easter basics

April 20th, 2006

With Easter just around the corner, we are bombarded with Easter advertisements shouting for our attention and financial commitment. However, amidst all the Easter bunnies and brightly colored eggs, one has to wonder how much religion, and in turn “spirituality,” is actually at the center of this holiday or how much of it is simply an excuse to get together with friends and family and eat a box of chocolates.

America’s spiritual temperature, if based upon how many people claim to pray, is running “high,” but how many of those who profess a prayer life actually understand the Easter holiday they are celebrating, and the main crux of the holiday – the resurrection? Or how many people can give an answer for whether or not their prayers are effective or heard by a god-figure, whether the Judeo-Christian God of Easter or some other deity?

How many people understand how futile prayer is without there being a god who is listening? How many people understand that if the god to whom they pray to isn’t real, their prayers are fruitless? How many people can, with confidence, point to a specific event as evidence that when they pray, God not only is listening but actually cares?

Christians can point to one event in history as compelling evidence for all these questions. But the question is, for so many Americans celebrating Easter, how many actually understand the message and implications of Easter Sunday – the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The reality is that Easter celebrations have eclipsed for many Americans the cornerstone of Easter Sunday – the resurrection, and they celebrate something which to them has mythical value.

For Christians, however, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what makes or breaks their faith, and in turn, the power of their prayers. The Christian faith claims that if Jesus is who he said he was, then he proved his divinity by rising from the dead, and thus he conquered death and has restored all those who believe in him to having a right relationship with God.

In other words, we now have a hotline to heaven.

However, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then all our Easter celebrations are empty festivities. Either God hears us or he doesn’t; either he is who he says he is or he isn’t. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t.

The beauty for Christians who pray is that they can rest assured that God hears their prayers for they have a God who left behind an empty grave in history.

And isn’t that what is Easter is all about, anyway?

–

[Comments: this post got spammed, so I saved the non-spam comments and am posting them here.]

  1. dan Says:
    April 21st, 2006 at 8:45 pm ewell put.
  2. Moriah Joy Says:
    April 26th, 2006 at 8:51 am eThanks.
  3. Moriah Joy Says:
    April 26th, 2006 at 8:54 am eReading it over, I have to laugh a little bit. This was written in fifteen minutes (that’s being generous in estimating the time I spent on it) for a journalism professor who wanted something on Easter and prayer. Rereading it a couple weeks later, removed from it, it’s clear I did a poor job of tying prayer into the overall thrust of the piece.

Posted by Moriah Joy
Filed in theology, philosophy

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