As with several Holidays, we have another two-in-one' coming up. For the adults and older children, it is the Celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior. For the very young, it is the Return of the Easter Bunny-
here comes Peter Cottontail-and all that. Another debatable Holiday is just a few days away and questions will be flying back and forth:
Is it wrong to support the theory-to our two and three and four-year-olds-that there is an
Easter Bunny that actually runs around our front yards, or the church yard, hiding colored and candy filled eggs in the grass and behind the trees? Just as a few months back, we debated the wisdom of including
Santa Claus in celebration of the birth of Christ.
Here again I must take sides with the little ones and vote for keeping the Easter Bunny alive and well-at least in our neighborhood. I will boil the eggs and allow my grandchildren to wreak havoc with my kitchen as they fight over which colors to mix and match as the stain soaks into my countertops and it will be close to next Easter before these colorful stains are finally totally erased.
Even so, I do not belittle the true meaning of Easter Sunday any more than I do Christmas Eve. Along with the Easter Bunny, we go to church and say our prayers and sing our praises to God our Father for giving us the gift of Life through His only begotten Son.
Allowing His Son to be beaten unmercifully to within inches of death-and yet, not allowing Him to die quickly and humanely-but forcing Him to live on through the tortures that would have killed an ordinary man early on. His suffering was preordained; had a purpose, a reason.
Many asked, even as He suffered the taunts, the crown of thorns, the spit in the face, and the final insult of vinegar to ease His thirst as he hang on the cross at Calvary: "If he be the King of the Jews and has truly saved many, why then does he not save himself?"
Christ could have saved Himself, but then the prophecies would not have been fulfilled and man would not have had the opportunity to be relieved of their ever-mounting burden of sins. God had a plan; a plan that was mentioned over and over in the old Testament and for that plan to work, Jesus was destined to suffer and die on the cross. But Jesus knew that His suffering would end, but His soul would not die along with the lowly body that was but a temporary garment donned only during His short stay on earth.
Along with all true-believing Christians, Jesus knew that he would be resurrected and join His Father's side to suffer no more. And as Christians, we celebrate Easter Sunday as a date as close as any human can guess at His true resurrection. As with His birth, exact dates are not what is important about our Savior; but the fact that He came, He taught, and He gave His life for us.
So my family and I will go to church this Sunday and give thanks for the goodness that God and Jesus Christ have done in our lives and pray for the world and all who are in it, no matter their religious convictions. We will ask for forgiveness of our sins and our trespasses. We will teach our little ones in their Sunday school classes what this Sunday means to us all and why we celebrate it as something special.
Then we will join family and friends in the churchyard to watch our little ones joyously rush around the yard searching for the candy filled and colored eggs that have been hidden before church began. And you can bet that I will have my movie camera rolling to catch all the happy faces and possibly a few sad as Easter eggs are dropped and broken.
We will be combining love, spirituality, and fun all in one day.
Wishing everyone a Joyous Easter.
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