The holiest day of the year?

More businesses, it seems, will be allowed to trade on Easter Sunday, if the Government has its way. And, naturally, some people are upset and others don't care. This is no surprise. What strikes me about it all is that, once again, we seem to be missing the point. There's a phrase that gets used regularly for days like Easter Sunday (ironically, it seems to get used about a few days, including Christmas too) - "the holiest day of the Christian calendar", or something to that effect. Now, I don't know what this phrase is in the original New Testament Greek, so some of you might have to help me out there, but I don't think I've seen it in the Bible. Naturally I believe it's essential to remember Jesus' death and resurrection. But the only time that Jesus actively said to His followers, "Do this to remember me," He was referring to a regular act of remembering, a reminder that came with bread and wine, two staples of every Middle Eastern meal in those days. In a sense, every time you ate and drank together you reminded yourselves, "This is why we come together: because of Jesus." So no particular day (except the Sabbath) was to be special or holier than other days. Holiness was much more about where you stood with God and how you lived your whole life rather than a particular observance on one day of the year.

Now, I never normally agree with Father Bob McGuire, but I suppose he has a point when he says that now employers will have another chance to overwork their employees. But I'm no more comfortable with non-believers using Jesus as an excuse for a holiday than I am with businesses capitalising on the chance to make an extra buck out of the celebration and good will He creates. The question shouldn't be what we do about Jesus on Easter, but what we do about Him every other day of the year. I hardly think the Bible would say, "It's fine to worship consumerism 364 days of the year but for God's sake don't do it on Easter." If consumerism runs counter to the Easter spirit once a year, it runs counter to it all the year. Perhaps we need to look at our hearts, not our trading hours, to see where the real issue lies.