Easter is... a time for family. Little kids gather around the dinner table and color eggs, as mom and dad join in, and even the most reluctant of teenagers join mom and dad at church, and yes, even dad goes to church... on Easter.
Easter is a time for dressing-up, for feeling special-even rich. Little girls wear new dresses, sometimes little boys where ties (or have them sewn on their shirts), and adults who have grown accustomed to jeans...search through their closets for something dressier, praying that it still fits.
Easter is a time for candy- lots and lots of candy. There are Easter egg hunts- more than one if you plan it right- and there are little and not so little... chocolate bunnies, and more than candy alone...
Easter is a time for food (period). There are Easter buffets all over town, and many families still host Easter meals in their homes... featuring ham generally... and delicious homemade pies.
Easter is a time for toys, plush animals, and cute things. It is a time for giving, and like Christmas and Birthdays, Easter brings joy and lifts hearts all over the world.
Easter is a time for life! Even more than Punxsutawney Phil, Easter celebrates spring! Flowers are beginning to bloom and the birds are singing. Easter tells us without saying a word that our long days of being cooped up inside... are over... and that things which appeared to be dead... were not. Indeed, for many people-even many Christians- Easter proclaims Mother Nature's comforting cycle of lifelessness giving way to renewal, but they are wrong because...
Easter is a time of AMAZING GRACE AND AWESOME POWER. There is nothing automatic or predictable about resurrection. Everyone knows that what is dead is dead. Jesus' followers knew this, which is why they left their hiding places on Easter morning to anoint his dead body. The women who were the very first to visit his empty tomb... weren't expecting... an empty tomb. Not all all. They were simply paying their respects to a man they loved, just as people do everyday throughout the world. They were aware that, even though the flowers bloom and the snow melts, people stay dead when they die. There is nothing natural about Easter. It is a miracle! A miracle which blew the minds of Jesus' most devoted followers because it is inexplicable. They couldn't explain it. Neither can we... and we dare not try. Love cannot be explained, neither can faith, or honor, or grace, or Easter, which the church calls Resurrection Sunday. Easter cannot be explained, but it can be proclaimed! It can and must be proclaimed. Shouted from the rooftops and from the mountaintops too. HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN! GLORY TO GOD, HE IS RISEN. O death, where is thy sting? O darkness, you cannot hide the light that I see. O rain, you will never blot out the rainbow. O suffering, you will never silence my voice. O doubt, you will never destroy my faith... because He lives! He lives. Surprise of surprises, his tomb is empty. He is standing over there- can you see him? He is living in your heart. Can you feel him? Because He lives, I will live... abundantly, purposely, and eternally. Because He lives, life is worth the living!
Before my brother Randy died, he ordered a "bulb garden" for Sherry and me, but we didn't know about it until it arrived... after his funeral. It was a wonderful thing for the "R" to do, and I planted it right away. A bulb here, a bulb there. Planted with love by a person who didn't know what he was doing. I'm not much of a gardener and as it turned out, I planted some of the bulbs upside down. Sometimes that's what I do with sacred things- I mess them up and plant them upside down- but Easter is much bigger than me... and its truth transcends anything that I might do with it- whether I'm dressed to the nines or wearing rags, dining at a pricey restaurant or eating a sandwich at home, ushering at church or not in attendance at all. Easter comes because it cannot be stopped... and on Easter Sunday following Randy's death, his flowers were standing tall in the bright morning sun. They were beautiful, and they were a sermon to me. Amen.
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