Easter and the Church

When asked what does Good Friday and Easter Sunday represent, many people hadn't a clue. Its a far cry from the period when I grew up as a child in a village where the Church and the tiny Church School were the centre of the social fabric.
Evensong the Sunday service in the church was a congregation in which most of the villages belonged if for no other reason, for social acceptance. The trail from home to the church, with its bells tolling the believers to the service was predominantly, mothers and children filing in to the pews with the bible and hymn book held in the rack behind the pew in front. The children had impressed upon them the solemnity of the occasion, although given the chance they would prefer to be elsewhere, Mom settled any squabbling with an icy stare and a promise to tell Dad.
The congregation settled down and the choir, followed by the vicar swinging his incense burner, passed between the parishioners, chanting a prayer, his dress and the ceremony setting the church apart from the congregation, a message from an arm of the Establishment that we could be saved if we paid our dues.
The hymns, the reading from the bible and the sermon were all part of established function, as was the plate to put our shilling for the church upkeep. Periodic rituals, highlighted by Easter which was the most important, representing Christ's crucifixion and return from the dead on Easter Sunday. For a believer the two events were the climax of Gods message that he had sent his son to die for us and through the resurrection he provided mankind with a route to heaven.
As we kids wandered away from the Church on our way home we understood that we had been included in a process of grown up contemplation and that for a moment the family had drawn together under the guise of a great unknown, the faith which stirs mankind and gives question to our singularity.         .