“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5-6) WHY DOES IT MATTER TO US? I love Easter. It is by far my favorite holiday. Easter is pure Jesus without all of the silliness that has come to accompany Christmas. While we might give the kids Easter baskets and we might die some eggs or have a special meal, that’s about the extent of the worldliness attached to Easter. Although you would never know it from the promotions in the stores, Easter is the highest holy day of the Church. The fact that Easter is almost ignored by the World (as opposed to Christmas and Halloween) shows us how little it matters to those outside the faith. I read that Halloween has almost surpassed Christmas now. I know there are people on my block who put up elaborate Halloween decorations that I am sure cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Yet Easter is all but forgotten. When I was young there was almost a traffic jam on our block as everybody left their homes for worship on Easter morning. Every neighbor on the block was backing out of the driveway at 9am to go to the Easter breakfast and worship. All the boys had on new suits and the girls had new dresses and, being in the south, some of the moms had new hats. I remember receiving my first “grownup” Bible on Easter Sunday in 1974. I was very proud to carry my new Bible to church and show my pastor. Now, our street will be a ghost town on Easter Sunday. There might be a couple of us leaving for worship and a couple more will have family over for lunch but it will be nothing like Halloween and Christmas. Yet Easter is so much more important than Christmas and especially Halloween? On Easter, we commemorate the event that predicates everything we believe, teach, and confess as Christians. St. Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 15, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” In other words, nothing about religion matters without the resurrection of Christ from the dead. If Christ is not raised from the dead, then the atheists are right and religion is just for weak-minded people who need a crutch to get through life. Christmas is a nice celebration of His birth but the importance of Christmas is not His birth but His incarnation. He became flesh so that He could die and be raised again from the dead to live for all eternity. Halloween is a fun, spooky day to give away candy and have costume parties but it has nothing to do with anything important like eternal life. No, Easter should be the huge celebration full of parties and gifts and decorations and feasts. But honestly, I’m glad the world has ignored it. It’s nice to have three days devoted to worship: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The lack of worldly falderol allows us to focus our attention purely on Christ and Him crucified and risen. It allows us to stand with the women and the tomb and hear the angels proclaim to us: “He is not here, but He has risen.” And that fact changes everything for us. We are not a group of social workers whose primary task is to make sure that everyone has a comfy bed and plenty of food in this life. We are not club with mutual interests who get together and discuss those interests. We are the family of God, centered on the cross and doing everything we do to glorify our Lord until we join Him in paradise, and that is all that matters. Pastor Rogers | 
