Listen: Historian and author of The Bible in Australia, Dr. Meredith Lake, on the connection between ANZAC Day and Easter
By Laura BennettThursday 9 Apr 2020Hope AfternoonsEasterReading Time: 2 minutes
Easter and sacrifice go hand-in-hand. For Christians who will mark this weekend with reverence, Jesus’ death on a cross and His hope-instilling resurrection will be honoured and celebrated, and perhaps with newfound gratefulness amid the COVID-19 crisis.
What may be little known to many is Easter’s influence on ANZAC Day traditions and how the biblical virtues of selflessness and surrender have come to shape how we remember the fallen.
On Easter Sunday, historian and author of The Bible in Australia, Dr. Meredith Lake will explore that connection and the modern day relevance of Easter on ABC’s Compass program.
“Through the Coronavirus pandemic that’s sweeping across the world at the moment,” Meredith said. “The fragility…of our lives as humans has been put in front of us in some really shocking and unsettling ways.
“We aren’t the captains of our own souls and we don’t control our environment; we can’t even see a virus and it’s upending so much of what we consider to be normal and permanent.”
This ‘unsettling’ is something that Meredith believes makes Easter this year all the more significant.
“[As a result of coronavirus] a lot of people will be thinking about those bigger [existential] questions…For people who are connected to [a larger faith] tradition, they’ve got lots of resources for grappling those questions… but I think we all feel the limits of our humanity sometimes.
“…It will be an unusual Easter, but I think that idea that death is not the winner — that the kingdom of Christ pushes through death to something richer and more eternal is what I’ll spend some time thinking about,” Meredith said.
Compass: ‘Stories of Sacrifice’ airs on the ABC on Sunday 12 April. | Watch on catch up: ABC iview