2 weeks Ago
The sun begins to rise over the Youngsville Community Church Easter sunrise services at Sugar Mill Pond on Sunday, March 31, 2024 in Youngsville, La.. STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD KEMP Lights illuminate the path of Easter service participants Sunday, April 9, 2023, as they walk the path to the Hemingbough amphitheater at sunrise.
Photo by Frances Y. Spencer Residents greet each other before the Youngsville Community Church Easter Sunrise Service at Sugar Mill Pond on Sunday, April 17, 2022 in Youngsville, La..
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD KEMP Author Leo Honeycutt gives a scripture reading during Hemingbough’s annual Easter sunrise service on Sunday, March 31, 2024 in Saint Francisville, Louisiana. STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHNSON Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Editor's note: This editorial, in modified form, has marked previous Easter holidays in this newspaper. The Easter story, the victorious ending of a tale of brutal crucifixion, suggests that there's a powerful answer to the pain and evil that have touched the world throughout human history.
That's why the Easter narrative can resonate not only with Christians but in secular society, too. Any story of hope is needed now more than ever, as recent headlines have reminded us. On this weekend's Easter, as on others, there's trouble afoot on our anguished planet.
The stories of terrorism and war abroad and violence close to home continue to dominate the headlines. And the newspapers of today would have been familiar to our grandparents and great-grandparents, as there is once again large-scale warfare in Europe, strife in the Middle East and unrest in our hemisphere. We hope for victory for the Ukrainian people, peace in Gaza and an end to chaos around the globe, but we know that those ravaged populations will be in need of resurrection, today's theme, for many years to come.
All this is pretty grim stuff. Illness and death are ever-present parts of the human condition, as the Easter story reminds us. Yet our capacity to be shocked and horrified by accounts of death and violence in our communities and around the world is, perhaps, one of the more affirming things about the human spirit.
We believe that cruelty is an aberration — that we're made for something better than bringing darkness to someone else. That brighter spirit has been reflected in neighbors helping neighbors, even under the most difficult conditions. Easter is the holiest day in the Christian calendar, and this Sunday, believers are gathering at their houses of worship to pray and reflect on the miracle of life renewed, when all was thought to be lost.
In whatever form, Easter speaks to our basic faith that love will ultimately transcend hate, that good will triumph over evil, that our better angels will prevail, that miracles are possible. In the classic children's story "Charlotte's Webb," author E.B.
White suggested that belief in miracles is perhaps not so strange a thing when we consider the presence of the everyday miracles we take for granted. White was writing particularly about the life of a barnyard, where the wonders of pigs and ducks and spiders were spectacles so grand — but so routine — that few visitors thought of them as special. Spring is like that, too, of course.
After the frost and cold of winter, the greening trees and emerging blossoms are an extraordinary thing, but they're a victory we usually overlook. Easter is a day to hold such gifts close to heart, to believe once again in renewal — of the world and in ourselves..
