What we do in life echoes in eternity

"Christ has not only spoken to us by his life but has also spoken for us by his death."
-Soren Kierkegaard


To most of America tomorrow represents another day to get presents, to buy candy, and to have a feast.  A chance to partake in that age old tradition of searching for the eggs that had been died sometime earlier in the week, search for eggs hidden by the "Easter Bunny".  But what do these symbols really signify?  It represents a chance for corporate head honcho's to benefit from age old traditions that they started.  It represents pagan rituals that worshipped fertility gods and goddesses in the spring so as to bring good fortune, good crops, and good living.  In reality what most of America celebrates today is not actually Easter... what it celebrates is capitalism and paganism.  That is sad.


Now I am not necessarily saying that all the traditions that we have associated with Easter are wrong, for we should celebrate this day, this event, this miracle!  What we are celebrating is the most important and miraculous and amazing event in history!  Nothing surpasses the Cross, nothing compares, nothing!  Easter and for that matter Good Friday, which is indeed very good, are not about death, they are about life about LOVE!  Easter is a celebration of the most loving and gracious act that has ever been committed and for that matter it deserves to be CELEBRATED!  And celebrated well, with joy and with love, lots and lots of love.  Not so much with candy and eggs, and annual sales that coincide with this holiday.


Easter, especially to those who call themselves a follower of Christ, those who are fully enveloped in a deep, personal, intimate, knowing love relationship with our Lord and Savior, must cease to be a holiday and become once again a Holy Day, a day where we focus solely on the saving power of the cross, and the love not the nails that held Jesus in place.  For this is the very foundation of our belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Without the cross it means nothing.  With out the greatest type of love, that is "laying down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13).  Jesus tells us this, and then guess what?! He does it, in the most brutal, ruthless, painful, and humiliating way that man has ever created.  He took it all, all sin (past present and future) and paid the only sufficing penalty, a sacrificial death, the ultimate sacrifice.  In that moment the Lion of Judah, became the humble lamb, and for this reason yes indeed we should celebrate, but a Holy Day, not a holiday.  We must celebrate the love, the sacrifice, the gift, the redemption, the salvation, not the traditions, the sales, and the pagan rituals that have weaseled their way back into popular culture.


God gave up His Son so that we could have life. Who are we to mock him with whimsical traditions and practices, with placing Jesus on the back burner?  Who are we to decide what it is that is worth celebrating?  Who are we to forget God and focus on the material, the flesh?  We must remember what is important, what it is all about, Jesus' death and more importantly His resurrection.  His irreplaceable sacrifice and unrequited, unconditional love.  The Greatest expression of love the world will ever know. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." - 1 John 3:16


"To a Christian, Easter Sunday means everything, when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ."-- Bernhard Langer