Happy Easter 2009

Happy Easter, one and all.

In thinking about the many Easter festivities embraced by people across the country and the globe today, whether Sunrise Services, Easter Egg hunts, or meals with family and friends, I am reminded of the efforts and significant preparation made so that the holiday is a success. One family in our neighborhood even decorated their house with more Easter paraphernalia than most people do at Christmas. Of course, they also decorate their house for Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day, too…and even Groundhog Day, which probably reveals more about them than about Easter.

One of my traditions a number of years ago was to produce a Sunrise Faith Service for the cowboys at Horseman’s Park here in Las Vegas. I remember having to arrive in the cold and dark- hours before the first light of dawn- to set up equipment and chairs for the many horsemen and women competing at the equestrian competition over the Easter weekend. While my investment in preparation was only for a small cross-section of people in my city, thousands of others were simultaneously producing far more elaborately orchestrated events for millions of people across the country and around the world.

Effective Easter egg hunts also demand a significant investment in effort and preparation. As a child, I was thrilled by the anticipation and promise of discovering colorful Easter eggs in and around our yard, especially if we were able to locate all of the eggs on Easter. To paraphrase the Animaniacs’ cartoon, “Good idea, bad idea,” discovering Easter eggs at Easter is a euphoric occasion. Discovering Easter eggs at Christmas is an entirely different experience. Only now do I see that for every joyful egg hunt taking place this and every Easter morning since I was a boy, a tremendous investment must have been made by many parents and community members before hand.

A good portion of Americans don’t even get to participate in the aforementioned Easter events for they are the very unsung Easter heroes who arrive at churches, restaurants and other businesses, police and fire stations, and at military assignments around the world, to make sure the rest of us enjoy all the fulness Easter can bring. Easter Sunday may be a day off for the parishioner, but it is the toughest workday for the Pastor and every other saint whose investment and preparation save the day for the rest of us. The same is true of those whose significant investment to provide scrumptious Easter meals, whether in the home by family and friends, or in restaurants where waiters, chefs, and dishwashers deliver us from cooking food, clearing plates, and doing dishes. I, for one, am very grateful to each of them.

Still, while armies of people have invested much so that Easter morning will be a success for us, none of these heroic efforts took anywhere near the planning, preparation, and investment as did an event that occurred nearly 2,000 years ago, one that signifies Easter for so many people today. What kind of preparation and investment does it take to have your event celebrated annually for nearly 2,000 years? One that is so well conceived and carried-out that it not only brought regenerated life to one name Jesus, but the promise of this same regeneration for all who would embrace his story. Whether you believe the story of the First Easter as history, mythology, or as part of your religion, the conclusion is the same: Someone cared so much about our having life and having it more abundantly, that He/She/They planned, prepared, and made a significant investment in all of our lives. And that investment is still paying dividends today.

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” -Romans 6:4

This leads us to the ROI, or the return on investment. To the parents and other adults, their return on investment might be to experience again the kind of regenerative life that is spontaneously produced from joyful children. To those running our churches, government departments, businesses and restaurants, their return might be the feeling one gets from going the distance and seeing a job through to the end. And for your waitress today, a big tip.
And to the greatest single investment made in the lives of humankind, there is but one return as is stated in the investment offering: that we also should walk in newness of life.
In whatever and wherever your own planning, preparation, and participation takes you this Easter, why not offer the same kind of return that we expect from those we invest in? For the one who has invested so greatly in us, let us allow the burdens of yesterday to be replaced by the newness of life available to us today, tomorrow, and each day beyond. Happy Easter, everyone.
TT