Statements and Values

The Five Easters

The five Easters.  Can you name all five of them?

This is the first:

That great, glad, glorious Sunday centuries ago when Jesus our Savior came laughing, leaping, shouting, dancing, and singing right out of that gloomy, granite grotto, raised and alive again and forevermore.

Can you picture and imagine it any other way? After all, it isn't every day that one rises from the dead.

And He did! Thus to become our death-defeating, grave-conquering Savior!

This is the second Easter:

The day of our baptism. For as St. Paul tells us, in this word-and-water miracle we were forever joined and united to Jesus, crucified and risen.

Which means that, in a beautiful and blessed baptismal sense, whatever happened to Jesus has already happened to us.

Was He crucified and killed on that bloody cross of Calvary? So were we, in Him, through our baptism.

And oh, how that comforts us ... as we lay our loved ones to rest, as we ourselves stand trembling before the door of death. And tremble some of us at least do. Why? Because our faith is weak and doubt filled? Perhaps. But maybe also because we've never died before...

And then we remember that in Christ, through baptism, we have already been raised from the tomb. Death and the grave already behind us - in Christ, through baptism. And oh, how that comforts us now and in that hour.

This is the third Easter:

Every Sunday service.

Why was Sunday the day, the day those first Christians chose on which to worship? Quite obviously because Sunday was the day Jesus rose and robbed death of its sting and the grave of its victory.

And so every Sunday is Easter. Is it - really? Do we all sense, see, show, display and experience the joy and hope of Easter as we sing our songs, say our prayers, do the liturgy, greet and fellowship with one another? Is there a He is risen! tone, sense, feeling, atmosphere in every Sunday service, or just a mindless, mechanical mouthing and mumbling of words while hearts and thoughts are a million light years away, on anything else but the risen Christ?

This is the fourth Easter:

The way we think, feel, speak, act, and live every day. Is each new day an Easter, as we rise above...and live every fleeting moment as a precious gift from God?

This is the fifth and final Easter:

The one to come!

On some near or distant day, the risen Christ will return, speak the reviving, resurrecting word, then call us forth from our graves with those whom we have loved and laid to rest.

And then what? Why then life, love, and laughter that will never end!  It's got to be, because, don't you see, the period which usually ends life's sentence has been changed to a comma by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

More to come? Indeed there is! Resurrection, and an eternity of joy beyond our wildest hopes and dreams.

-- Written by Herbert Hohenstein

-- Submitted by Rev. Jack Hartman, Chaplain