Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

What Easter Means

What Easter means for us depends on not just what happened to Jesus, but what happens to us because of that. Put it more crudely, perhaps: Jesus died, rose, and will come again — but so what?

An analogy might help. Supposed you were an inmate in a super-max prison, a prison with thick walls, barbed wire, guard towers and constant monitoring — a place from which no one escaped.

But what if one day, the impossible happened? What if one day the guards found an empty cell, its prisoner nowhere to be seen? And what if, just a few hours later, that missing prisoner showed up driving a gigantic earth mover powerful enough rip open the gates, flatten the walls, and push over the guard towers? What would it mean for you?

In my opinion, Easter isn’t so much about the new life of spring, but about razed and ruined prison walls and a whole world of possibilities for those who’d been kept locked up.

If you were one of those prisoners, what would you do with your new found freedom? Answer this question and you’ll begin to understand the meaning of Easter.