Easter Completes
John 20:1-18, Colossians 3:1-4
March 31, 2002
St. John United Methodist Church
David Beckett, D.Min.

The six week period of Lent is over. In a way I am sad to see it go. The Tenebrae service on Good Friday is one of my favorite worship experiences of the year. I’ve received some good-natured ribbing about advertising the service as "depressing." It’s not that I am a depressive person, although I certainly can be at times. It’s just that in a world of instant gratification....a world where the goal in life seems to be the pursuit of happiness at all costs....a world where we are lured to escape our pain and suffering through fantasy and technology, we don’t seem to be able to appreciate contrast. Contrast. In order to appreciate light we’ve got to look at the darkness. In order to understand life we need to know death.

When we lived in Soldotna, my teenage daughter, Jenny, was given a brutal example of contrast. She was home (on the telephone) when she looked out the front window and spotted a white rabbit (she called it an Easter bunny) hopping across our driveway. Suddenly there were three dogs who appeared out of nowhere. They chased the rabbit, caught it, killed it, and ate it....all while Jenny watched. It was quite upsetting for her to see this. She did not grow up on a farm where life and death can be seen up close. So she was given a glimpse of death, a view of contrast. It was an image she did not enjoy.

We may not enjoy the image of crucifixion: thorns puncturing the skin, blood dripping down his face, nails pounded through his hands and feet. But it is a very real image. And when we spend time at the cross on Good Friday, we can begin to understand and appreciate what it means to stand at the empty tomb on Easter morning.

So here we are....on Easter Sunday. It is a day when two time-honored rituals rush headlong into each other. The Easter bunny and Jesus. It’s kind of like Christmas when Santa and Jesus seem to vie for the true meaning of Christmas in our culture. Did you ever stop to think how the "secular" customs surrounding Easter are truly bizarre? First, there is the Easter Bunny himself. A big male rabbit that carries nests of eggs. Yes, rabbits are extremely good at carrying out that "be fruitful and multiply" mandate. And yes, eggs are great symbols of new life to come. But rabbits don't lay eggs or make nests. Especially male rabbits.

Sociologist Cindy Dell Clark has researched what she calls the "trinity" of characters in children's most important ritual systems -- Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Clark's conclusion, after interviewing thousands of children, is that of these "big three" so-called "children's celebrations," only the Easter Bunny is a wholly child-centered, child-controlled symbol. As such, the Easter Bunny is one of the most misunderstood creatures adults have ever tried to figure out.

Yes, we get anxious about the predominance of Santa Claus over the baby Jesus at Christmastime. But who among us has ever felt particularly threatened by the Easter Bunny? Adults dismiss the Easter Bunny as a leftover legacy from earlier nature-based celebrations of spring's arrival and as a symbol of the new life that is abundant in springtime.

The fact is that kids love the Easter Bunny! Perhaps because the Easter Bunny doesn't keep lists of who has been "naughty or nice" like that Santa Claus fellow, or perhaps because he is quiet and soft and huggable and speechless, children eagerly flock to the sides of mall Easter bunnies. Sitting on Santa's lap is often a terrifying experience for small children. But hugging the Easter Bunny is a guaranteed "warm fuzzy."

All the strange traditions that go along with the Easter Bunny are kept alive and reinvented each year by children. How many households without children color eggs and hide nests around their living rooms? How many households with children would color eggs and hide nests if children didn't insist on these messy rituals?

The Easter Bunny's appeal doesn’t make sense. Santa fits neatly into adult-centered systems of rewards and punishments. Be nice -- get presents. Be naughty -- get nothing. Santa Claus has a job -- he employs elves to work for him, crafting all those gifts we receive. Santa is a successful guy.

How different is the Easter Bunny! He comes to children without a set policy for behavior. His egg tokens are left everywhere -- easily accessible to even the smallest child or the worst "seeker." The Easter Bunny doesn't appear to have any particular system for punishments and rewards, and his symbols don't seem to make any sense.

Maybe we ought to take a cue from our kids. The empty tomb on Easter morning presents Christians with a vision that has much more in common with the illogical Easter Bunny than the familiar Santa Claus. The abandoned burial site is itself silent -- a visual testimony to the power of life over death. Like the Easter Bunny's ridiculous basket of eggs, the very place that surely seems to be a dead end-- Jesus' tomb -- suddenly becomes the symbol of birth and new life.

Paul's counsel to the Colossians is to "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." It is as "seekers" that Christians come to know that their lives are fulfilled in the resurrection of a Christ who is "now" but "not yet," whose work is "complete" but yet "incomplete." Christian life is, in this sense, one long Easter egg hunt.

On Christmas morning, the point of presents is to unwrap them and see what wonderful gifts you have received. The point of the Tooth Fairy is a tangible, spendable reward under the pillow of a child who has lost a tooth. But on Easter morning, the reason for rising early is to go on a hunt -- to seek out the nests of colorful eggs that have been hidden throughout that most familiar of all places, our own home. The fun, the fulfillment, is in the search, not in stock- piling a cache of hard-boiled or plastic eggs.

Paul urges his Colossian comrades to rise above the materialism of the false rewards this world has to offer. He suggests that we need to die with Christ. We need to enter into that tomb with Jesus on Good Friday. This is the way Christians remind themselves of the "completing" power of the risen Christ.

What "incompletes" are keeping you from growing into the fullness of faith and the life God has purposed for you? Do any of these "incompletes" apply to your life?

1. relational incompletes -- do you have unresolved conflicts with someone, or do you have feelings that have not been expressed?

2. integrity incompletes -- do you have trouble keeping agreements, or being truthful about people, places and things?

3. career incompletes -- do you continue to work in a job you hate, or do you fail to do the best job you can?

4. financial incompletes -- do you have debts that are mounting, and do you have trouble saving as you know you should?

5. physical incompletes -- do you eat and drink things that you know are bad for you, and do you continue to put off committing yourself to a healthy lifestyle?

6. personal incompletes -- do you avoid dreaming like you once did, especially dreaming that impossible dream that once set you on fire?

7. spiritual incompletes -- do you wish to commit more to God, yet fail to follow a disciplined walk with Christ through daily prayer, Bible study and small-group fellowship?

What are the "incompletes" in your life? You and I need to stand at the open tomb on Easter morning. It forces us to face the paradoxes. It forces us to face the "incompletes" in our lives. The open tomb assures us of God's promise to turn our "incompletes" into "completes."

As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, a life that was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband. 

You and I don’t have to wait for a loved one to try to get us into the kingdom of God when we’re dead. We can act now! We can say YES to God now! We can rise to new life with Christ today! It happens when we open our heart to the saving power and love of Christ. It happens when we want a faith that includes heart as well as head. It happens when we confess the darkness of our Good Fridays and allow the light of the risen Christ to shine throughout our lives.

The good news of the gospel is that the risen Christ can give you hope! Christ can give you strength! Christ can take your incomplete life and make it whole.

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Copyright © 1998-2004 Jon S. Dawson.  Last modified: February 01, 2009

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