What do I think about when you mention Easter? Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter! Ask my youngest daughter and she’ll talk about the Easter egg hunt at church with those plastic eggs full of melted chocolate. My next youngest daughter is likely to say Spring Break is one of the best aspects of Easter: A week without having to go to school so she can stay home and ride her horses all day! My older kids used to look forward to the Easter baskets that my wife would lovingly assemble using last year’s plastic grass and scrounged-for baskets. Talk to others about Easter and you may hear about the ham dinner that grandma used to make, new clothes, the Easter Bunny or Marshmallow Peeps.
If you ask some scholars about Easter, they may tell you that it comes from a pagan goddess or a lunar festival that has been “Christianized” by the Church. Others may tell you that no day or season should be exalted above the others, that every day should be the “Lord’s Day.”
But ask millions of Christian believers who will gather to worship this April 24th in church buildings and homes and fields under shade trees and even military chapels around the world what Easter is all about and they will declare that it is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the angel said to the women who came looking for Jesus’ body, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:6a, NIV). Those worshipping believers will go on to say that because Jesus rose from the dead, they have the assurance of eternal life. This assurance, available to anyone who seeks it, is a free gift from God.
I pray that you will be among the believers worshiping this Easter Sunday; and I hope that this season is full of everything that makes Easter great for you, whether it’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, Marshmallow Peeps, new clothes or ham. But I especially hope that you experience our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, who will make not only this season great, but all of eternity!
(Originally published 21 Apr 11 in The Guidon, Fort Leonard Wood, MO: http://www.myguidon.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13355&Itemid=40 )
Here I Sit 