Acts 10:39-43 (Peter spoke to them)
10:39 We are witnesses to all that he (Jesus) did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 10:40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 10:41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
10:42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 10:43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
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It is just amazing how many events occurred within only a week called holy, ending on Easter Sunday. Perhaps, it is an extended week of eight days, but it is still the Holy Week. First of all, there was the Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem as a King, called the son of David, which was a traditional title of God’s Messiah.
On the same day he cleansed the temple, flogged the money-changers and expelled the merchants from the church-courtyard. Then, in the upper room they all gathered for the last supper on the Maundy Thursday, when the Lord instituted the Holy Supper. Later at night on the Mount of Olives he was betrayed by Judas, as well as he was captured by the soldiers, who took him to the palace of the high priest. What a night ! It lasted till the rooster cried, making Peter remember his boasting and his Master’s rebuking. Then came the Good Friday, as it culminated in Jesus’ sufferings on the Cross, in his death and then in the burial into the cave-grave owned by Joseph of Arimathea, near the Golgotha.
Finally, the dawn of Sunday brought the light and the victory of the resurrection as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, (...) The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples, that Jesus was alive, he resurrected.
Easter is an ancient festivity. It must have been existed even before the age of Moses by whom the Pesach or Passover was ordered as a commandment to be kept forever as a remembrance that Israel left the slavery of Egypt behind, because God delivered them.
The feast was reestablished and restructured to become the festive frame around the symbol of the Lamb of God, as the blood of the lamb on the door posts was the sign of mercy between God and the people. This image had been a foretelling story how the Christ like a lamb was sacrificed for all mankind to win the ultimate battle against evil and death.
Nowadays most people do not care about the Easter Lamb, they rather hang around with the Easter Bunny. Like, not long ago, at the front of the City Hall of San Francisco they exhibited giant inflated white Bunnies to increase the secular Easter cheer. This secular world created a new artificial reality and also virtual, digital reality, as well. This pseudo reality world is not exactly ideal with its wars, its oligarchies, its Hollywood driven social classes, with its hypocrisy, its vanity, its hidden or open slavery, with sickening mass hunger and mass graves on all continents. This world is almost not real, because it is surreal.
Peace be upon the author, Aldous Huxley, this very same brave new world created the Easter Bunny, which produces otherwise wonderfully painted eggs in some cultures.
It is notable, that it started among the Lutheran Protestants in Germany as a cultural phenomenon. The rabbit originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the Eastertide. In legend, the Easter Bunny carries colored eggs in his basket or candy and sometimes also toys to the homes of children, on the night before the holidays. As a fairy tale, it could be all right, until this projected image does not claim to be the ultimate meaning of life and love, especially around Easter. Especially when Easter is the greatest Christian High Holiday ever, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his ultimate victory over evil and death.
The Biblical teaching is very clearly saying that the body is more than clothing, and life is more than the body. The exclusive fans of the Easter Bunny completely forget sometimes that the grave of the Lamb of God became empty on Easter Sunday. And not only that. They do not want to know about any Lamb of God, alive or crucified, any Good Friday or any Easter, about anything differing from the chocolate bunnies and ham-rich lunches.
Nothing is new under the Sun. The same skeptical spirit was present in Jesus’ time too.
It happened as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 12, that ”some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to Jesus, “Teacher, we want to see a miracle from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.”
We can also assert with the Gospel that Jesus is greater than the Easter Bunny. The generation of Jonah’s time Niniveh will rebuke these recent generations, that as they had repented, so should we. The most poisonous view we can have today, that we live in the best times ever in the history of the humanity, and we are not that wicked like the old Niniveh, and in the western hemisphere and in the copy-cat countries in the Orient, the general conditions of life are in a very good shape, thus, we can avoid or solve any doomsday scenarios waiting in line, because humanity is more powerful today than ever before.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says himself, not against the popular Easter customs on any continents, but from true divine love that: “ I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. ” It should be obvious to all, that outside of the love of the Christ there is no peace, no prosperity and no long-term future.
Mankind have dreamed about immortality and invincibility since ages, we tried to deify our ancestors, our heroes and our mighty emperors, however ancestors vanished, heroes died, empires disappeared, sufferings, sickness, war and death stayed on Earth generations after generations. So, it must be conclusive to all, as an outcome of the known human history, that we can not save ourselves even from ourselves, and that we need the mighty Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for us in order to save us from our sins and from the curse of this world. The life is resurrected in Him gaining full victory over death for the always greater glory of God to whom may praise and gratitude be given by the Holy Spirit, in Heaven and on Earth, in the multiple universes and in our hearts, now and always, AMEN.
