Sunday, April 24, 2011

UNMARKETABLE


As usual, my wife, queen of the annual Easter Basket for each member of the fam, got me a dark chocolate bunny. Not to be indelicate, but in no time at all I had bitten off its head, bunny ears and all, in one fell crunch.

I always look forward to that, now after all these years actually making an exhibition of the bunny cannibalism. Yet it is crystal clear to me that it is not about bunnies - or colored eggs - or chocolate - or lilies. It is about something terrifyingly serious: Jesus rose from the dead.

That’s one reason Easter hasn’t been completely eaten alive by the consumer culture. Christmas, which can be cast as the heart-warming story of a pregnant Mary and a devoted Joseph and their search for a room, ultimately being surrounded by cuddly animals in a manger, is easily domesticated - more easily tamed - more easily sold to the masses.

Easter, on the other hand, is violent and untameable. The man whose followers believed Him to be the Messiah, was tried, beaten and executed like a common criminal. What is more, after the crucifixion the Bible portrays His disciples not as stalwart messengers of their leader's legacy, but as cowards, hiding behind locked doors for fear that someone would catch and arrest them. The story is messy. Very unmarketable.

But the truth is, on Easter Sunday, everything changes. Christ raises from the dead. That resurrection is at the very heart of the Christian message. If you don’t believe that fact, you would be hard-pressed to describe yourself a Christian.

This new life He brings is in fact “new.” Christ is not simply “resuscitated.” He is not merely brought back from the dead with the understanding that He’ll die some time in the future. He lives forever.

It’s not about bunnies - or colored eggs - or chocolate - or lilies. It is an event that makes a personal claim on you. Either you believe Jesus rose from the dead or you don’t. There is no happy middle. If you believe the former, then everything changes.

And be blessed.

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