By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
I’d lay a wager that there are some people who have never read my columns before today, reading this one.
I also suspect that there are some folks who read that headline and went “I told you he’d gone around the bend.” Or something not nearly as nice.
That’s of course assuming that some editor didn’t change it as they have a want to do occasionally. Actually, we know that Easter is not about a bunny but the two have been grouped together for more years than you might imagine.
They go back to early in Germany to a pagan spring celebration, the festival of Eostre, which honored the goddess of fertility and spring. The goddess’s animal symbol was a rabbit, which has long traditionally stood for fertility due to their high reproduction rates.
Christian missionaries adopted some aspects of the celebration when talking about Christ’s resurrection. The Bunny made his? her? way to Pennsylvania from Germany in the mid 1700’s.
Why Bunnies got tied to laying eggs is a bit of a mystery since they are mammals and have babies, but myths don’t have to make sense.
And, like Santa, another myth, (oops, cover the children’s ears), you can track his journey each year on the Bunny Tracker from his home on Easter Island (where else?), west of Chili in the Pacific Ocean.
And speaking of eggs, decorating eggs is thought to go back to the mid 1300 when eggs were banned during Lent but could be consumed on Easter Day, hence the joyful coloring of them.
If the egg laying Bunny offends you, you could move to “Australia, for example, the spring holiday is greeted with the Easter Bilby, an endangered rabbit-like marsupial native to that country.
Other gift-bearing animals include the Easter Cuckoo in Switzerland and, in some parts of Germany, the Easter Fox or the Easter Rooster.” (Thank you, Good Housekeeping Magazine).
I’m convinced that really good Sunday School teachers have great illustrations that help our children understand Christ’s resurrection is the real meaning behind Easter.
The eggs can represent new life coming out of the old broken egg. Or the bright colored plastic eggs can represent the emptiness of life.
No matter how colorful we are on the outside, without Christ on the inside, we are empty. As for you, dear reader, Easter is about your value.
If you were not valuable, there would have been no need for Jesus, God The Son, to come to earth and die for you…or me. It’s about how loved you are and how lovable you are.
If you were a rotten egg (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) God would have had no need or concern for you. He would have just let you live your life and die…and maybe you would end up a fried egg…OK, I’ll stop.
Easter is about how much we are loved and how much we are valued by our Creator. The Empty Tomb is the miracle that transformed lost humanity into beautiful, holy, loved beings worth dying for.
This Sunday is not about bunnies, eggs, spring dresses, ham dinners or even going to church. This Sunday is about an empty tomb that represents a risen savior.
Matt 28:6 says it all. “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” The tomb is empty, the Lord has risen! Praise be the name of the Lord!
What you do about the empty tomb is the question whose answer determines your eternal resting place. What say Ye? I don’t believe? or “Father, I believe, help my unbelief.”
Jesus came to rescue you…and me…from eternal death because he loves us that much. Because we are that valuable to him. But the gift of eternal life is just that…a gift.
Like any gift, it must be accepted and opened to be of value. Refusing it is an option. Ok, an entirely dumb option in my not-so-humble opinion but still, we have a choice.
It can be just tossed aside or ignored but then it loses any value to you. This gift is priceless. How can one set a price on The God of the Universe, the Creator God, dying for us?
Taking our sin and its penalty and removing them from us forever, to be forgotten and never held against us. EVER. John 8:36 says it well: “Therefore if the Son sets you free, you will really be free.”
Free today, free tomorrow and free on Judgement Day. Free from the penalty of our sins. Right before God, Holy, set apart as God’s, Justified before the Judge. Not guilty!
Say it any way you wish but the bottom line is that we will someday see God face to face and He will welcome us into his Kingdom. That is if you say “Yes, Lord, I want your gift and I surrender my will to you as my gift to you.”
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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.