Our blog this month is written by Gordon Mackley:

 

Although this year Easter is quite late and we are still only approaching it all the way through March, as I write this, we have already had Easter Eggs in the shops for some time. Despite being clearly pagan in origin, the idea of eggs representing new creation can be used as a Christian concept (not sure about the chocolate bit though)!

 

I should like to look at Easter from a slightly different angle away from Easter Eggs or the main story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. Biblical Jews, as ‘the chosen people of God’ could be very dismissive of non-Jews, even though God explains that being ‘chosen’ has nothing to do with them but is simply God’s choice (Deuteronomy 7:7-9).  This attitude extended not only to Gentiles from outside Israel (who were called ‘dogs’) but also to Samaritans in Israel who shared part of the same heritage as Jews. Some areas of the (by Jesus’ time) Roman province were regarded as inferior. Jews from Galilee were looked down upon by those from Judea and especially by those from Jerusalem.

 

Nathaneal, one of the disciples says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). (although he had forgotten Jonah, born close by).  In John 7:41-42 we have:

 

‘others asked, “how can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?”  Both said in ignorance, of course, as Jesus was not born in Galilee but in Bethlehem in Judea.'

 

There was also religious arrogance with both the Sadducees and the Pharisees looking down on ordinary people. This was all contrary to the Old Testament Law, which stated that you should ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18).

 

By Jesus’ time this idea had been weakened as only referring to loving fellow Jews, and only some of them! Jesus addresses all of these issues. He has a Samaritan as a hero in the well-known but misnamed and often misunderstood, ‘Parable of the Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10:25-37, where ‘good’ or agathos in Greek is never mentioned). He also speaks to Samaritans and Gentiles including women as well as men. He even shares a wordplay joke about the Gentiles being ‘dogs’ with a Gentile woman, transforming the Greek to refer to pet dogs (Mark 7:24-29). He ridicules many of the Pharisees’ nit-picking rules and tells the self-satisfied Sadducees that they do not know their own scriptures (Matthew 22:29-31). No wonder many of the religious elite wanted to kill him!

 

This was a long time ago in a different culture. It did though, revolve around not loving our neighbours as ourselves. Another part of the Torah (Law) Exodus 23:9 gives another slant:
 

“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

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So, in our world of 2025, how well are we doing compared to the Judea of 2000 years ago? Are we ‘loving our neighbours as ourselves’ and treating foreigners well? When those with power and influence fail to do so, do we as followers of Jesus, challenge them, as he did? When others make comments which are untrue, through ignorance, do we correct them?  Are we as Christians in our secular society living up to the example of Jesus or are we afraid of being unpopular if we do?