For ‘cultural Christians’ Easter has become as hollow as a chocolate egg.

This year Easter has taken centre stage in what some see as a 21^st century Battle for Britain. Many on the Left speak of the ‘culture wars’, growing intolerance and even increasing racism. Many on the right speak about ‘wanting my country back’, loss of British values and an increasing erosion of Britishness. Some like myself veer between despair at the growing extremism on both sides. At the heart of it all swirls discord around levels of immigration and what it is to be British. It could not therefore have been more provocative that the calendar placed Easter within the month of Ramadan. For the last years we seem to have an annual debate about the public marking of Ramadan, from politicians and Government bodies to supermarkets and posters on public transport. This year there was obviously a lot more heat around that as people were comparing the visible celebration of a holy Muslim month to that of the most holy time for Christians. ‘Ramadan lights’, (which I understand from Muslim friends aren’t even traditional) appeared in central London. Easter decorations have been sparse if not absent from public places.

  Of course the reason that Easter doesn’t have the equivalent of the glitzy build up to Christmas - months of lights, dancing novelty decorations and festive music in every shop - is that the preceding month is one of sombre reflection, prayer and fasting. The sober austerity of Lent, which of course commentates Jesus’s withdrawal to the desert and His struggles with Satan therein, just doesn’t lend itself to the overindulgent build up to Christmas. However when stories come out like a Cadbury’s store in Lincolnshire rebranding some Easter eggs as ‘gesture eggs’, as well as Iceland replacing the cross on some Hot Cross Buns with a Tick, it understandably stokes concerns about the abandonment of Easter traditions. Yet the problem is that many defending Easter, indeed claiming to defend Britain’s Christian culture, seem to have a woefully deficient understanding of what both Easter and Christianity are all about.

   Enter self proclaimed ‘straight talking’ Talk Radio presenter Mike Graham who decided to take umbrage with one of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s posts on X. It’s worth quoting in full.

‘Holy Saturday is the ultimate time of waiting and lamenting. It’s easy to look back when you know what comes next, but Holy Saturday asks us to enter a death that seems final; without hope and without future. For the disciples, it’s the day that all stopped: when the future was snatched away, and the past fell under a heavy question mark. How do you make sense of that which makes no sense?

We shy away from Holy Saturday, and yet it is something we need to practice. Sitting in the darkness, where we cannot see the way ahead, we can sit in solidarity with all those, near and far, for whom the past lies in ashes and the future cannot be imagined. It is a day to weep along with those who weep.

“So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.” — Matthew 27:59-60’

Mike Graham reposted this with the comment ‘Easter, it’s called Easter.’ As a Christian I’ve been involved in a lot of outreach/evangelism to non Christians and that has meant encountering a lot of ignorance about even basic Christianity. However even I was shocked by Mike’s post. It certainly proves the point he and many on the political right are trying to make about the erosion of Christianity in Britain, but it’s doing so by exposing the hollowness of their supposed defence of our national religion. I found this social media interaction especially disheartening because, although I’m often critical of Archbishop Welby, I found his Holy Saturday words spoke to me and moved me, as I struggled my own inner darkness. Of course what Mike said is ludicrous and offensive to Christians for whom that Saturday, which marks our Lord’s descent into hell as He paid for our sins, is the opposite of the joy to come on Easter Sunday. The Archbishops’s post couldn’t have been more biblical or more appropriate. I don’t even know whether Mike read those words properly or was capable of understanding them. The secular world doesn’t like marking suffering and embracing the darkness. It’s not a good way to sell people more stuff they don’t need. It’s also not good for people like Mike whose life like many today is focused on ‘eat, drink and be merry.’ A season of sober introspection and above all confronting death is too uncomfortable and spoils the party that is their lives! ‘We shy away from Holy Saturday . . .’

  In the book of Ephesians St Paul describes the Word of God, i.e. the scriptures, as a ‘sword’. However the Christian faith is not a weapon to inflict metaphorical wounds on ‘the woke’, ‘the left wing’, ‘Muslims’, ‘immigrants’ or anyone else those on the right of politics, (a politics I still identify with!) might choose to take issue with. Indeed those placing blame on Muslims for the degradation of our precious Christian culture should turn the mirror around to reveal the lack of true faith in themselves. No one should blame Muslims for taking Islam seriously. But all who claim to care about Britain’s Christian heritage but don’t embrace Christianity beyond social media, national pride and political point scoring should blame themselves for the fact that they don’t take their professed faith as seriously as Muslims take theirs. Many seem content with their indulgent hollow chocolate Easter egg. But the empty tomb it represents is not an end in itself. To be a Christian you must do as Mary Magdalene did and seek, find and follow the risen Lord. He is risen indeed Alleluia! Happy Easter!