Easter - What does it mean?

I guess if we abandon much of the bagage of the religious past what can we salvage as the true heart of Easter? The old pagan mythology of rebirth after winter doesn't really work for those of us in the southern hemisphere, we are just going into winter. Perhaps a closer look at the Christian myth of Christ might give us something to draw on.

I cannot see a saviour dying to save us from sins that were caused by the first man and then in three days being reborn, is quite what we are looking for. How much of a sacrifice was it anyway, he knew he was being raised from the dead so not such a big deal. Maybe though what the myth originally meant which was that the Gods are like us or rather we are like them. If they are subject to death and rebirth why not us?

I see in the Christ myth a core of understanding begining. The Gods are not different to us, they are us. One of the reasons I feel that Christianity took off in the ancient workd was it's ability to make each believer equal before God because of Jesus. The church certainly has screwed with this over time, but so many early believers really felt they were the Gods, not some diety far, far away.

So my easter message is that of being born again, to truly wake up from the deathly sleep of ignorance and to move out in the light of understanding and hope. This means facing the good and the bad (as Jesus did) and living in the knowledge that you alone have to deal with it.

The Gods may have forsaken us, but it turns out we didn't need the Gods to begin with.