How many times have you seen the Easter Bunny this month? Even if you don’t watch TV, there is no escaping the aisles and aisles of bunny-related merchandise in every store, the bunny posters hung in retail windows, or the cleverly worded bunny ad slogans in the newspaper. It’s safe to assume our kids will get a sizable dose of Easter Bunny by April 24 without us having to lift a finger.
But will they get a sizable dose of Christ? I don’t want to assume that the once-a-week Sunday school lessons will be enough to balance out the bunny and lead my kids to the right conclusions about Easter — it’s far too important. Easter changes everything. Without Resurrection Sunday, the Bread of Life is dead. He’s a miracle worker and a martyr, but a dead one. He may have borne our sins to the grave, but the grave still holds the victory. Sin still ends in death. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:17-19, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
But Easter changes everything. I like to imagine what was happening in the spiritual realms in that moment when the stilled lungs of Jesus filled with life-giving air and his heart pounded the first beats of victory. No wonder the earth trembled. How worthy is our Savior! I want my family to walk the Holy Week leading up to Easter with trembling reverence and anticipation of the mind-blowing, death-defying, table-turning checkmate my Jesus delivered to the realm of darkness one Sunday morning 2,000 years ago.
Cords of Light 