Easter > Christmas

I’m going to say something that sounds almost blasphemous. I know it’s true, but it’s just so hard to accept. My whole life has always seemed to focus on something that I know isn’t true, and now just seems like the best time to admit it. Easter is better than Christmas.

There I said it. It sounds crazy to place a Holiday with candy giving rabbits over present giving Germans, but a decision had to be made.

Actually, celebrating both of those Holidays sounds kind of crazy. Then again, Christians are Crazy folk. 

Yes, the birth of Christ is extremely important, but 130,000,000 babies are born each year. And thus far 23 different people have been born, claimed deity, and now possess a following of at least 500,000. So the birth of Christ is important, but it’s been claimed to have been done before.

Easter is a combination of 2 celebrations: Jewish Passover and Christ’s death.

Matthew 26:17 says, “Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?”

Have you ever heard of a last meal? When an inmate is about to be put to the death, they are offered a last meal of their choice. Except normally the inmate has done something wrong and is taking responsibility for that. In this case, Jesus has done nothing wrong and is taking everyone else’s responsibility.

This moment is chuck-full of irony when you look at the history of the Passover.

Jews celebrate the Passover because God spared the lives of His people and freed them from slavery. Now, Jesus eats a meal celebrating how God saved His people and freed them right before Jesus saves His people from the slavery of death. It gives me Goosebumps.

 Like an inmate, Jesus is put in handcuffs and carried away to a trial. He is found guilty, stripped of his goods, and then put in his execution chair – well, cross.

After hours of physically excruciating pain, and soul crushing abandonment from His father, Jesus looks up and in John 19:30 says, “’It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” It’s more than just a final utterance from our Lord though. It is finished is an old tax-collector term that means, “Debt paid in full.” The last bit of CO2 that left Christ’s body was used to inform us of our debtlessness.

Now comes the Easter part.

Three days had past when the Mary’s went to Jesus’ tomb. Why three days? Because in Jewish culture, you were supposed to wait 3 days to make sure a person is dead. So these women go to a tomb that they assumed had a stinky dead body in it. Instead, according to John 20, they saw an empty tomb with Jesus’ robe neatly laying there.

What would you have thought at this moment?

Lucky for the disciples they don’t have to guess, because an Angle is there to tell them that that Jesus has risen. Before you know it, Jesus has appeared to hundreds of people and spoken with his disciples.

A lot of people are born each year, and quite a few people have claimed deity, but none other than Jesus have accomplished the task of rising from the dead and presenting themselves to so many people. That’s why Easter is better than Christmas. If Jesus had never risen from the dead, then everything that makes Christianity, Christianity, is bogus. If He didn’t rise Jesus goes from savior to philosopher. Christianity goes from a religion to a cult. We go from disciples to nut jobs.

Forget the chocolate and hidden eggs, celebrate the reason for the season; resurrection.