What is Easter All About

Easter can be a confusing holiday for those from non-Christian cultures. It’s significance is not always clear even to those who grew up going to church Easter Sunday. What’s with eggs and rabbits and candy combined with crosses, foot washing, and baked ham?

This past Tuesday my wife tried to explain the essence of the holiday to a group of international women in an English conversation class she co-teaches. She, her co-teacher, and I tried to sketch out what to say. As I refined the brief description of the date’s importance, it occurred to me that others beyond the class might benefit from a refresher on what I believe is the most important event in history.

The following is the description I came up with:

Christians around the world celebrate Easter as one of the most significant days of the year.  Many rituals surround it.  Some traditions are very religious.  Others, such as egg hunts and baskets of candy, not so much.

At the same time, many people are not sure what it all means.  Let me try to explain it in simple terms.

Though the events celebrated at Easter took place in the 1st century, the story starts at the dawn of Creation.  Christians believe God created a beautiful world in which He could love and be loved by the people He created.

But love requires freedom. So God put aside His right to compel absolute obedience. Tragically, people used their freedom to rebel against God and pursue their own selfish ends.  

The beautiful world God created became a broken place full of conflict, disease, evil, suffering, and death. 

Men and women were unable to enjoy the abundant life with God for which they were created.  And they didn’t have the ability or wisdom to get back to that joy-filled existence.  They were stuck in a broken world, facing death, and separated from their loving Father.

But God never lost His love for His people.  Instead, He set in motion a radical plan to rescue His beloved creation.  After thousands of years of preparation, He left His throne as ruler of the Universe, becoming a poor man named Jesus. 

Born under Roman rule to a teenage peasant in Palestine, and raised doing the hard labor of a carpenter, he experienced all the problems and limitations we all struggle with.  Yet unlike the rest of us, there was not even a hint of selfishness, evil or greed in Him.

In His early thirties, Jesus left the carpenter shop and began to introduce Jews in Israel to the renewed and restored world He had come to bring.  By healing the sick, feeding the hungry, driving away evil spirits, and preaching with authority, He let people know their savior had come.  

God Himself had arrived.  God’s kingdom was very near and available to those willing to believe and follow Him.  Many did follow Him even though they didn’t fully understand who He was or what He came to do.

But not everyone was happy with Jesus. Many of the political and religious leaders despised Jesus and what He came to do. He threatened their power, their wealth, and their lifestyle.  They liked things the way they were. 

They also thought He taught very dangerous ideas and they challenged His claim to be God. 

After months of tension, they plotted to kill Jesus.

A trap was laid for Jesus with the help of one of his intimate friends, a man named Judas.  After eating the Jewish meal called “Passover,” Jesus and his closest followers went to a secluded grove of olive trees to pray through the night. 

Led by Judas, the Jewish leaders brought soldiers to arrest this One who had come to save them. He did not resist them. They took him to the Roman governor, Pilate, for a trial.  At the insistence of the gathered crowd, the Roman ruler ordered soldiers to execute Jesus. 

Romans killed criminals by torturing them, ending their lives with a slow death nailed to a wooden cross.  This is how they executed Jesus. He died late afternoon on what is now called, “Good Friday.”  

To ensure he was really dead, a Roman soldier drove a spear into Jesus’ side. If Jesus had been a regular man, this would be the end of the story.  But Jesus was God. And His death was part of His amazing plan to rescue His creation!

Two men who had believed in Jesus took His body down, wrapped it in spices and linen strips and put it in a new tomb cut out of rock.  They rolled a very large stone against the opening.  Pilate ordered soldiers to guard it so no one could steal the body. For extra security they put a Roman seal on it. 

Early Sunday morning, the first Easter, something totally new happened.  This Jesus, who had been dead since Friday, overcame death. He left the tomb alive, the first of an entirely new creation!  

Various men and women checked things out that day.  They were skeptical . . . but the tomb was empty!  All that remained were the cloth strips in which the body had been wrapped.

Soon, Jesus began to be seen—very healthy and very real. Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ friends, saw Him while she was crying at the tomb. A couple of other followers were amazed when He walked with them some distance.  Jesus came to a group of His friends in a locked room.  He ate with them, touched them, and even invited the skeptical to touch His open wounds.  

Jesus appeared to His followers numerous times during the next 40 days—even to 500 at one time. Many people saw Him and were convinced He was alive.

At the end of the 40 days, Jesus gathered many of His followers on a mountain.  He told them to share with the world what they had seen and heard—to be witnesses that, through His life, death, and resurrection, God had rescued His world from the effects of humanity’s rebellion. 

Then Jesus was taken up in a cloud as the disciples watched. Two angels told the gathered crowd that one day He would come back to earth in the same way that He was taken.  His return would bring complete restoration to the world and salvation to those willing to turn away from selfish rebellion and back to a relationship with their loving Creator.

While some dismiss the account of Jesus’ death and resurrection as just a made-up story, the historical evidence is strong.  Not only did a great teacher named Jesus live in the first century, but He claimed to be God.  His return to new life after execution by the Romans is supported by many, many eyewitnesses.

This Jesus was either a monumental liar, a raving lunatic, a phenomenal magician, or He was who He said He was — the Creator & Lord of the Universe.  And Easter is the most important event in history!

After He returned to heaven, Jesus’ followers spread the good news about Jesus.  They were willing to suffer cruel deaths for Him because they had been eyewitnesses of this truth and wanted to tell the world.

The amazing thing was that those who repented and believed were transformed.  They still lived in this messed up world but they were changed.  Though Jesus was no longer walking among them, His Spirit worked in and through them in powerful ways.  They began to live in the abundant life God had reserved for them when Jesus comes back in all His power and glory to establish His Kingdom.

All because of Easter the world was no longer a place of despair but a place of hope!  Evil and death are defeated!  The old is gone; the new has come!

Today, a third of the world’s population claims to follow Jesus.  That’s about 2.38 billion people.  Jesus’ followers continue to tell about not only Jesus’ resurrection but the new life we can all have through Him.  

As James Allan wrote about a hundred years ago . . .