A Religious Cynic Gets Real about Easter

I was raised in a faith tradition with no particular regard for the Christian calendar, and so I’ve never focused much on the holy days. Even after leaving this faith in search of the elusive true church, I didn’t take the celebrations of various historical Christian holidays–deemed relevant to whatever faith group I might be auditing at the time—seriously.

For instance, I only observed Lent the year I proclaimed I was giving up Catholics, but that lasted only long enough for me to share the clever line with my Catholic friends. They thought it was funny the first time, but I’ve resurrected that same lame joke over fish on Friday every year since 2004.

In the church I grew up in if somebody had mentioned Maundy Thursday, we would have foregone the “laying of hands” and had them assessed for “old-timers” disease, because even fundamentalists know that Monday and Thursday can never be on the same day.  Duh.

Easter, though, has become meaningful to me, and not just because Cadbury eggs are the bomb.  Not even because there are noted chefs in my family who are only liberal in their applications of bacon grease, butter, salt, and pepper to the point that their Easter dinners are divine even while hardening your arteries, but ain’t nobody got time for that.

This day is not only monumental for me, but is the quintessential event in human existence and in its day was understood equally by skeptics and disciples of Jesus.

According to the Gospel accounts of Easter morning, the two Mary’s went to the tomb early on the third day after the crucifixion. There was an earthquake, an angel, an empty tomb.  Everything was starting to make sense, prophecies of old and even the recent words of Jesus were coming back to them, but took a new context when they stood at the empty tomb. With mixed emotions of fear and joy, these two women were the first to know about the Resurrection and therefore the first to tell the Easter story. The LORD had overcome the world!  Followers of Jesus have continued to celebrate the Resurrection from that moment until now.

But what does the Resurrection mean? 

It means more than I can write in this blog post, but most importantly I think the resurrection of Jesus means that there is hope for us to live the life we each are called by God to live. In my early days of trying to follow Jesus, the most frustrating and depressing moments were the incessant failing and falling on my face. Try as I may, I couldn’t get it right. Legalism and religion and other bad habits tripped me up until I felt stuck in my own spiritual Hotel California. But being stuck was just an illusion after I realized the implications of what the Resurrection of Jesus meant to me.

Upon spiritual renewal, which is referred to in the Scriptures as being born-again, one takes on a new identity.  Jesus said to Nicodemus, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6)."  Believer, the exact same Spirit that was present at Creation and that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. (Gen 1:2, and Rom 8:11).  The Bible is replete with Scriptures that indicate that we are to die to ourselves, that is our flesh, and live by the Spirit and become a new creation.  Jesus modeled both dying to the self and living in the Spirit, at the Cross and at the Resurrection, respectively. 

The Resurrection of our LORD Jesus is central to our salvation. The story of Jesus, indeed the Good News of Jesus, is incomplete even meaningless without the Resurrection. The Jesus story wasn’t just so that He would be a self-help guru, that He might give us a good example to follow, or that a religion might form to memorialize His great life. The Good News is that because he rose again, He showed that He defeated Satan, sin, death, hell, and the grave.

If you are a Believer, that same Spirit that made Him a conqueror makes you one, too. If you are not a Jesus-follower, the opportunity to receive the gift of salvation and subsequently the abundant life of a conqueror is available to you.  Before Jesus ascended after He had defeated the grave He said that it was good that He was going away to the right hand of the Father where He prays without ceasing for us, because unless He did, the Helper would not be able to come. That Helper is the Holy Spirit who lives in us as Believers to guide us. The life we now live is not of the flesh, but of the spirit. 

We have the opportunity now because of the Resurrection of Jesus to be led by the Holy Spirit.  God knew that in a problem-filled world that right living would be impossible for us. So whether you gather with the saints every Sunday, Easter Sunday, or not in a month of Sundays please know that Jesus loves you, died for you, and rose again victorious over sin. He dealt with sin once and for all, according to Peter. Your salvation, your abundant life, your joy, your victory, your freedom has been purchased. If you’re already living a Resurrection-powered life, then I pray you stay renewed as salvation was never meant to be an occasion but a way of life.   You were saved, are being saved, will be saved in the end. If you haven’t accepted what Jesus did for you, then know that the gentle tugging that has always been there is the Helper  who has been sent for you.

Religion can be confusing, misleading, and stifling to spiritual growth, but understanding the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is simple. God knew that we were lost without Him, so in His love he emptied out His wrath for sin on His precious Son Jesus upon the Cross. Three days later as was written, the Spirit resurrected Him and the world has never been the same. If you accept Him, your world will never be the same either.