Easter was about the egg hunt until he found the real meaning

As a child, Easter meant a weekend of eating lots of chocolate, candy, sweet delights, and looking forward to a great meal prepared by my mom.

We’d go into town on Saturday for an Easter egg hunt, and then color hard-boiled eggs to hunt at home on Sunday.

Mom would hide the eggs and then my brother and my sister and I would find them. There would be prizes marked on some of the eggs.

Sometimes, mom would even make it a “treasure” egg hunt! She’d give us clues about where to find a special golden egg for a very special prize.

My cousin would usually come over after church to celebrate Easter with us. Her family, being devout Catholic, always went to church on Easter Sunday.

I went a couple of times with them and found it to be a strange experience since my family never went to church. My dad never mentioned God or anything about religion, but my mom occasionally referred to “The man upstairs.”

Even so, my parents were very honest hard-working, generous people.

During the Easter service I attended with my cousin, it seemed odd to me that many people kept kneeling at times and toward the end many went up front to have something put into their mouths. I remember wondering at the time who this “Jesus Christ” was they talked about.

I never knew the true meaning of Easter until I became a Christian just before my sophomore year of high school.

A girl on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ shared the gospel with me in such a simple yet understandable way from the Four Spiritual Laws booklet.

From that day forward a true, blissful feeling of security washed over me. I knew from then on that if I died, I would go to be with God in heaven.

I now know that Easter represents Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead three days after his brutal death on a Roman cross.

The name Jesus is derived from the name Joshua in the Old Testament of the Bible. It means “Yahweh” which in the Old Testament means, essentially, “God as our Savior.”

Christ comes from the Old Testament word “Messiah,” meaning an anointed one from God.

By digging deeper into not only his name, but his life by studying the Bible, we can understand Jesus’ love for us, and his ultimate purpose (life, death and resurrection) which is why we observe Easter.

Jesus Christ, a part of God, was born. He faced life’s challenges and temptations, yet lived a sinless life. He was executed on a Roman cross as the perfect sacrifice for all our sins since we all have sinned and separated ourselves from God.

Jesus took the punishment for our sins so that we don’t have to suffer the consequences of being separated from God for eternity in hell.

No matter how many good works or religious rites we do, God sees us all as sinners. Out of his love for us, he gave us free choice to trust in him as our Savior and Lord.

If we believe as truth that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins, that he was buried and rose from the grave three days later, we can receive his sinless righteousness.

We can have inner peace and joy, with true meaning and purpose in life.

And then one day, when our life is over, we will live in happiness with him in his heavenly kingdom, forever.