What I Love About Easter

I remember my mother once saying—quoting her father—that Easter Sunday is a lot like heaven. Perhaps it is the closest thing to it that we will ever experience here upon the Earth.

I cannot prove that statement Biblically, but I have attempted to meditate upon it through the years, and I think there is much truth in it.

Growing up, I was part of a church tradition that gave great prominence to Easter Sunday—which some strongly prefer to call Resurrection Sunday—and all of the events leading up to it. By the time we got to Holy Week—which I now prefer to call Passion Week—to my young mind it was as if we were really reliving the events of those most awesome days. It was as if Christ truly had to go the way of the cross on Friday, before we found out once again that He “is risen indeed” (Luke 24:34) on Sunday.

These customs made an indelible impact upon me. Good Friday ended with the closing of the Bible and the darkening of the church, and silence. Easter Sunday began with a service at the actual time of sunrise, and that made a point. The day—well, except for the years we had April snowstorms—was truly like a blast of bright, blinding sunlight that overwhelmed the darkness we had left behind on Friday.

Some might object to the extent of the emphasis that was placed on Jesus’ passion in this way. And, let me be clear, I understand their concerns, especially with regard to the subject of Lent, and am not making a plea for us to return to celebrating it in our churches.

However, the Easter holiday itself has also come to us down through history in the development of the Christian church calendar. Since most of us and our churches are going to celebrate Easter, I would suggest that we should consider implementing some of the best lessons that I learned as a child from the stress we placed on the entire season that led up to it.

The resurrection, of course, did not occur in a vacuum, but was the culmination of all the details that make up what we generally refer to as Jesus’ passion—details that take up an incredibly large percentage of the text of the four gospels.

I believe that the message of Jesus’ passion and resurrection deserves more than one Sunday a year. We do not do it justice when we come together on Easter morning, without any emotional preparation, to sing a few Easter hymns and gospel songs, hear a sermon on the resurrection, and then allow the subject to drift from our minds. Unless we understand why Christ died, we will never comprehend the meaning of the resurrection in the first place.

By comparison, many churches begin their preparations for the Christmas season (which is, again, just as much a part of that same church calendar) long before the first hint of fall.

But which of the two—the birth of Christ, or His death, burial and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3-4)—receives the greatest emphasis in Scripture? Where should we be placing the most attention?

It may be too late to make extensive preparations for Easter for this year. Still, we can take this Resurrection Sunday and allow it to direct our minds toward heaven in a powerful way (Col. 3:1-4). As we get older, we know more and more people who have gone there, and we ache to see them again in the resurrection. And perhaps Easter provides the closest thing we have to a palpable connection with them. We share together in the hope of that resurrection because of what Jesus has done. His death paid the cost of our sin; His resurrection opened the way to life eternal (John 14:19; 1 Thess. 4:14).

Compared to the years of my childhood, there are now a great many things that would distract our minds away from the eternal truths of Easter. Sports are much bigger, and have moved much closer to the center of our lives. Tax Day is much bigger, and has become the subject of endless advertisements calling the procrastinators to switch tax preparers. Of course, entertainment, media and technology have grown exponentially—along with a corresponding decline in things like going to church together, or gathering with family for Easter Sunday dinner.

Yes, there are many issues that might take our minds off things eternal this week—and there may be no going back for our culture.

But this season, and this Sunday, should not be about any of those things for us as believers. Our focus should be consumed by the eternal hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Everything else, significant as it is in the here and now, is ultimately mere background noise.

What do you love about Easter? I invite you to take some time this week and determine the answer to that question.