Here it is again! Easter, right on the heels of Christmas. Who sped up the clock? I’d like to catch the thief and wring a few lost days and years out of his neck. Just yesterday I was a kid, coloring Easter eggs and enjoying Easter picnics with my family. As I look back, I realize I had so little time to really gather the true meaning of Easter and teach my children about the Savior of the world. Back then, it was slow-paced with few distractions, no internet, no YouTube, no Facebook. The media was much more controlled. If you wanted to watch a movie, you rented it from the local Rent-A-Flick or went to the theatre 30 miles away.
I wonder if this generation realizes how important it is to become eye-single to our Christian values. There is an unwritten law: That which we do not use, we lose. Everywhere you turn, the world leads our children to the secular meaning of Easter. Stores bulge with chocolate bunnies, eggs and cellophane-grass-filled baskets. There are lilies in flower shops, plenty of egg coloring in every supermarket and candles on every shelf.
Back then, we could recite the meaning of the symbols of Easter. The eggs and bunnies mean new life. The cellophane grass and baskets remind us of the newness of spring. The bright eggs colored with the colors of the dawn make us think of a new morning and the resurrection. There were crosses and pageants, Masses and special worship services around the world. Who really thinks about the Christ in the hubbub of celebration now?
We have a three- or four-day weekend. We plan picnics and trips to the lake. We bask in the new sunlight and hide Easter eggs for the kiddies to find. We have Easter egg rolls and lay in wait for the Easter Bunny to see if they really bring the treats, and we teach our children to do the same. I wonder how many times we mention Jesus.
I love Easter and the celebration, but I wonder what we are building for the future when we spend more time talking about the Easter Bunny than we do about Jesus, who rose from the tomb that long-ago Easter morning. Do our children know Him? Will they be able to tell His story to future generations and carry on the traditions made special by His life and teachings?
Will our children be able to wade through the pagan traditions of Christmas to find a Christ child lying in a manger? Will they believe the story about the shepherds, the angels and the new star in the heavens when stories about Santa Claus are more exciting? Will they be able to reach into their pockets of plenty to remember the widow, the orphan and the prisoner? Will they be able to see past the “me, me, me” to “love one another as Jesus loved you”?
Will our children be able to look to the miracles of Jesus and see Him working in their own lives? Will they know the story of the wedding feast where He turned the water into wine? Will our children see He cares about every mundane detail of their lives? He is interested in what we are interested in because He loves us. Jesus did not want the wedding to be destroyed because the wine was gone. He wanted the guests to be satisfied for His mother’s sake. Will our children understand that He loves them with perfect love? He wants their happiness, and He can, and is willing to, give them what they need if they ask with faith.
Will our little ones know more about the Easter Bunny than they know about He who gave sight to the blind and cleansed the leper? Will they know that, just as the blind man was given the glorious gift of sight, they can be given the glorious gift of insight? Jesus can heal spiritual blindness so we can see miracles.
Spiritual blindness causes miracles to be invisible. We do not see the workings of God in our lives. We go blindly from one sin to another, thinking that unleashed hedonism will bring us true joy. Spiritual blindness allows us to grope in the darkness, believing that we are who we are and that we can’t change.
Will our children know that spiritual sight will open the wonderful worlds of possibilities that we never dreamed possible? Just as the blind man’s eyes were opened to see the majesty and splendor of color in the world, we will see the glories of eternity in this life as well as in the world to come.
Will the furry Easter Bunny remind our children of the miracle of the 10 lepers who were healed by Jesus? Leprosy is a disease where people lose their ability to feel pain. Because they feel no pain, they can be burned, or rats can chew off extremities, and they never feel it. It was a terrible predicament for those who lived in ancient times because there was no cure. Jesus took that disease away with a touch and a word, and He can do the same for us.
Our world today is filled with spiritually leprous people. They are past feeling. They can destroy and hurt others without even a thought as to how the person they hurt must feel. They are oblivious to compassion and charity. Their hearts are hard with the “me, me, me” philosophy of the world. They are chained and led by the fetters of, “What is in it for me?”
Just as Jesus healed the lepers, He can melt our hearts with His infinite mercy. He can give us a new heart. Nine lepers walked away, thinking only of their own miracle, and only one turned back to give glory to God. The nine lost the second miracle Jesus had to offer. He gave the grateful leper a new heart, as well as a new body. Will our children be the nine who go heedlessly on without a backward glance of gratitude, or will they be the ones who receive the second miracle of a new heart because they glorified God?
Will our children, as they gorge themselves with the delectables of Easter, remember the boisterous sea and a tiny boat ready to be capsized into a watery grave? Will they remember the cry of the disciples shaking a sleeping Savior, “Carest thou not that we perish?”
Will our little ones see in their mind’s eye the Savior rising to stand in the boat and command the elements to be still? Will they recognize the calm that settled over the sea? Will they see the tiny boat mirrored in the placid water and think of the storms of life they must pass through? Will they turn to the Savior for help and solace? Will they remember Christ has power over all things? With Him, nothing is impossible.
Will our children ponder the night that Peter walked on the water? Will they see the waves lapping at their own feet as they try to accomplish the impossible and sink into failure? Will they see and feel the Savior’s mighty arm reach down and lift them up to walk beside Him back to safety? Will our children know Jesus as their friend and savior? Will they know that He alone has the power to help them through their darkest hours?
Will our children turn to the Savior as Mary and Martha did when their dear brother, Lazarus, died and know for certainty that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and “whomsoever believeth in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life”? Will our children know that, when our casket is lowered into a grave, it is not the end? One day, there will be a resurrection and we will all rise to meet the Savior. We will embrace our loved ones and many tears of joy will flow as we fall into the Savior's arms. Will our children know and trust Him?
Now is the time to teach our children. The time thief is ever present and will steal our children’s happiness if we do not put Jesus in His rightful place. Let’s build traditions and symbols of Easter that include a walk through the Savior’s life, so they will not forget.
