Easter is about bringing heaven to Earth right now 

This is the week of Easter, the highest of Christian holy days, in which we mark the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Christians believe the events of Easter were the most precipitous in human history. Without the resurrection, St. Paul said, our whole faith is worthless. In it, death is forever conquered.

But you probably know all that, if you didn’t flunk out of Sunday school before, oh, age eight. It’s profound, but it’s foundational. It’s Christianity 101.

The Easter story has other dimensions, however, that don’t get as much ink.

Some scholars and clergy believe Jesus’s life, death and resurrection were about more than living forever. As much as he came to, in effect, take mortals to heaven, he came to bring heaven here to mortals.

In this view, before Jesus came, our planet lay wholly within the grip of the Prince of Darkness. It was the devil’s domain.

Jesus broke into that dark kingdom to establish a new kingdom of light, a beachhead from which God would gradually push back the roiling shadows of violence and evil.

And Jesus has empowered Christians as the peaceable soldiers of that new kingdom in his absence. We’re involved in an epic struggle between two spiritual kingdoms—good and evil, light and darkness. It’s not a carnal battle. We’re never against other people. We’re not grabbing swords and guns.

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood,” St. Paul admonished.

Lately, all of us, Christians or not, are confronted with news of hospitals pounded to rubble in the Ukraine, civilians tortured, raped and murdered, their bodies left to rot in cellars.

This is a personification of the spiritual darkness Jesus intended the church to fight. His was a revolutionary message then, and 2,000 years later it remains revolutionary.

It helps to consider Jesus’ message in its context. Jesus grew up in a land gashed by endless wars and almost unimaginable cruelty.

Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, tells us what life was like in the Middle East. He writes of Alexander Jannaeus, the Maccabean king who turned against the Pharisees during the century before Jesus was born:

“He brought them to Jerusalem,” Josephus writes, “and did one of the most barbarous actions in the world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes.”

Later, about 4 B.C., a revolt broke out in Judea. Varus, a Roman general based in Syria, pacified the region, and was particularly brutal in Galilee (the area from which Jesus and his disciples would soon emerge).

As Josephus records: “Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account were two thousand.”

So Jesus grows up and preaches in a corner of the world that in living memory has experienced an ancient version of what’s going on in Ukraine now, if not worse.

People he knows—perhaps in his own family—have watched as sneering soldiers stripped and humiliated their loved ones, flogged them until they were barely alive, then nailed their bleeding bodies to crosses, where they writhed in agony until finally suffocating under their own weight.

No doubt, these survivors and descendants are traumatized. They’re eaten up by rage. They crave revenge. Understandably so.

This is the context in which Jesus speaks.

Paraphrasing the prophet Elisha, Jesus says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

St. Paul echoes both Elisha and Jesus when he writes: “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

In other words—if you encounter a sadistic Roman soldier (or a Russian soldier) helpless on the field, treat him kindly, even though you want to kill him. Feed him. Let him drink from your canteen.

These are the rules of Jesus’ kingdom. Cruelty and vengeance must be banished by mercy and forgiveness—even toward the wicked. We’re never to mock, torture, rape or murder even those who’ve done such things themselves.

We’re to conquer darkness by practicing love and self-discipline. Always. Unfailingly. Even when that takes all the grit we can muster.

This is the hardest of messages. Its virtues are foreign to us. It seems unfair. But it’s the embodiment of grace, mercy and light, those qualities that define God’s sphere.

As he himself is about to be crucified, Jesus tells Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting. … But as it is, my kingdom is not of this world.”

The message of Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead and afterward ascending to heaven. But it’s just as much about our bringing heaven to Earth. The question is whether we’re up to the challenge.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling, Ky. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.