No, Easter is NOT Canceled
Churches all over the world are reeling because there will be no Easter worship service this year. It would seem that Easter has been canceled. Easter has been stolen from the people. This reminds me of another time when there was an attempt to steal a particular celebration. Of course, I am talking about the time the Grinch tried to steal Christmas.
You will remember that the Grinch hated the Whos' Christmas with their presents, their singing and their feasting. If only he could stop Christmas from coming! If only he could cancel it. You know the elaborate plan he devised and implemented. Has something like that happened to us? Maybe. It depends.
It depends on how you define Easter. What are some of the things that accompany Easter Sunday that can often be synonyms for Easter in our minds? To get at this let’s ask the question, “What are some traditions you will miss out on this Sunday?”
You might miss the obligatory Easter family photo. Many families have an archive of family pictures in front of their church in their “Easter” dress from every year since the Civil War. You might miss the Easter egg hunt and conscientious parents trying to explain to their children again that Jesus is not the Easter Bunny. You might miss the Easter breakfast or lunch with your church. You might miss a sunrise service. You might miss an Easter parade with the Marvel characters floating in the sky. You might miss the dedicated Easter lilies. You might miss the informal southern ladies Easter bonnet contest. You might miss the extended family gathering.
There are a whole host of ways we can think about Easter. But if we define Easter in these terms, then yes, Easter is canceled. It has been stolen.
But we all know that none of these are Easter. We know what Easter is about. It’s about the resurrection of Jesus Christ! And though Easter is not a biblical word, let’s have the Scripture shape and inform our understanding of it.
We begin at the first Easter morning when the women arrive at Jesus’ burial site and the stone is rolled away from the entrance of the tomb (Luke 24). It is empty! And the two angels proclaim, “He has risen!” He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15). Two days before, all of Jerusalem had seen Jesus die upon a cross and they knew he had been buried. But death could not hold him. He was dead, but now he is alive!
By his resurrection, he was declared to be the Son of God in power (Romans 1:3-4). He was justified by the Spirit (1 Tim 3:16). God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, and seated him at his right hand, setting him upon the throne of David. He gave him the promised Holy Spirit and made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2).
This Jesus was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). And now we, like Paul, want to know him and the power of his resurrection (Phil 3:10). The power of the resurrection of Christ is at work in us even now (Eph 1:18-19), renewing us day by day (2 Cor 4:16). We have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection (1 Peter 1:3). We have been made alive together with Christ (Eph 2:5) and have been raised with him to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).
This is Easter.
If we define Easter in these terms, then Easter can’t be canceled. It can’t be stolen. We might even say that the things that often accompany the Easter season are what steal the true meaning of Easter. What if it’s the case that our present circumstances haven’t stolen Easter but have allowed us to focus on its true meaning? In other words, perhaps Hulk Hogan is right: “Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the ONLY thing in the world that really matters. Jesus.”
But see the true Easter can’t be taken from us. It’s not about a certain day or all of the other things we might love about this season. Even after the Grinch had stolen everything — seemingly cancelling the celebration — Christmas came. It came just the same. He realized Christmas was something much more than all the things that accompany it. Another way we might say it is that the Grinch realized that Christmas was not an external thing but something present within the heart. Remember his heart grew three sizes that day, probably to make room for the reality of Christmas!
This is also true for Easter. Easter is not something external to us. Easter means that Christ is alive in us and we are alive in him. Why can’t Easter be stolen from us? Because we live in the reality of Easter every day. Every Sunday is an Easter celebration when we properly understand that we live in the time of Easter, in the time of resurrection. If we are in Christ, then we have experienced, and continue to experience, the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. This cannot be stolen from us.
This will be an Easter that we will never forget. We are not able to gather and proclaim to each other that Jesus is risen. We are not able to partake together of our resurrected Lord in his word and at his table. We are not able worship our risen Lord together. We are missing something this Easter. But we are not missing the reality of Easter. The resurrection has not been canceled in us. The resurrection has not been stolen from us. No matter how much this Grinchy isolation tries, Jesus cannot be taken from us.
For your singing pleasure, here is a song we would have sung together on Easter Sunday. I will miss singing and sharing it with you, but remember that we share in the reality of which we sing.