As coronavirus forced churches to close this Easter, Cleland Thom asks whether God's will was done.

Cleland Thom

When I was a kid, I thought Easter was weird.

I mean - Good Friday. What was that about?

I could never figure out why everyone went around looking solemn. How good was that?

And even worse, my parents sometimes dragged me to a High Anglican church, where people had progressed from being solemn to downright miserable.

Hot cross buns were the only good bit.

Easter Sunday was OK, because of the Easter eggs.

But it always puzzled me why those people who had been so miserable on Friday were now smiling happily and proclaiming: 'He is risen.'

It didn't make any sense to me. It looked false.

It still does at times - and I've been a Christian for 45 years!

Our post-Christian society doesn't really know what to do with Easter.

The message of Jesus is a bit, um, embarrassing and irrelevant.

But rather than lose two bank holidays, we have cloaked it in eggs, pink bunnies and daffodils.

And I reckon God's OK with that. He loves reality. He loves celebrations.

But as weird Easters go, 2020 probably tops the lot.