So, how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestion to make. I have to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess.

For a start, consider Easter Day itself…Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows…It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

…we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins…

…if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up….Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. …if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”

—Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008) pp. 255-257

Resurrection, 1510 #northernrenaissance #durer https://t.co/xaNvV2Dtzx pic.twitter.com/otZ5Az0E1F

— Albrecht Dürer (@artistdurer) September 7, 2022

Lyrics

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen

This brings us to an increasingly relevant question: Can a computer lie? That leads directly to another hot-button question: Can a computer sin?

Well, a computer can be programmed — by sinful, fallen human beings — to twist facts or manipulate data to confuse or deceive people. But are these sins committed by the computers or the programmers? 

This isn’t a new question. In your mind, if you are of a certain age, flash back to 1968 and remember the voice of the HAL 9000 computer saying, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

The ultimate question is whether, at some point, flaws in the programming will merge with some kind of super Artificial Intelligence and the computers will, you know, start working their way through the whole Ten Commandments.

Read it all.

(ANALYSIS/@tweetmattingly) The Bible has lots to say about lying. It’s clear that lying is a sin. This brings us to an increasingly relevant question: Can a computer lie? That leads directly to another hot-button question: Can a computer sin? https://t.co/7kXY46xSAC

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) May 19, 2025

Almighty God, by the proclamation of thy Word all nations are drawn to thee: Make us desire, like John Eliot, to share thy Good News with those whom we encounter, so that all people may come to a saving knowledge of thee; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

20 May 1690: d. John Eliot #otd called 'Apostle to the Indians', he translated the #Bible into the Massachusett language (Houghton Library) pic.twitter.com/g44eUL2Jjn

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) May 20, 2021

Eternal God, who gives good gifts to all people, and who teaches us to have the same spirit of generosity: Give unto us, we pray thee, hearts that are always open to hear thy word, that following the example of thy servant Lydia, we may show hospitality to all who are in any need or trouble, through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

"Lydia was a woman of two cultures, Thyatira and Philippi. Like many women in the Bible, little is known about her." Read Lydia by Kennedy Thedford and Tina Pippin https://t.co/LV8z5gOdcJ #WomensHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/BWkzatFwHj

— Bible Odyssey (@bibleodyssey) March 3, 2023

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst say to thy disciples, Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son: Give us grace, we beseech thee, to ask aright; teach us to bring our requests into harmony with thy mind and will; and grant that both our prayers and our lives may be acceptable in thy sight, to the glory of God the Father.

Wielitscher Kapelle pic.twitter.com/IPMkFeCCL6

— Jure Kravanja Yurko (@JureYurko) May 21, 2025

“No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. Take heed then how you hear; for to him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a storm of wind came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even wind and water, and they obey him?”

–Luke 8:16-25

Good Wednesday morning #malmö #photofrommyheart pic.twitter.com/qu1nVstPL4

— Lisa von Steijern🇸🇪 (@LisavonSteijern) May 21, 2025