Easter Eggs and Chocolate Bunnies Are Enough For Me

        Ed, my neighbor next door, took a great many chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies to his family at Edmonton last week. Ed likes to make sure the children at their Easter celebrations will have lots of candy treats. He spoils them with more Easter chocolate than is good for them. My neighbor is generous about Easter chocolate but negative about the religious significance of Easter. He dismisses the truth that Easter is the center of Christian joy and hope. Ed claims that Easter is enough in ‘Easter Egg Hunts’ for kids.

        Ed dismisses the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as church talk. He claims our world needs to have a church talk separation. By that, he means what is said at church stays there so that people can celebrate Easter without any religious connotations. Certainly many people do celebrate Easter and Christmas without any reference to Jesus Christ.

       Ed admits to being a great scoffer and doubter when it comes to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Ed is like the original, ‘Doubting Thomas,’ who would not trust what others told him. Other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus alive from the dead. Thomas would not believe Jesus had risen from the dead, without seeing Jesus with his own eyes and touching the wounds of Jesus’ body. When Thomas was able to see with his eyes and touch Jesus with his hands, he was certain that Jesus was alive from the dead. Later he would be martyred rather than deny that he had seen Christ alive from the dead. All of the disciples except John were killed for confessing that Jesus arose from the dead as the Son of God.

        Like Thomas, we may readily reject and doubt what others tell us as the truth. Jesus told Thomas blessed are those who have not seen (me) and yet have believed. Seeing with our eyes, touching with our hands may give us confidence, and the feeling we know the truth, but we cannot see and touch everything. We can and do learn the truth from others. We must consider who is telling us something, and if they are trustworthy. For many of us, the Bible is the truth from God that we believe. It is the truth written so that everyone may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing they may have life in His name.

         Learning, the truth that Jesus was alive from the dead, left Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome trembling and bewildered. The women went to anoint the dead body of Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion. When they got to the tomb, a stone blocking the door of the tomb was rolled away. A young man dressed in white said to them, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.” Truth is often unexplainable and it shakes and defies our reality. Christians express the truth of Easter with the words, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” Christian hope and joy are confirmed in Jesus’ words, “Because I live, you also will live.” At Easter, we say, “Happy and joyous Easter to everyone because Jesus lives!”

Sharing is caring!