Thought for the Day - Easter is about more than rejoicing and happiness

The women who went to the tomb were up before dawn, carrying spices and sorrow, expecting to tend to a body. They were prepared for grief, not glory.

As I wrestled with Palm Sunday this year, it struck me how quickly the celebration faded.

The hosannas turned to “Crucify Him” with startling speed. A cry for salvation chilled into rejection. Yet the gospel message remains steady: Christ died, was buried, and rose again.

The story of the crucifixion is familiar to us, so I won’t linger long on the trial or the cross this year. Instead, I return again to the morning of the resurrection - the stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the angels asking why anyone would look for the living among the dead.

We often think the day was nothing but rejoicing and happiness. But remember the unbelief as the women reported the empty tomb. Remember that the apostles were still locked away in the upper room. Sorrow throughout the day.

Then the two disciples on the way to Emaus show up with an almost unbelievable story of a walk and a meal followed by the pronouncement of “Did not our hearts burn within us as we walked on the way?” (Luke 24:32). Then all the doubts and fears of the day vanished as Jesus himself shows up in that upper room.

The journey starts in a manger in Bethlehem and appears to end at a cross with a body in the grave. Hope is lost, the Palm Sunday party is over and the mobs won with “Crucify Him!” But Jesus had proclaimed, “If I lay my life down, I will take it up again.”

We greet Easter once again, not because the story changed, but because the story gives hope. Every year, we learn that the risen Jesus meets us, perhaps while it is still dark, and every year we again are reminded that the dawn breaks, that the price for sin is paid, that resurrection and new beginnings are possible. The hymn reminds us that “Christ the Lord is Risen today, Hallelujah.”

“He is risen!” and I hope you echo the refrain of: “He is Risen indeed!”