By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
How about that? I finally made it to Easter. I know it was 3 1/2 weeks ago, but I wanted to look at those days of that final week a little more closely than we usually do.
Besides, everyone already knows about Easter. That’s when the fluffy floppy eared rabbit lays colored plastic chicken eggs around for us to find!
I know. Totally unrealistic. After all, those of us who have been around bunnies know they don’t lay eggs. They drop little brown pellets of scat but no eggs.
So, blame the Germans for this juxtaposition. Time magazine says: “German immigrants to America brought the tradition of the ‘Osterhase’ (an egg-laying hare) to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, where children created nests for the hare to fill with colored eggs.”
For those early Christians, the eggs were to symbolize the grave opening and Jesus leaving the tomb empty.
What does Easter mean to you? Maybe a holiday? Maybe a Holy day? Maybe just a day to rest since many businesses are closed on Easter. Maybe a day to decorate the house from winter to spring.
Look what the world has done to hide the true meaning of Easter. It has been covered up by bunnies, fancy clothes, and ham dinners.
Today, only 2 out of 5 people celebrate Easter for what it really is: the day of celebration when Mary, Peter, and John discovered the empty tomb Jesus had been laid in Friday evening.
1 Cor. 15:14-17 lays it out perfectly clearly. Without the empty grave, we’d have nothing. “And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.
But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.” “And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless.”
Easy formula: “No resurrection=No salvation.” That’s how important Easter is. Without the Easter events, we’d still be lost and all hope would be gone.
But the empty tomb is real, the resurrection is real, and our salvation is real. Yet all that means nothing unless you have taken it to heart. Christ paid for all your sins.
Christ’s resurrection opened the door for you to be re-established in your relationship with the God Creator. But you still have to go through that door.
You have still got to ask the Father to allow Jesus’s death to cover your sins, knowing your good works will never be good enough. You’ve got to repent of those sins and ask God for the power to never do them again. And, finally, you have to yield your life to his leadership.
Not hard to do but hard to live out unless you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you. The reward is incredible…HEAVEN.
Why not just take a moment and pray.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.