A few years back, a woman from Portage, Michigan, was driving her young family to church on Easter. She was explaining why Easter was special to them. “It’s the day we celebrate Jesus’ coming back to life,” she said.
Then the voice of her three-year-old, Kevin, rang out from the back seat. “Will he be in church today?”
Well, of course, I hope you’ve come to church today expecting to encounter Jesus, our risen Lord. But Kevin’s question is a valid one because it often feels like Jesus isn’t present.
Life rolls on. We wake up. We muddle through our day. We deal with challenges and disappointments. We eat. We laugh a little. We watch TV. We doom scroll on our phones. We go to sleep. We do it all again the next day.
It’s hard living with the perspective of eternity. For many of us, just getting through today fells like enough, doesn’t it?
Yet, that’s what makes Easter so meaningful. It’s not the music, although it’s special. It’s not the flowers and nice clothes. No, what makes Easter special is that the reality of eternal life breaks into our everyday lives, calling us to something bigger, something deeper, something that gives meaning and worth to the dailyness of our lives. (Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone that Christians believe that every Sunday is a mini-Easter, a weekly interruption that says your life is meaningful and worthwhile and filled with enormous potential.)
While we celebrate the good news that in Jesus God has conquered death every Sunday, we especially do that today. Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God has made the way to eternal life. This side of the grave we experience a dimmer version of that eternal kind of living, but we believe that what Jesus has accomplished has made the way for eternal life without the limitations of disease, hurt, brokenness, and sin.
Humans have been on a quest to extend life for quite some time, and we’ve gotten pretty good at living longer. Life expectancy in the United States has risen by five years since the 1980s, but that’s a far cry from immortality. Still, we’ve been trying all sorts of things to extend life.
A few years ago, Tad Friend, wrote a piece in The New Yorker detailing the human quest for immortality. He noted how a German doctor in 1615 suggested that older folks drinking the blood of the young could function as a fountain of youth. (Glad that didn’t catch on.)
In 1924 a Soviet physician began young-blood transfusions. A friend who observed him crowed that he appeared to be 7, even 10 years younger. Only the physician later injected himself with blood from a student who had both malaria and tuberculosis. This optimistic doctor died soon thereafter.
These failures have not stopped our efforts at immortality, though. The article begins with a party hosted in Norman Lear’s mansion, nestled in the Hollywood Hills. Lear, who was 94 at the time and famous for developing sitcoms like All in the Family and The Jeffersons, had gathered a veritable who’s who from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to learn the secrets of a longer life. While a Nobel-prize winning geneticist described her work, she took questions from Goldie Hawn about mitochondria and the “God molecule.” Moby, the DJ and distant relative to Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, chimed in about veganism. Not far away, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, talked about the company’s anti-aging research.
Lear and his house full of the wealthy and famous aren’t alone in trying to live longer. Some Americans are so confident that modern medicine will make living forever possible that they are arranging to have their bodies frozen when they die. They are placing their wealth in “personal revival trusts,” so that they’ll have money waiting for them when they’re resuscitated in the far-off future. One of them figured that if his body lay frozen for long enough, then the power of compounding interest would make him the richest person in the world whenever he was reanimated. Talk about having faith.
Of course, possible immortality isn’t just for the wealthiest among us. In October 1571 a young farmer named Matthew Wall had died at only 24 years old, leaving behind a grieving fiancé. His whole village of Braughing in Hertfordshire, England, came out for Wall’s funeral. As the pallbearers carted the coffin from the church, one of them slipped on the wet leaves, causing the coffin to fall.
As they lifted the coffin, they began to hear knocking. Matthew Wall had come back to life and was banging on his own coffin. Wall lived another 24 years, even marrying his fiancé. Still today, this village commemorates what they call “Old Man’s Day,” on October 2. Children from the village bring brooms to sweep the leaves on the lane in front of the church to keep others from slipping in memory of Matthew Wall who lived, died, lived again, and died again.
As intriguing as some of these stories are, they are a reminder that humans are always searching to defeat our ultimate enemy, death. We diet and exercise. We have world-class health care. We pray and meditate. We play pickleball (although I hear that can be pretty hazardous to your health if you’re not careful!).
Scott Black Johnston has written compellingly on this, “Death is a thief and a swindler. Death robs us of those we love. Death cheats us out of the opportunity to do more living. Death is a senseless, separating, life-shredding force. Death passes out pills to addicts. Death lists thirteen reasons a bullied girl might check out. Death lights the fuse for nuclear tests in North Korea. Death is a cloud hovering in the back of your MRI. Death is our biggest enemy. It must not be allowed to win.”
That’s what Easter is about, and that’s good news to all of us who have forgotten that God has made us eternal. Yes, our lives here and now absolutely matter. Yes, we should take care of our bodies and do significant things with the time we have. But, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the ultimate defeat of death is certain.
Love wins. God wins. Death loses. The powers of sin and hell will not overcome. Hallelujah!
This is why Easter is such a draw. It’s not the nice clothes or music or candy or brunches — as fun as those are. I think all of us are here on this particular day because, deep down inside, we want to believe that death is a broken enemy, that life has far more meaning than taking up space for a couple of decades before our bodies rot in the ground, that God is at work — even now — in renewing us. We want to cling to the true hope of Easter because living without it makes life bleak and empty.
Those who lived with Jesus experienced this firsthand. They were with him in his life, traveling with him, eating with him, listening to him, learning from him, and experiencing with awe how he was transforming lives.
They were with him all the way to his horrific end, watching in agony as the one they loved so deeply was hung on a cross, experiencing the depths of our sin and violence.
They watched his lifeless body be pulled from the cross.
They were there when his body was hastily put in the tomb.
They came early on Sunday morning to grieve and show their great love for Jesus, only he wasn’t there.
Jesus interrupted their grief, showing up in the garden to them. He was alive! It defied everything they knew. This was something altogether new, but they fell at his nail-pierced feet and clung to him. They could not let go of this one who embodied the love of God in a way that changed everything about their lives.
But today is not simply about that story that happened 2000 years ago in a land far from here. This story unfolds in our lives now.
Every.
Single.
Day.
It’s a story that demands our attention. It’s a story that expects to change you. This isn’t about extending lifespans. It isn’t about avoiding death. It’s an invitation into an eternal kind of living available to us right now.
Johnston makes it so clear, “Easter wants to hack your heart, your head, your ethics, your daily routines, your relationships, your way of looking at the world. Easter doesn’t simply want to extend your life; Easter wants to send you running, as fast as you can, to embrace life.”
Jesus doesn’t simply stay in the garden. He keeps moving. They look for him in the tomb, and he’s gone. They wonder if he’s still in town, and he says, “I’ll see you in Galilee.” He sticks around for a couple of weeks before heading to his eternal home. And, all the while, he was transforming the world — releasing those imprisoned in body or spirit, bringing good news to the dead, offering the Spirit to any who would accept it so that they, too, could be a part of this death-defying project. “Death,” he says, “you’re done. You have no place here anymore.”
That’s the call to all of us this day and all of our days. We’re to embrace the eternal. We do this because Jesus died for this world as it is right now — in all of its beauty and brokenness. We do this because we know that we have work to do today that continually transforms our hearts and the lives of others around us. We do this because the weight of eternal glory far exceeds our imaginations but gives us hope for living these days.
Easter is about love. If you view it only through the lens of the future, then you miss the point. It calls you into love. It drives you into the world in love. It transforms your everything with love, calling you to transform everything with that same love.
But, make no mistake, that future will be glorious.
I’ll close with this story I came across this week.
“A woman was diagnosed with a terminal illness. As she was getting her things in order, she contacted her pastor and asked him to come to her house to discuss some of her final wishes.
“She told him the songs she wanted sung at her funeral service, the Scriptures she wanted read, and the outfit she wanted to be buried in. She also asked to be buried with her favorite Bible.
“As the pastor prepared to leave, the woman remembered something else. ‘There’s one more thing,’ she said excitedly.
“‘What’s that?’ said the pastor.
“‘I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.’
“The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing what to say.
“The woman explained. ‘In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably say, “Keep your fork.” It was my favorite part of the meal because I knew something better was coming — like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie.
“‘So when people see me in the casket with a fork in my hand and they ask, “What’s with the fork?” I want you to tell them, “Keep your fork. The best is yet to come!”’”
Easter calls us to embrace the eternal. That can begin today for you if you are just now awakening to that reality. That’s begun already for all who have called on the name of Jesus and are living their days for him. We are how Jesus shows up in the world. Not just on Easter. But each and every day.
