Death To Easter, Life To Resurrection

Today we celebrate a risen Lord throughout the world. All over our nations, we gather together in services commemorating such a special occasion. These used to be exciting for me to go to when I was still new to what a Christian looked like. I enjoyed being entertained and inspired. Over time I became unsatisfied with these events. It was no one’s fault, just a heart changing in me.

I read through my Word trying to glean more and more from scriptures and I couldn’t find a reference to Easter until I looked at the KJV verses where it spoke about an ungodly king wanting to hurt the church and the reference to a pagan god celebration.

Now whenever I see a service labeled as Easter I cringe because it feels like compromise to me, but to those who have not done their research, it’s ignorance. And where they have done research, but choose to lure the world to their doors with a celebration of fertility and eggs, I cringe again. What do we really teach our children in this? That eggs represent Christ dying on a cross for our salvation? No! We simply reinforce a mythical legend of a pagan ritual of old. And when we as a church agree to call our celebration of Christ’s resurrection Easter we put a stamp of approval upon this compromise.

What I write may come across as overly critical or religious in some manner. It is not my heart to beat up anyone for what they do to celebrate the glory of Christ; however I am obligated to always share truth in love. If I am to love you enough than I need to share the true meaning of why we should celebrate today.

We have a King who chose to die for us! Being merciful and compassionate He saw each and every one of us in our inability to help ourselves. We could never be good enough to walk without sin and He saw the plans of our enemy Satan to want our destruction. Laying down His own life He sacrificed Himself to cover us with His purifying blood. He paid the ultimate price so that we could return to eternal life with Him. Eternal life with those we love.

This is the truth about why we celebrate His resurrection. When He rose from the grave He helped us rise too. When we confess our belief in Christ we join Him in being resurrected. So the next time someone says to you Happy Easter, think about the depth of what it really means regardless of what we have been taught. How you get to live eternally because He died and rose again.

Acts 12:1-4 Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

Immobilized

Her call was touching to my heart and while we prayed I heard her voice break with tears. She said it’d been a while since she’d had that kind of relief. In our discussion I recognized fear and condemnation had taken its toll to the point she wanted to quit; admitting thoughts of going back to the world she came out of. I understood her well from my own past battles. Using all the truth in my heart, I reached out to grab her hand in the spirit, helping her back up onto her feet.

A scene from a book I’d read long ago came to mind. It was children playing war games to train for future battles. The children often took many hits from their enemy’s weapons, leaving them frozen and immobilized until their teammates could come help them be restored, free to walk again. It was a good visual lesson for this life in Christ. We need our teammates.

Definition of immobilized: immovable; fix in place; to prevent the use, activity, or movement, restrict; to render ineffective, stymie