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There are a few things about which I am absolutely passionate. I’m not talking about your every day, run-of-the-mill things that fluff my feathers, but ones that make a difference in this wicked world of ours. One of those passions surfaced on the eve of Easter this year.
I was about to go to bed when the title of an article on the Internet struck a chord with me; a chord of disdain. The heading said “Bunnies, Bonnets and Other Easter Traditions.” I cringed as I read this article after having just put my Bible down minutes before. I had been reading about how our Lord and Savior went through the most horrific death conceivable and died on a cross for the world’s sins…past, present and future. I was saddened by the thought of all the people who were probably more interested in that title for exactly the reason it was written, than what the resurrection of Jesus meant to the Christians of the world.
When I saw this article about bunnies, bonnets and other Easter traditions, it triggered an array of emotions. The last I was aware, Easter was not a tradition, but a happening. It is a time when Christians celebrate in remembrance of what Jesus did for us on the cross; how He died for us and after three days rose from the dead. I was, and remain, outraged what the world today sees as important on a day we should celebrate His resurrection. In my own mind, I don’t even think of the day as Easter, but refer to it as Resurrection Sunday. With that reference, there is no doubt as to what I am celebrating.
One of the first sentences in the article in question says and I quote: “’Learn the story behind those and other ways’ we celebrate the spring holiday this year.” Personally, I wasn’t interested in learning the story behind anything that had to do with bunnies and bonnets. To begin with, Easter is NOT a holiday and it breaks my heart to realize that the most important thing in the world, our salvation and how Jesus sacrificed his life for us on the cross, has been reduced to references of bunnies, bonnets and other Easter traditions.
It is not unlike what the world has done to the day we set aside to celebrate the birth of our Savior. I listen to people make reference to the “holidays” when they are speaking of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years as though the three came as a packaged deal. Again, Christmas is no more a holiday than Easter.
I am grief-stricken for the people in this world who don’t know Jesus and whose lives seem like a fantasy. I do not look down on these people and understand why they do what they do; they act according to what they know and how they’ve been reared but my grief comes into play when I think that we who do know Jesus as our Savior are not doing the job He left us to do. There are countless people who believe the way the authors of the article in question believe, i.e. about bunnies, bonnets and other traditions, because too many of us believers are not taking His command in Mark 16:15 to heart: And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (KJV)
I am putting the blame on myself as much as I do on the author of the article to which I refer. If I was doing a better job of reaching the lost, I might have read an entirely different article on the eve of Resurrection Sunday. Shame on me!
My prayer for those of us who know Jesus as our Savior is that we will listen closely to His commands and will make it a priority to set out to do all we can to reach the lost before next Resurrection Sunday. To that end, I challenge each and every one of my fellow believers to make that a goal for them; to make next Resurrection Sunday the celebration it should be with no bunnies, bonnets and other traditions in the mix and with more names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
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