It has long puzzled me that Easter seems to be so much less important to Christians than Christmas. Everyone who's ever lived was born. Celebrating someone else's birth has never made much sense. I haven't bothered to celebrate my own since I was a child. But a resurrection? That seems pretty special! Shouldn't Christmas pale in comparison to Easter?
I went to the grocery store this morning. It was open. The same store is never open on Christmas. But I'm not sure if I would have given this a second thought if I hadn't noticed something else on my way home.
It was roughly 8:15 AM on Easter Sunday in one of the most religious states in the United States. As I drove past a lot under construction, I noticed something strange. The crew was working. I did a double-take.
I counted six men in hard hats and fluorescent vests. This wasn't an emergency like road work or some sort of damage. They were working on a very small commercial building. Picture something even smaller than a typical fast-food restaurant. They weren't rushing about, but they were working. And they were doing so on Easter.
It occurred to me that I'd never see anything like that on Christmas morning. Around here, I wouldn't expect to see it on Thanksgiving or the 4th of July either. But Easter? I guess that isn't as important as I thought it would be.
Nobody told those gathering for an early service at the massive Catholic church a mile down the road. Their parking lot usually has no more than 2-3 cars this early on a Sunday. It was almost full today.
I thought back to my Christian childhood. Easter was never a big deal for my family. We went to church, but that was not an unusual occurrence. Easter didn't seem to be a big deal at our church either. I don't remember anything special about the Easter service. They acknowledged that it was Easter, unlike Good Friday which passed without comment. But Palm Sunday was a much bigger deal.
I know that different churches emphasize different things, even within the same denomination. But I do remember finding it odd that Easter wasn't the biggest celebration of the year. Shouldn't that have been the one day of the year getting circled on the calendar?
Could it be that many Christians don't see much to celebrate about Easter? Are resurrections more common than I thought? Do they no longer think it happened? Could their celebrations of other holidays have far less to do with Jesus than they like to claim?
