Easter Is About

I attended a Lenten celebration Wednesday night with my wife our four year old son and our two year old daughter. I arrived directly from work enjoyed dinner and fellowship with my family and a few other church members. My wife becoming ill left directly after dinner while I stayed for a hymn presentation by a local Christian college coral group.
In the midst of this hour of very nice music very well presented my son turned to me and said, “Daddy, they are singing bad songs.”
I said, “No they aren’t.”
He replied, “Yes, they are. They are singing Jesus dead. I don’t want to kill God.”
I replied, “Juanito, it is okay, God put himself in the ground, but he gets up again, that is what Easter is about.”
After about fifteen minutes Juan says, “So Jesus died, but he got back up.”
I said, “That is what Easter is about.”
Fifteen minutes later in the car on the way home my two year old says, “Daddy, Jesus died.”
I replied, “Yes.”
Jillian said, “And Jesus God got back up.”
I replied, “Yes”
She then said “Daddy, Bobe is died. She doesn’t have a house or eat or have a car. She is in the ground.”
I replied, “Yes, Bobe is dead.”
Jillian then said, “Will Jesus get her up, too?”
I replied, “Some day.”
Juan piped in, “Jesus will get Bobe up too.”
I replied, “We believe Jesus will get everyone up some day.”

And we were home.

I had a conversation when I was about ten years old with the then current pastor of the local Church of God of Prophecy of South Powell Wyoming.
He asked, “Don’t you believe in the resurrection?”
I said in all honesty, “Yes, I believe some day Jesus will come back and pull us all up out of the grave in whatever form and way he is going to do that (my brothers and i long speculated what was going to happen to cremated, organ transplants, etc.), but I also believe with just as much surety that in two thousand years there will be people here believing the same thing and saying ‘any moment’, just like we do.”

I still hold that pure dual surety in my heart. No wavering, no doubt, but not a great comfort to the feeble minded.

My children it is very apparent to me are in no way among that category.

I must be extra careful to fuel in them their love of learning, their inquisitive nature and their hope, but I must also be so very careful not to allow myself to somehow destroy their capacity for critical thought.