What does Easter mean to you?

Do you know that more of us go to church during Easter than any other time of the year? At Christmas we go because of our families, but at Easter we go for ourselves. Why? Because we need to be touched by the meaning of Easter: that life comes out of death, meaning and purpose out of chaos, and light out of darkness.

Engaging the symbols of Easter

Even though the story of Easter is 2000 years old, it still has power to touch us deep inside. When we engage its symbols through faith in our heart, we can experience the reality of a living Lord.

Consider the Easter lily, a regal symbol of light. The empty tomb, with the promise of resurrection power. The Easter egg, with its potential of new life. And the Easter bread, our spiritual nourishment, Jesus Christ.

The cross is a powerful symbol of suffering and triumph, of perfect love available for us. But it is also a sign of renewal and starting over again. The cross offers us a place to take our current painful situations, fears, and leave them with the One the grave could not hold.

Life comes out of death

Many years ago, when our marriage was falling apart, we knelt together and prayed: “Lord, our marriage is dead; we don’t know how to make it work. If you want it to live, you will have to do it.” A few weeks later, God sent someone to tell us that He had heard our prayer and was going to make us of one heart. This summer we’ll celebrate 62 years of marriage!

I’ve experienced this resurrection power of God many times over the years, but there is one time I’ll never forget. It happened in January 1980 when I learned that the leukemia was now in our teenage son’s brain. I bottomed out. I felt like I had nothing left.

On the 3rd day, the power of God lifted me up

I went to bed and lay there for three days. During this time, I could not cry, pray, or read the Bible. I could not reach up to God for help. All I could think about was getting a gun and killing our son and myself. I simply had no strength, no power left. I could not face the future.

On the third day, as God is my witness, a ball of energy suddenly came down from above and entered right into me, filling me up with God’s divine power.

I bounced up out of bed and went into the kitchen. Startled, my husband asked, “What happened to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but God came.” Today I know it was the power of God that came and entered right through the wall of my abdomen.

I call this the greatest day of my life, because I no longer had to try to be strong. I knew through experience the reality of the resurrection power of God. And it is spiritual power, not natural power.

Listen to St. Paul: “that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:5).

A vision of the cross

The power of thecross can touch us deeply—transform our energy, create faith and hope in the face of despair, and make spiritual realities present to us. Some years ago a friend had a vision with the reality of the cross:

“I was standing out in the middle of a violent storm; the lightning flashed again, and off to my left I could see a low hill with three crosses on top of it. Suddenly the center cross was brightly illuminated, filled with light, with a radiance as brilliant as the sun. Spears of light were going up into the sky, down into the earth, and off to both sides. It felt like the light pierced right through me too.

“I cried out, ‘My God, it is all for real!’ and the reality of Jesus Christ and the cross and Him crucified, entered into my heart and I began to weep. Growing up in church, I heard the story of Jesus and the cross, but now the reality entered my heart.

“I was somehow taken back to the terrible storm talked about in the Bible the night Jesus was crucified. It was real: I felt the rain and the wind; I saw the lighting and the cross. I will never forget it; whenever I think of it today, it is still as clear as the night it happened.”