April 2000
Following lunch with some colleague-friends, one of them stopped back by our table. He held a colored sales brochure in his hand and said something to the effect of using the brochure in a sermon illustration.
When paying the luncheon bill I saw the same brochure and picked it up with the thought I might also be able to use it. From that results this article.
The brochure is beautiful multi-color. There are 17 descriptive color frames advertising items for sale from $.99 to $39.99, each. The front cover pictures a small boy dressed in an “infant carrot romper, infant carrot top hat, Easter puff squeeze pets”. One of the outside frames pictures a little girl holding a basket filled with “ceramic Easter eggs”.
At the bottom of the front cover of the brochure is a two word phrase “Easter traditions” and the logo of the restaurant in small letters. (The restaurant serves tasty food at a reasonable price and no alcohol).
Of the 17 color framed advertisements, five have Christian significance. An “inspirational flag”, inserted with a white cross, a “God speaks plaque”,
a framed “angels unaware print”, “Church in the Wildwood” CD or cassette and an “Easter cross pin”.
My Christian concern about this brochure is the secularization of “Easter traditions”. Not an “Easter tradition” of live or stuffed animals, Easter eggs and Easter candy, new clothes or a ham dinner. I understand, that for the Christian, “Easter traditions” have to do with what we know about Jesus from the holy Scriptures. This includes the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul is very clear about the resurrection of Christ. In his treatise on the resurrection to the Church in Corinth (I Corinthians 15), he writes, “unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless” (I Corinthians 15:17, Contemporary English Version).
Our Christian “traditions” about Easter are based on reality – the reality that because Christ was raised from the dead, we have a hope beyond death and the grace, an eternal life with the risen Christ in heaven.
May you be blessed with a great Easter, an “Easter tradition” of “Life and Life More Abundantly”.
Your friend and Pastor, John
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