This question was asked on Mahalo Answers. Here is the full question:
What does Easter mean to you?
Just like the title asks, What does Easter mean to you? (prefer a little more then the religious aspect, looking for personal meaning/traditions/ and insights)
I found this to be an interesting question. I usually do not get into what would be considered a "religious discussion" online but I really felt compelled to answer. If you would like to see my answer and some more thoughts please keep reading. I would also love to hear your thoughts too.
What Easter Means to Me
When I was growing up Easter meant time with the family, dinner, easter egg hunts, ham, deviled eggs, pea and celery salad, going to grandmas, and having my dad say grace. It was about getting up early and going to a sunrise service, wearing your best dress clothes and having grandma take Polaroids of us. It was about remembering that Christ died and rose again, singing "Up from the grave he arose" and all of the hymns you only sing around that time of year. It was about spring and the hope of things to come as the earth comes out of its winter sleep.
Now it is still about many of those things for me. Only now I am dad and I don't live so close to home, so its about my children and close friends. About hiding the eggs instead of finding them, and filling them instead of emptying (ok if I am honest, I still find them and let my wife hide them). We buy the girls pretty dresses and hats and the boy get dressed up in suits. We get together with friends and enjoy the hope of things to come.
But mostly what Easter means to me is "hope". Much like Thanksgiving is the time we reflect on a year gone past and give thanks, Easter is the time we reflect on the Hope of things to come and rejoice. Its not about being religious for me, but about the glory of a risen Saviour and the hope that this brings to me in a personal way! Not hope like "Gee I hope it doesn't rain today" but the hope that drives each person everyday. The hope of something promised to me. Like the hope that my daughter has each year on her birthday, knowing that since we share the same birthday that she and I will go out for breakfast to celebrate together. I have the hope of the promise of Easter. Easter means no death! I have the hope that no matter what happened yesterday, will happen today, or might happen tomorrow, its only a moment in what will be a glorious eternity with a real and personal God who loves me beyond all measure.
Thank you for this question and for allowing me the opportunity to express what Easter really means to me. Here is a video from a Veggie Tales movie called "An Easter Carol" This really sums up what Easter means to me.
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