Easter Sunday 2025

4/20/2025

As part of our Easter service this year, we are going to share in communion.

Holy Communion is an outer symbolic ritual of an inner spiritual process. When Jesus says to eat or drink this, he is referring to our taking in, accepting, absorbing into our consciousness and understanding, and applying these qualities into our being. It does not mean, as my Anthropology professor insisted, that Christians are vampire cannibals. We must look beyond the physical to the spiritual nature, significance, meaning, and benefit of the ritual of communion. It is a spiritual process.

What happens or can happen in a true communion service? The soul can experience a feeling of security and peace even though outer circumstances may seem to indicate turmoil and instability. To state it in another way, our consciousness is raised; our awareness of God within is increased. This is what Christ was inviting his disciples to experience. This is what you are invited to experience now, as you find that inner space of peace and trust.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this time of remembrance. As we partake in communion, help us to reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus, and draw closer to You. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, and fill us with Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

[Pass out the bread. Give thanks.]

The bread is symbolic of everything that gives us life: not only food, but the omnipresent substance of God. It is the Divine essence out of which all things are formed, including our bodies. Our imaginations, ideas, thoughts, dreams, feelings, desires, and beliefs form our lives. This is why Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible.”

Then Jesus said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” To expand that thought, it means “Take this bread that I have broken as physical nourishment for your body, just as I offer my broken human body known as Jesus, to crucifixion. By so doing, the example of my life, my teachings and sacrifice offer nourishment for your spiritual development.” “Do this in remembrance of me.”

[Pass out the juice. Give thanks.] 

He then took the wine, which represents the Divine life-giving energy of God. It is the Light that sustains and warms and emanates from the heart of Christ. By prayerfully basking in that Energy and Light we are cleansed in the ‘blood’ of the Divine Power that cauterizes our ignorance, bad habits, negative tendencies, and our lowest inclinations.

He then said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” “Drink this, absorb into your awareness the spirit of willingness to sacrifice your attachments to the world so that you can achieve oneness with God. Understand my immortality-bestowing teachings of forgiveness, divine love, unshakable fortitude, wisdom, judgment, willpower, compassion, love, tolerance, and self-surrender of the ego to Spirit’s embrace.” “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

It is my prayer that through this outer ritual we will ignite the realization of our inner spiritual union and communion with Christ, and our oneness and connection with Spirit.

Jesus performed this service for his disciples on Maundy Thursday of the Holy Week. Maundy is derived from the Latin word mandatum, which means mandate. It was on Maundy Thursday that Christ provided the Last Supper, washed the disciples’ feet and made his mandate: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” John 13:34.

This was followed by Good Friday, when Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. His suffering brought to us the hope of redemption, grace, and a new life in Christ.

Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday he arose from his tomb. We call this event Easter, but the early Christians called it Pesach, which means Passover, an important Jewish holiday. Passover celebrates the time when God sent the 10 plagues to Egypt, including the plague to kill every first-born son. God told the Israelites living in Egypt to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood to their doorposts. When the angel of death came, it would see the blood and ‘pass over’ that household.

This is why Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb. The early Christians, coming from their Jewish traditions, applied that familiar phrase to Christ. His blood would inform God to pass over the judgement on the followers of Christ.

Although many countries’ name for Resurrection Day continues to use the ‘paschal’ derivative, by the mid-8th to 9th centuries the Anglo-Saxon English Christians had changed the name to Easter, which had always been a Celtic pagan reference to springtime renewal celebrated at the beginning of the season. 

Because of fluctuations in the Jewish and Julian calendars, the Council of Nicaea in 325AD decided that Easter would be on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. That formula is used today.

But Easter is more than a historical event. It is a divine invitation into personal and spiritual transformation. Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate sign that life triumphs over death, not just physically, but spiritually. Spiritually, we all face “deaths” – moments of failure, heartbreak, loss, and pain. Easter is about facing what has died within us, and teaches us to ask, “What part of me needs resurrecting? My hope? My faith? My self-worth?” The Easter experience includes engaging in activities such as prayer, meditation, journaling, or just being still, and trusting that Spirit specializes in reviving what feels lost or broken.

We learn from Easter that suffering, pain, and challenges have purpose. The cross was not the end of the story. Jesus suffered with grace, which means enduring hardship, pain, or adversity in a way that is marked by dignity, humility, and openness to transformation, rather than bitterness or despair. It involves recognizing that suffering, while painful and unwanted, can become an occasion for growth, deeper self-awareness, and a greater sense of connection to others and to God. In our quiet times during Easter and beyond, we can ask, “What is the pain of this experience shaping within me? What am I learning? How am I being transformed?” Through our challenges we can learn that our spiritual growth does not always come from mountaintop experiences, but most often through the valleys. We have challenges not to harden us, but to open us to Christ.

Easter teaches that forgiveness is a passageway to freedom. The resurrection of Christ confirms that forgiveness is more powerful than revenge, bitterness, or shame. It is divine grace in motion, and this applies to our own resurrection experiences. Spiritually, forgiveness is not forgetting; it is releasing. Through forgiveness we release others and ourselves from the chains of guilt, judgment, and resentment. In prayer, let us ask: “Where am I holding on instead of letting go?” Unforgiveness is toxic; it is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Easter invites us into transformation. The resurrection was not just something Jesus did. It is something we are all called to engage – the death of the old self, and the rebirth into something higher, freer, and more aligned with divine love. In our prayer time, ponder the question: Am I living out of fear or love today? Is the decision I must make at this moment fueled by darkness or light? We can ask Spirit to help us release identities, habits, and patterns that no longer serve our spirit. Always know that we are not finished; Spirit is still shaping us.

Above all, Easter raises our awareness that we are eternal beings. This physical world is not all there is. Resurrection points to the reality of the soul, and of something beyond the physical. This knowledge guides our decisions to reflect what matters most eternally. When the world overwhelms, we can stop, be still, and ask: Is this truly worth my soul’s energy? The resurrected Christ leads us to cultivate practices that connect us to the divine – silence, worship, awe in nature, service to others.

It is my prayer that we realize that Easter is not just about what happened to Jesus; it is about what can happen in us. It is a spiritual invitation to rise from what has crushed us, forgive radically, suffer with purpose and grace, embrace transformation, trust the eternal, and live with love.  Love, especially when it is selfless and compassionate, as Christ demonstrated, is the most powerful force we have.

I wish you a happy Easter!