Across the nation and around the world church choirs will send forth those familiar words, “Christ, our Lord, is risen today.” The churches will be full with everyone in their best “bib and tucker”. The days of the Easter Parade and everyone having a new “Easter bonnet” may have passed but the ideology of everyone looking their best has not. Not that any of this is really bad. Looking and feeling our best to show our love for God will never be wrong. But what really does Easter mean and what really does the words, “Christ is risen today” hold for each of us.
The reality of these words came home yesterday to our family in a very strong message. I had agreed to babysit my grandchildren while their parents had a night out. My two oldest children don’t get to spend a lot of time together just for fun and Grandpa and I were happy to do this. It also gave us some nice quiet time with our 1 and 5 year old grandsons. All went well and the next morning as we sat around the breakfast table my daughter was relating the fun from the night before. She told of how her and her brother had sung her favorite song during the karaoke time. They had danced and enjoyed visiting with old friends from high school. One in particular had asked them to stop at his house after the party for a light snack to finish off the night. They had arrived and waited some time but when he never showed up they decided he had been otherwise detained and that they would just come on home. What a shock when the phone rang and it was another friend telling my daughter that he had been killed on his way home from the party! Our oldest son had graduated with him and they had spent lots of time together over the last year, it was a friendship re-growing after years of separation.
It was as I lay in bed thinking of how quickly life can take a turn. How many times in my own life I had been with someone to discover only hours or days later that they had been killed or died suddenly. Yesterday would have been my mother-in-laws birthday. She was a lady I not only loved but admired greatly. I held her hand as she died listening to the far off sound of a train whistle as a friend sang her favorite song, “Silent Night”. My dad was also buried on April 7th just seven short years ago. I had been with him in the morning and went home for dinner. I return to find him in a coma he never recovered from. Precious moments that will live in my heart forever. We all have precious moments of equal importance. These moments are made even more important by those special words of Easter morning, “Christ, my Lord, is risen today!” The reality of these words is simple. Because He is risen, because He conquered death, I may hold my precious moments dear knowing that those I love are not gone but only in Heaven with God the Father and His Son that died for my sins and all mankind that we might have eternal life! Yes, my reality check for Easter was not the Easter eggs the grandkids found, but the knowledge that my son’s friend would find the greatest Easter gift of all – Eternal Life!
