This week around the world, Christians will be remembering the death and celebrating the resurrection of Christ. It is the most significant of the Christian festivals. At GPCC we hold a whole school assembly to remember and celebrate this event. Sadly, given our current numbers, we cannot invite you as parents to attend as we cannot fit any more people in our MPC.

For most people in Australia, Easter is now the post summer break before the cold of autumn and winter sets in and is holiday and easter egg time. Many people will attend church on Good Friday or Easter Sunday but increasingly it is simply a welcome break from the routine of work. 

As Australia moves further away from its Christian cultural foundations and becomes increasingly secular, Easter seems a strange thing to celebrate. The whole notion of someone dying and rising again seems scientifically impossible and increasingly irrelevant. While many would still acknowledge Jesus Christ as a good person or a moral teacher, few understand his status as the Son of God.

For Christians, we accept the Biblical account of the creation of the world, the fall of humankind into disobedience to God and the subsequent damage done to human nature and indeed the whole of creation. The story of the Bible is the account of God at work restoring humanity and pointing us back to what he intended us to be.

A holy and perfect God will not tolerate unholiness, which is what sin (disobedience) is. Judgement must occur for those who disobey especially given that they have disobeyed the very one who brought them into being. The story however is not so much of a God of judgement but a God who wants to restore relationship with his creation and to make a way for judgement to be satisfied but grace and mercy to be extended. God himself comes to earth, lives a life that demonstrates what being truly human looks like and then goes to the cross to take the punishment for all the sins of humankind. He satisfies the need for judgement. But it does not stop there.

Being God, he can overcome death and does so by rising from the dead, appearing to over 500 eye-witnesses, and announces that new life and a restored relationship with God is now possible through his actions. What we must do is admit our guilt, accept Jesus’ sacrifice for us and invite God’s spirit into our lives to transform us.

This is what Christians celebrate at Easter. I trust you too will take time this Easter break to reflect with your family on what God has done for us.

Phillip Nash

Principal