(She honestly doesn’t remember which kid it was.  That means it was probably yours.)

She kept from bursting out laughing and asked, “And…? What happened next?”  And several kids called out, “And he came back to life!”

Just to make sure that stuck, she made them call out “Jesus is alive!” a whole bunch of times. 

A Christian School teacher asked her class the week before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important.

One little girl spoke up saying: “Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that.”

“No, that’s not it,” said the teacher.

“I know what Easter is,” a second student responded. “Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs.”

“Nope, that’s not it either,” replied the teacher.

Finally a third student spoke up, “Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days.”

“Ah, thank goodness somebody knows” the teacher thought to herself. But then the student went on: “Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter.”

What do you think?  Is it worth holding onto so I can tell it next Easter? 

Unfortunately, it appears that enough people assumed that his article was an attack on Christianity that he had to write a follow up: Faith Isn’t Under Fire: The Difference Between Christianity and ‘Christian America.’ The fact that some people don’t seem to understand that these are two separate things is a bit frustrating to me.  I’ve bumped into plenty of Christians who don’t seem to get the idea that the church does best when it is not wed to political power.  We get hooked into thinking that all hell will break loose if we don’t rally behind this political party or vote for that ballot initiative.  But in fact, Jesus himself resisted political power and rejected the attempts of the people to make him king, opting instead to face death at the hands of the empire.  Yet the temptation is always there for Christians — especially here in America, with our strong religious heritage and representative democracy — to try to wield the sword of political power, to build our own empire in God’s name.

My hope, as we approach Easter Sunday in the midst of a changing religious, political, and economic landscape, is that we who call ourselves Christians will continue to trust and follow Jesus Christ.  I hope that we will remember that the way of Jesus is not that of wielding the sword of political influence against those who disagree with us but is that of loving service, even to those who consider themselves our enemies.  Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus Christ show us that the power of God’s love will always be greater than the power of the empire.  So let’s hold tight to the unstoppable love of God and trust that the way of loving service is the way of transformation. Love wins.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this.  Please feel free to share them in the comments below!

Also, of course, if you don’t have a church home and live in or near Valparaiso, Indiana, we’d love to have you join us at Living Hope this Sunday morning at 9:30 at the Aberdeen Manor banquet hall. Details are on the Living Hope website.

For the past year or two, I’ve been the only pastor in the group.

This past Wednesday was April 1 — April Fool’s Day.  I kind of expected that more people would play pranks or do something goofy as part of their presentation, but very few did.  I showed up a couple minutes late, and it was a packed house!  The final count was 77 people, I think.  So I ended up standing by the door with about a dozen other late arrivals.

When it was my turn, I stepped up, took the mic, and said something like the following:

Hi, I’m Rich Schmidt from Living Hope Community Church.  In honor of April Fool’s Day, I want to encourage you all to stay away from Living Hope.

[a few polite chuckles]

Please don’t show up on Easter Sunday, April 12th, at 9:30 at the Aberdeen Manor banquet hall.  If for some reason you do stop by, please be sure you dress up!  People will look at you funny if you show up in blue jeans. And don’t bring your kids!  Elementary age kids absolutely hate the kids program at our church.  They beg their parents not to make them come back.

[a few genuine laughs at this one -- people remembering their own childhood experiences with being dragged to church?]

Let’s see, there was something else.

[I was genuinely forgetting part of it here, but John Freyek saved me by saying, "The pastor won't be talking about God or anything, right?"]

Oh, yeah, the pastor’s really boring. Be ready for the most boring hour of your life.

[a few more genuine laughs]

And, uh… Oh yeah, I hope you all die and rot in hell.

[BOOM! The room erupted in laughter!]

Like I said, I really look forward to A.M. Valpo.  It’s not everyday that I get to tell a room full of business leaders that I hope they’ll die and rot in hell!

Of course, my hope for every one of them (and for you, whoever you are) is exactly the opposite.  I hope they all find the peace and joy and life that God created them for, the kind of life that I’ve found in trusting and following Jesus Christ.  God’s love for us is more powerful than any sin, than any addictive behavior, than any heartache, than even death itself.  “Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” is how the apostle Paul put it in his letter to the Romans (chapter 8, verse 39).

This Easter season, I hope you get a taste of the powerful, unstoppable love that God has for you.