quotations that made me put on my ‘grumpy old man’ hat! Both quotes came from a similar source on the theological spectrum. The first was the title of a song, called ‘Death is hollow,’ and the second was a quotation from Arsene Wenger (taken out of its football context for effect) that ‘Christmas is important, but Easter is decisive.’ [Note: if Arsenal don’t win the league this year it might have been Christmas that was decisive, since they dropped lots of points then. Sad for me as a Gooner.]

So, why did these two things get me worked up? My reactions were immediate, and thinking about why I realised that it was both for pastoral and theological reasons. Is it true that ‘Death is hollow’? I suppose it depends on what ‘hollow’ means, but I took it to mean that Death, that cosmic power and enemy of all that is mortal, is a lightweight and has no power to hurt us now that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Pastorally, I think that this is a disastrous position to take. Look around and see all kinds of families, Christian and not, whose lives have been shattered by the trauma of death – sudden and without warning, from suicide or murder, from a long-battled illness, from war in places like Ukraine and Gaza and Israel. Why do people, even Christians, feel the grief of the death of a loved one if death is hollow? Rather than try to persuade people that death is hollow, and leave them wondering why their body, mind and spirit is telling them something different, we need to help people grieve in faith. The grieving process has a vital role in helping human beings come to a place where life can continue despite the intrusion of death.

‘Death is hollow’ is also theologically wrongheaded. According to Paul, Death is the Enemy, and it will be the Last Enemy to be destroyed. Despite the resurrection of Jesus, until his coming death still holds power. It was Oscar Cullmann who illustrated this differentiation using the metaphor of D-Day in June 1944 and VE-Day, nearly a year later.  D-Day was a day when the successful invasion of Normandy assured that ultimate victory in Europe was certain, and Cullmann likens that to Jesus’s death and resurrection. But ultimate victory, when the Last Enemy will be destroyed, will not be realised until the coming of Christ in glory, our spiritual VE-Day.

‘Christmas is important, but Easter is decisive’ got me going for mainly theological reasons, but I think it is bad pastoral practice to set the two most celebrated festivals of the Christian calendar against each other. We need to celebrate both. Yes, Christmas has been more commercially exploited, but the remedy for that is to teach Christians how to mark it appropriately rather than pit it against Easter. More significantly, ‘Christmas is important, but Easter is decisive’ sets two events in the drama of salvation against each other, without the understanding that if either of them were missing, the Christian faith would not exist. It also underplays the magnitude of the decisive intervention of God through the incarnation of Jesus. Christmas is not just the birth of a baby. It is the coming into flesh of the Son of God, who then gave himself on the cross and was raised the third day. For our salvation to be effected, these events need to be held together and be seen as equally the decisive intervention of God on behalf of all creation.

Ok, I’ll take my ‘grumpy old man’ hat off now. I’m off to have some more chocolate egg.