What makes Easter Sunday special to you?

When I was a child Easter was a special time of the year. We have
photographs in our album of our family at Easter for several different
years. Normally we were spruced up in new suits, pretty dresses, everyone
all cleaned up and all of the shoes shined to go to church on Easter.

All of us kids would wake up to an Easter basket full of candy and colored
eggs, then we would get cleaned up and go to our Sunday Bible classes and
Worship at our church, just like we did every Sunday. They generally meet
with our extended family for a big Easter dinner. It was indeed a special
time for us and holds special memories.

What makes Easter Sunday special to you? For lots of folks in our world,
Easter Sunday is one of the only Sunday's they "go to church". Many churches
have Sunrise Services or even Easter with pageants. They hang purple cloth
on crosses and place containers of "Easter lilies" where they can be seen.

All of these things have some symbolic meaning, but why are they necessary?
The resurrection of Jesus is the most important part of our religious
belief. It is the focus and the center of who we are and what we do. If that
is true, why is it that so many folks only remember this event one time a
year?

The resurrection is central to all of the teachings in the Scripture! Paul
writes in 1 Corinthians 15:13-18, "For if there is no resurrection of the
dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been
raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we
apostles would all be lying about God-for we have said that God raised
Christ from the grave. But that can't be true if there is no resurrection of
the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not
been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless
and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died
believing in Christ are lost!"

That is why Christ instituted the Lords Supper in Matthew 26:26-29, so that
we would not forget that he died for us and was raised again to gives us
life eternal! In the New Testament we see that the first century church came
together the first day of every week and shared the Lord's Supper together.
For us this is not something that gets old and has no meaning, it is just
what it was intended to be, a reminder of what Christ did so that we might
live forever.

So, when you come to our church on Easter Sunday you may be surprised that
there are no Easter pageants or purple cloth hanging from crosses. But you
see; we don't celebrate Easter just once a year, it is done every Sunday we
meet together. God wants us to remember him more than one time a year, he
wants your heart focused on him not just every Sunday, but also every day.

Russ Lawson