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"Easter is Easy"

Sunday School Lessons can really stick! They inform; they empower! In the hands of a three year old they can create a  precocious theologian who announces on Holy Week that she doesn't understand what all of the fuss is about!  You see I, um...she, understood Easter; Easter is easy for a three year old.  “Jesus got dead.  They put him in a hole, and he got away.”  Out of the mouths of babes… 

Perhaps this is an example of why Jesus said we should have the faith of a child (Matthew 18:2-4).  Yes, there are subtleties about HOW Jesus “got dead.” Was he not really dead? There have been crusades over who “they” might be and how did they put him into “a hole.” Where was the hole?  Then there is the argument/discussion about how “he got away.”     What did Jesus look like after “he got away?”  There is childlike humility in hearing the "what" of a story and living into it.  

Don't get me wrong! Those are important questions to consider as we dig deeper with faith and learn what the Easter story means to us in the  dark places  of our lives, however they are not the “what happened.” Those questions are the how and why…they are not the “what” of Easter.   Neither are they what the story is about.  The Easter story told in Luke's gospel is clear.The story tells us that He, who you killed and buried,  “got away.” To quote the  writer of Luke's gospel, "He is not here,"  (Luke 24:1-8).

What the Easter story is, is a story of victory.  It is epic, and it is so simple that we can discuss it, learn from it, and live through it all of our lives.  

“This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”

 Festival Canticle by Richard Hillert, Hymns, Psalms, & Spiritual Songs #594. 

Miraculously, a three year old was listening to the sermon and engaged the preacher in a discussion.   That is not so easy, yet because the preacher listened and remembered --their discussion did not stop there.
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