Easter Morning

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Happy Easter.

Yesterday, after my radio program ended, a listener contacted me and complained my show is too Christian.

Really?

"Well," she said, "you are limiting your audience."

First of all, I am not ashamed of my Christianity.  Second, I believe if I was to try to silence my Christianity on my radio program it would lose me listeners, not gain them.

Then again, it seems like not too long ago Newsweek proclaimed we are no longer a Christian nation.

We no longer call Easter Vacation by its name.  Now it's "Spring Break."

Easter has become more about egg hunts, candy, and bunnies.  Isn't Easter supposed to be about the Resurrection of Jesus?  Or, is that too Christian?

Benjamin Franklin said that "Only a virtuous society is capable of freedom." 

If we are not Godly, how can we maintain our liberty?

Easter is about Jesus being crucified and risen again from the dead, and the very fact that there are those who consider believing that to be the case is being "too Christian" is exactly what is wrong with our culture.  We are in a culture war.  If we are not a Godly country, we cannot maintain liberty, and we are not capable of the Constitution.  The opposition, the purveyors of Godless leftism, understand that, and that is why they are intent upon killing God in our society.

I realize that in these troubled times it is sometimes difficult to keep our eyes on the Lord. Easter, however, is one of those days out of the year that many folks who would not normally look to Christ decide to come to church and worship Him. Some folks are full of faith, and are regular attenders, and that is great as well.

Whether you go to church, or not, it is important that we remember what Easter is all about.

Easter is an opportunity to remember His sacrifice.

The wages of sin are death.  The payment for sin is the spilling of blood.  That is why the Jews once sacrificed animals on an alter.

Jesus became that flawless lamb.  The sacrifice for the sin of the world.  And when that moment came, the burden of His sacrifice was so great that the human in him called out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me."

He was beaten.  The bloodied body of Jesus was hung mercilessly on a Roman cross on Calvary.  His body had been battered, and shredded by the beatings that came before he carried his own cross to Calvary.  Jesus had been betrayed by one of His own for 30 pieces of silver.  Peter had denied Him three times.  Then, during His crucifixion, a Roman soldier thrust his spear into Jesus Christ’s side, and out of the wound flowed the water of His blood.

When the beating heart of Jesus Christ ceased, the assumption was that His life had ended.  It was assumed that the end of Christ came upon the world on the hill of Calvary.

Imagine the surprise of the disciples when they found an angel waiting for them with good news. The angel said, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him." (Mark 16:6 NKJV).

They thought He was dead, yet this angel had proclaimed He Lived.

Jesus Christ's death and resurrection means that we as believers do not have to fear death.  As Billy Graham would say, "I am only passing through this life."

Our home is beyond this place.  This is only a temporary part of our journey.

It can be hard for us to accept that our bodies are wearing out, and that death is on the horizon. However, the Bible says we will have new bodies one day. "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:23 KJV).

He is the resurrection and the life, and if we believe in Him, we shall die a physical death, yet shall we live.

Happy Easter, and God Bless.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary