SHORT COMMUNICATION 386
The Essence of Easter
By
Roger Behra
It is times
for Christians to once again celebrate their holiest day of the year Easter
Sunday. It marks the culmination of Holy Week which is the last week of the six
weeks of Lent. Several events are designated during Holy Week.
The end of the
ministry of Jesus started when He entered Jerusalem. Then there was His
betrayal by the discipline, Judas. That was followed by His trail and great
torture at the hands of the Roman governor. All of this ended with Good Friday,
when Jesus was crucified and died on the cross for supposed crimes He committed
and was buried in a tomb donated by a wealthy follower. Thief was supposed to
be the Roman governor and the Roman soldiers. They did just did not except what
happen ed after the death of Jesus on the cross, especially what happened on
the Sunday three days after His death. But as Christians know and proclaim,
that tragic and grisly series of events was only the prelude to the most
glorious moment in the history of the world: the resurrection of Jesus three
days after the death of Jesus on the cross. As soon as Jesus drew His final
breath it all started.
Upon His
death, Jesus´ followers were devastated, but they had reason to know it was not
the end. They believed Jesus when He said that He would rise again and what He
foretold to the scribes and Pharisees when they demanded that he produce a sign
to prove His claims. What He told them is in the Gospel of Matthew: “For just a
Jonah was three days nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of
Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
At other times
before His crucifixion Jesus alluded to the event now celebrate on Easter
morning as is preserved in the Gospel of Mark: “And he began to teach them that
the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders indeed,
had Jesus not risen from the dead, His words and deeds would rightly have been
regarded as worthless. When Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples remembered
that He had said He would rise again, and they believed. After He rose from the
dead He appeared before many, including His disciples and more than 500 others.
His disciples
did not recognize Jesus at first. Jesus was transfigured. He was young looking.
He was nice looking. He was clean cut looking. He was full of love and
happiness. To some of his disciples he showed them his crucifixion wounds. In the
upper room where the disciples were for safety’s sake, He had to convince
Thomas and show him His wounds. Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God.” But as
Christians know and proclaim the tragic and grisly events that ended with Jesus
crucifixion and death on the cross, followed by the famous event three days
later, was the prelude to the most glorious moment in the history of the word:
the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter Sunday, which is real essence of
Easter.
R. B.
4-1-14
