The True Meaning of Easter

Joanne Smith

Ten years ago, Jan and I drove to Two Harbors to spend a few days with my family, and we celebrated Easter Mass at the local Catholic Church. Imagine our surprise when–after receiving Communion and singing one last song–we headed out the main doors and found ourselves receiving jellybeans from the Easter Bunny! The clincher, though, occurred 10 minutes later when we drove out to McDonald’s for breakfast and saw the very same costumed Easter Bunny in line for a hamburger.

It struck me at the time: Do our children know how to sort out these images of Easter? Chocolate… Communion… Easter eggs… toys. Where is the Truth in all of this? Is this another “what am I getting” holiday or another holiday where I gorge myself with all the candy I can eat?

When my child groans and says, “Gee, Mom! Why do we have to go to church today? It’s Easter,” what do I tell him? Is church just something we squeeze in between the Easter Bunny’s coming and going to Grandma’s for Easter dinner?

What is the meaning of Easter for all of us? What is the big picture here that sometimes gets lost in the busyness of everyday life? Why are we celebrating? Why is this day a highlight of the liturgical year?

The answer goes back to Genesis. We’ve heard the story about Eve eating the fruit and giving it to Adam to eat also. What happened here? In reading it more closely, we see that Satan has set up a challenge to the conditions set up by God. He lies to Eve and uses her desire to be more like God to get her to disobey and to give some to Adam so that he sinned also. What was their response? To know that they were naked. Shame and guilt had entered their world.

God could have given up on all of us at this point… but He had made us in His own image to be His sons and daughters. He set a plan in motion–a plan that had been conceived from all eternity. He set up a system of sacrifices to atone for sin, and then sent His Son Jesus to be the perfect Lamb–the only sacrifice that could atone for our sins.

Sometimes you hear people say, “Oh, I don’t like to think of poor Jesus suffering and dying on the Cross.” How did Jesus think about it? Paul says, “For the JOY that was set before Him, Jesus endured the Cross.” Why did Jesus say, “It is finished,” right before He died? Because He knew that He had accomplished the will and plan of His Father. Once and for all, it would now be possible for man to come to God and repent of his sins, and God would see the supreme sacrifice of His Son atoning for those sins.

So how do we tell this to our young ones? What is the true message of Easter for them? We could say to them, “You know how you do not feel good about yourself when you are mean and fighting? God has given you those feelings so that you can learn to come to Him and say, ‘Father God, I am sorry that I believed the lie that I would feel better if I got mad.’ And Father God will speak right back to your heart and say, ‘I forgive you, child, and I love when you come close to Me.’

“And why can He do this? Because His Son Jesus died for your sins. Every person has sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. That’s why we celebrate Jesus coming to earth at Christmas, and that’s why we celebrate His death on the Cross and His miraculous rising from the dead.”

We have lots of symbols of Resurrection and newness of life all around us in the Spring. But let’s make sure that our children know that Jesus HAD to die on the Cross—that Jesus made a way for them to reconcile with God every time they sin–and that God rejoices when they come close to Him.

Otherwise we will have let the world secularize and steal yet another Christian holy day and our children will grow up believing that they have to try really hard to be perfect in order for God to love them. Let’s believe His Love the way that He set it up and fulfilled it.