FOOTBALL matches on Easter Day; shops open on Good Friday - it is no good complaining of the lack of reverence in the public square for our most sacred Christian festival. The broadcasting institutions, as an extension of that public square, will inevitably share the same preoccupations; so we must not be surprised that pretty much the only indication that last weekend was special was the absence of the Revd Richard Coles from Saturday Live (Radio 4).

Nevertheless, having the climax of the Christian year celebrated by BBC continuity announcers as "the busiest gardening weekend in the year" might yet make one wince; while the noise of Lord Reith vigorously revolving almost overcame the main Woman's Hour (Radio 4) feature on Good Friday, devoted as it was to whiskies and the food that goes with them.

The end of Any Questions? (Radio 4, Friday) might have been seen as an ironic enactment of this complaint. Last week's final question, by long tradition the light-hearted offering, did not on this occasion ask about the panellists' gardening tips, but instead asked what they would do to ensure that Christians were not dismissed or sidelined. There was less than five minutes for the answers. As for Any Answers? (Radio 4, Saturday), this same question was completely omitted from the agenda.

So much for the background, in which Christian discourse may remain in only a few streaks and swirls. There are, in the foreground of radio broadcasting, still some well-produced programmes to celebrate. Easter morning on Radio 4 began with a perky rendition of "This joyful Eastertide", filling the vast acoustic of Ely Cathedral's Lady chapel like a ring tone set off by an impertinent child. The inclusion of this Sunrise Service was a welcome addition to the schedule, complementing the Easter Sunday Worship from Chester Cathedral, featuring the first Easter sermon of the new Bishop of Stockport, the Rt Revd Libby Lane - an elegant paean to the women waiting for dawn that first Easter, "the model for our Easter celebration".

Radio 4's Good Friday Meditation took an inventive angle on the Passion story. Presented by Dr Nathalie MacDermott, who has seen three tours of medical duty in Liberia, a country ravaged by the Ebola virus, the programme focused on the human impulse to take on other people's burdens, to the extent of hauling diseased bodies to their graves.

The programme was made in Eyam, Derbyshire, which marks this year the 350th anniversary of the plague that extinguished much of that community; and when these angles did not obviously triangulate the stories of Holy Week, we were helped out by readings from Robert Lindsay and the music of Handel.

Radio 3's main contribution, besides its rich musical seam, was provided by The Essay - a weekday series that last week devoted itself to the Lord's Prayer. Best of the crop was Sir Andrew Motion, who took an analytical methodology to the structure of the prayer; and the author Ali Smith, who, by contrast, took a delightfully diffuse, discursive approach. Did you know, for instance, how many thousands of book titles have been generated from the Lord's Prayer?