Optimist Roundtable

By Martha Sykes

Our Lenten season is coming to an end and we will once again celebrate with the words, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”.

As we come together as “Easter” people, we look out into the world and we are tested by the evil that surrounds us, but the message of Easter is to fear not! We do not have to fear because this world or anything in it will not defeat us. Easter should be a song of resilient hope, comfort, joy, and love because Jesus conquered death and rose again!

The resurrection of Jesus marks that moment when life overcame death ,the moment when hope overcame grief and the moment when we have to make a decision about our beliefs. Of course, if we believe in the resurrection at all, it is a gift of faith granted to us by the prior gift of grace. But if we have received that grace and accept the truth that gets proclaimed from every Christian pulpit in the world each Easter Sunday morning, then we have to know that this truth changes everything. This is not some fact we can ponder just once every twelve months. This changes everything, and on EVERY day.

A church in Bangladesh was showing a film about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to an audience filled with people who had never heard the gospel before. Little children sat in front in the aisles and the adults stood in the back. As the story of the crucifixion unfolded and Jesus’s broken body was laid in the tomb, there were tears and audible gasps. As the affected audience watched , one young boy suddenly spoke up. “Don’t be afraid”, the little boy said,

“He gets up again! I saw it before!”

Well, we can only imagine what being exposed to the story of the crucifixion for the first time would be like, but we have heard the story before and we can rejoice in the hope that Easter brings to us every day.