Easter transformation

By Michail Rassool

On a Friday, Jesus was a man broken by the cross. By Sunday the broken Jesus was transformed into the Risen Christ.

The essence of Easter is transformation, and the preceding 40 days of Lent are intended to be a process of taking stock of our ourselves and our own situations, relationships, and engagement with the world.

During Lent we are called to assess the quality of the ways in which we enhance the lives of others and determine whether we love them as Christ does.

Christ’s resurrection ushered in a new dispensation, a new way of thinking and hoping; it taught us that suffering and death is comparatively brief, a “passing through”, to the promise of eternal life with God. For this to become a reality for all humankind, Christ’s resurrection had to be the first fruits, a literal action, so that his followers especially could enact their own version of sacrifice and death and resurrection metaphorically (no literal self-sacrifice is necessary after Christ’s).

In this respect, sacrifice would refer to casting out the old — which takes us away from being true followers of Christ — to obtain New Life in him. In time, though we too will pass through the real pangs of suffering and death, a brief respite before our reward of Eternal Life. But for now, it is a death to the old self that we speak of and a rising above the habits and practices of old to embrace the new.

So renewal, a transformed life, one that implies a closer relationship with our Lord — forged during Lent — and the infinite good that is embodied in him, lies at the heart of Easter, which we celebrate.

The idea of transformation is not just personal, but a much wider concept. A truly transformed society is one where poverty, crime, corruption and injustice do not exist; in which the things of God lie at the centre of life in all its manifestations.

It is an ideal, a vision of hope, towards which all who believe in the force of good and right ought to strive, both in the manner in which they live their own lives, and seek to act justly on behalf of others whose circumstances deprive them of the chance to live their human lives to the full.

In a society such as ours, with its vast disparities materially, educationally, even spiritually, those with access to opportunity and means have greater prospects to do so.

This is why the Church sees it as so important that the People of God should help where they can to improve the quality of others’ lives, particularly through empowerment and enskilling.

It is this kind of thinking that militates against the mindset of entitlement that has arisen over the last decade among those who think that, by virtue of their participation in the fight against the injustices of South Africa’s past, self-enrichment through any means is their right and privilege.

In the minds of some, leadership and self-enrichment are inseparable, giving rise to a dangerous misperception that is reinforced particularly among those with no access, with obvious moral consequences. It is a mindset that certainly does not reflect the kind of social transformation that has God at its centre.

These are the types of thoughts that should occupy the minds of right-thinking people, including those who believe in God and practise their faith — at Easter-time, and in the period immediately afterwards.

May Easter bless us all with the sense of newness and transformation that it promises.