Easter Day 2008

Easter Day. The hymn “Christ the Lord is risen today hallelujah…” was running through my head this morning as I climbed a mountain just on the edge of the city, San Pedro Sula. My roommate and I decided to leave the house at 5:00AM and climb the mountain in an attempt to see the sunrise. Amazingly we were successful and enjoyed a nice quiet time with the Lord there on the mountain. It made the day feel a little more like Easter because often I would go to the sunrise service with my church in Lancaster. There actually was a sunrise service at my church here in the city but I could not bear the thought of being in a church building, downtown, while the sun was rising outside. I went instead to the regular church service and then drove out to camp to meet up with the camp staff and the Easter service that they had. I am still rather amazed at how little emphasis there is on Easter and resurrection Sunday here in Latin America. With the Catholic churches all of the emphasis is put on Good Friday and Christ’s atoning death. The Evangelical churches seem to somewhat ignore the whole week to make up for all of the traditions attached to the Catholic’s celebration of Holy Week. Perhaps had I gone to the sunrise service I would feel differently but the sermon this morning during the regular worship service was on Matthew 9 and the calling of Matthew. It was a good sermon but in my opinion had nothing to do with Easter.

And yet why limit the celebration of Christ’s resurrection to one day in the year? I was reading 1 Corinthians 15 this morning about the hope that we have because Christ rose again. Had He stayed in the grave we would have been more pitied than anyone else in the world for choosing to follow Him. His resurrection is what gives us hope because it means that Christ is still alive today. He is seated with the Father but He is also living inside of each of us who have surrendered our lives to Him.