“I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Easter is my favorite holiday. It ushers in spring and renews the hope and joy that the winter season seems to steal from so many of us.
I’ve always thought of Easter as a season of celebration. In fact, my own church hosts an Easter production each year for which thousands will literally get off work early and rush to our church on one of the seven nights that the play is running, just to get a seat. Hundreds of those who come to worship with us will leave and call themselves Christians for the first time.
It’s important for all Christians to understand that Easter is not just a celebration of the death of Jesus Christ, but also a celebration of His resurrection. Remember what the angel told the two women who appeared at Jesus’ tomb on that first Easter morning: “Do not be afraid…He has risen from the dead.” (Matthew 28:5-6)
God let me know this week that the angel’s command, “Do not be afraid,” is directed to all of us, not just to the two women who approached the tomb. More than anything else the Easter season is a time when the finished work of Christ should be a source of comfort to us all. The truth is we no longer have to fear death and God put that promise in perspective for me through an article published this week in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Reporter Tony Wilber wrote what I think is for the Chronicle an uncharacteristically poignant story of a prominent Atlanta commercial real estate broker’s struggle with cancer.
In December of 1996, doctor’s told Michael Christopher that he didn’t have pneumonia. Instead, they told him he had lung cancer, a virulent form that would ravage his body and likely kill him within a year.
Christopher is a Christian who has allowed his faith to shine right through his struggle with cancer. “I have a very strong faith,” he told the reporter. “I’m not afraid to die.”
Mr. Christopher shows no signs of giving up. 1997 was one of his best years ever as he helped his company close on more than 30 transactions valued at more than $80 million.
But Christopher’s business success is not what made his year. The thirty-something husband and father of two young children readily admits that his battle with cancer has allowed him to get to know who God is. “I am confident I will beat it…But if I don’t, then I’m comfortable with my relationship with my heavenly father, and I know where I’m going…Some days I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”
That’s what the Easter season is all about. We no longer have to be afraid. As one writer puts it, “The great Easter truth is…not so much that we are to live forever as that we are to, and may, live nobly now because we are to live forever.”
Michael Christopher is living nobly and he is teaching us that Easter is more than a season to proclaim that “He is risen”. Easter is an opportunity to show others why Christians can cling to the promise that death doesn’t have to be feared.
If you have the chance, get off the couch and go watch an Easter play this year. If you’re like Michael Christopher and know where you’re going, take someone with you who has no idea. Remember, God’s Word says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)
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