Easter 2008: Where to go from here

Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 114
1 Corinthians 5:6b-8
Luke 24:13-49

Another Easter is here coming to us from within another springtime, and folks are enjoying the awakening of nature from yet another long winter’s nap. The children are hunting for colored eggs on many church’s newly green lawns, many dressed in their new Easter clothing and carrying brightly colored baskets. And their greatest hope in such a hunt is to find the “golden” egg that will hold the biggest prize. Once it is found, the others might be inclined to give up altogether, having “lost out” on the ultimate prize without realizing that it is the search itself that has its own reward.

Not meaning to disparage the egg-hunting tradition, but I never cared much for it even as a child mainly because I cared very little for hard-boiled eggs. As a parent I spent a lot of time – against my will, I admit - hiding eggs out in the yard for my kids to go find and, once found, returned to me for yet another round of what I considered to be a pointless game. It was a perpetual and never-ending cycle of hide-and-seek that took me from the comfort of my chair and the Sunday paper. I never did recover for myself a full appreciation for what it all meant though I’m sure I used several very weak theological excuses for why we would be better served in not wasting our time hunting eggs, a distinctly secular practice, on Christianity’s most Holy Day. It only occurred to me later on that it was I who did not get it.

I know what you’re thinking: this guy must be a real JOY to be with on Easter! But it’s not about being out and about enjoying the nice weather that we may or may not be blessed with, it’s not about being off from work, and it’s not about hunting Easter eggs or enjoying a bite or two from the chocolate bunny we hope the kids won’t notice. It is another day on the church’s calendar in which we are reminded that something colossal had taken place, and its profound impact on humanity may never be fully realized or even appreciated while we are on this earth, certainly not while comfortably seated in the easy chair.

It occurs to me that it may well be the Easter egg hunt itself that has the greatest potential for teaching our children about what Easter really means than anything we could ever do, the least being a lengthy sermon on Easter morning. Now that I think about it, it may do us all a world of good to go out and hunt some eggs for ourselves because the search for the “prize” is precisely what the Christian journey of faith is all about, but it is far from over once we have discovered for ourselves the ultimate of prizes: the Risen Christ come to reveal Himself to His faithful so that we may know that the search was not in vain.

I also think that it sounds much easier than it really is, but it has never been believed that anything worth our while was ever easy to acquire. Much like setting aside a little money out of every paycheck as a discipline to acquire those big-ticket items we will come to need one day, such as a home or a car or a major appliance, the acquisition will require not only the discipline to practice self-denial each and every day without fail but also the faith that the sacrifice will have been worth the trouble.

I don’t mean to compare the Lord with a side-by-side refrigerator, but acquiring the faith necessary to sustain us in the hard times requires so much from us that I don’t think we can seriously appreciate. It is a big deal to arrive at this wondrous day and be able to see and appreciate what it really means.

Notice the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They not only endured the confusion and chaos that must have surely been evident on Good Friday, but now they have to add to that mix the possibility that the women of their group have not lost complete control of their senses in claiming to have seen the Savior alive and well! All hope seemed gone on that fateful day when Jesus was nailed to a cross, bled to death, and then was taken down and placed into a tomb. Evil seemed to have triumphed! They knew Jesus had been falsely accused and framed, they KNEW that what had happened was not right, but they also knew that the movement against Jesus had become so big that nothing short of divine intervention could have stopped it. So it would seem that they came to consider that a continued “search” would prove to be fruitless if pointless. To them, it was all over.

Yet while they were walking down the road and pondering these things, the very thing they needed most, the very One whom they should have been able to believe, joined them in their walk and they failed to recognize Him. Why? Could it have been that rather than search for something they genuinely needed, they were too consumed with self-pity … or self-absorbed altogether? As I related on Good Friday, they had every reason to believe that it would only be a matter of time before the authorities who turned Jesus over would soon come after them.

It’s a tough balance between what the Lord wants of us and what we think we need. And celebrating Easter every year may even seem to be somewhat redundant. Jesus was crucified, Jesus died, and Jesus rose. The search, however, must reach far beyond a relatively brief moment in human history if we are to glean from it everything we need to know. It moves into a call from a mystery of faith; “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”.

It should be simple enough, this thing we call “faith”, but it’s not. It’s not that such a thing is so complicated that it is reserved only for an intellectual few, but it is free to those who would choose to endeavor the journey in search of it, remembering that Jesus promised to those who would seek that they would indeed find what they were looking for, to ask and expect to receive, to dare knock on the door and expect it to be opened.

It’s not necessarily something we are left to figure out for ourselves; rather, it is the reality that we must persevere in the journey that is faith. And this, dear friends, is the hardest part of all because the journey itself requires faith, faith enough to continue even when it seems pointless, faith enough to continue even when we are not sure of the direction, faith enough to continue to ask when we are unsure of ourselves. This is the hard part: the journey, the search.

But this is part of the excitement of the Easter egg hunt, isn’t it? The anticipation of what we may discover? The joy of finding tiny prizes along the way to remind us of an even greater prize at the end of the journey? And even beyond this, more tiny prizes to keep us sustained and hopeful? Yes, the search for Easter eggs is perhaps the greatest lesson of all … that is, if we are open enough to get out of the easy chair.