The Spectator

Twitter vs Easter

‘Distracted from distraction by distraction’ was one way in which T.S. Eliot described the inhabitants of ‘this twittering world’ in his Four Quartets. Eliot’s words seem more accurate today than even he might have expected. With the apparently ceaseless intrusion into our lives of permanent media feeds, gossip reported as news and news reported as gossip, it has never been easier to become lost by, and in, distraction. Not to mention the twittering. Easter briefly quietens the babble.

Unlike Christmas, it’s a story that doesn’t lend itself to much commercial fuss: no kings or presents. Easter is a story of sacrifice, torture, abandonment and death — and, through it all, triumph over that death. Even in the 21st century; despite all the chocolate eggs, Easter gives us pause.

And it’s Easter, not Christmas, that makes Christianity such a radical religion. In a world where we are invited to worship strength and power, the symbol of churchgoers is a man on a cross: defeated, despised and rejected. The story of the Passion and Resurrection is one of pain as well as joy, the worst suffering before the greatest jubilation. If you’re not a believer, there’s no story which has more to say about the hope and despair of being human. If you are, it’s the most important event in history.

The Resurrection is the still centre of the Christian faith. For in the hours between the utmost dejection and abandonment on the cross and the ultimate triumph of the resurrection lies the central force and propulsion of the Christian message. The miraculous transformation of the darkness of Good Friday into the joy of Easter morning has created and renewed worshippers for 2,000 years. There’s a beauty in this truth. As Roger Scruton writes further on in the magazine, ‘The beautiful and the sacred are connected in our feelings.’

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