Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 3, 1994 TAG: 9403310010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As a child, of course I took advantage of any opportunity for a no-strings-attached supply of candy. And getting outside after church to hunt for colored eggs was an interesting enough variation of the ever-popular game of hide-and-seek.
But I think even then I realized that the Easter Bunny - unlike Santa Claus - was a hollow symbol. There was no morality tale (excuse the pun) pinned to the rabbit. No lesson of love or redemption or even of the desirability of being good.
Just candy.
My wife and I have always given our children baskets of Easter goodies. They've been modest by the standards of some of the giant cellophane-wrapped cornucopia you see in stores. But they acknowledge the custom, which I do NOT believe is some evil plot to water down Christianity.
I just hope that our kids have gotten the message that the Easter baskets are simply little presents from us that really don't have anything to do with the holiday we're celebrating.
It is easy in the routine of worshiping through the church calendar, year after year, to forget the significance - the real meaning - of many of our holidays. In most churches, Pentecost passes with relatively little fanfare. The days set aside to commemorate the baptism, transfiguration, ascention or other events in Christ's ministry aren't noted at all in some denominations.
Easter, however, is recognized throughout the church as the greatest holiday. It is for most of us the single biggest reason for embracing Christianity.
There are Christians who say that reason and a rationalistic approach to Scripture can lead one to follow the example of Jesus Christ without necessarily believing in the Resurrection. Some scholarly work on the subject refuses even to discuss the issue, referring only to the "Easter event" - leaving it to the reader to decide whether or not there was a Resurrection.
For me, though, the absence of faith in some sort of new incarnation after the Crucifixion would take much of the power from Christianity.
It is mysterious. I don't know much for certain about it - for instance, whether or not it was a flesh-and-blood physical manifestation. Every year I struggle with my usually dominant rational side and wonder how anybody could believe something so unbelievable as a resurrection from death.
But I do.
I don't fully understand it. Not that any matter of faith is necessarily rational. I've had any number of cars whose appearance and track record would make most people hesitant to ride in them across town. I took them across the the state in faith they'd get me home. Haven't been let down yet.
Religious faith, I guess, is even more insubstantial than that. There isn't much you can put your hands on.
And, frankly, most of us have been let down by it some time or other.
We worship a beneficent God, but every day see evil and injustice in the world around us. We pay homage to an omniscient God, but witness the death of faith in those who cannot face life's trials. We pay tribute to an omnipotent God, yet see his name abused to satisfy the greed of some who claim to be his ministers.
In spite of those disappointments, we continue to have faith. We still "feel" a power that transforms lives, that gives hope and peace and joy.
For some of us, it is a lifelong experience, drilled into our souls as children and never questioned as adults. For others, faith comes in a single, sudden "baptism of the spirit" that manifests itself in ecstatic utterances. For others, faith is built and renewed in the regular celebration of the Eucharist.
Born of many mothers, expressed in many faces, Christian faith has held onto a core belief that human beings can behave more nearly like the perfect God they worship. That they can be resurrected - born again - to a new life on Earth as well as in a hereafter.
Most of those celebrating today won't understand - or care about - the connection between ancient fertility rites represented by an egg-laying bunny and rebirth in Easter.
Their faith won't be in a basket of sweet goodies. It will lie, rather, in an ancient story of love and suffering and death and, yes, resurrection.
by CNB