Easter is coming.
I suspect that there are very few who do not find some joy in this holiday and I am no exception.
There are many traditions that people keep alive, such as egg hunting, family dinners, sunrise church services; the list goes on.
While I do find joy in these things, I find the most joy in the hope of the Christian message.
For many people, Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus that ends with their own personal salvation. It would be wrong to say that this is a little thing to celebrate.
Anytime a man is raised from the dead – or a sinful man receives grace – it is far from a little thing. I am deeply thankful for this in my own life. However, I do believe that it often falls short of the biblical narrative. The problem is not that we see the wrong thing, but that we see only a portion of the whole picture.
The biblical story is summed up by the categories of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. That last category is the one that is so often missing. What we fail to recognize is that what has been broken will also be restored.
Easter is a celebration of a savior raised from the dead. Easter is also a celebration of a king ascending to a throne. His kingdom was set above all earthly kingdoms, and his work of restoration began. The resurrection story tells us that a new political reality will be realized as all enemies of the king will be destroyed.
You may find yourself asking what this means – as I often do – because it is hard to imagine a world without temptation, sin, death, shame, sickness and all of the hard things that we face. We call these things natural, as if they are the way things always were. We call it a miracle when a sickness is healed or when the dead are raised.
From the perspective of a broken world, it is certainly miraculous. However – from the perspective of a good creation – it is simply what is wrong being made right.
Easter is a great time to consider the restoration of all things. In a world of broken things, we often find it hard to see much hope. We often settle for what is broken, because we can’t imagine anything that is whole. The message set before us in the resurrection is that God is redeeming the creation. The Easter message that I hope we can all see is that there is hope for a better tomorrow.
So maybe this Easter, we can consider what it would look like for ourselves, our families, our culture and our politics to be made whole. Maybe we can recite the Lord’s prayer and consider what it means when it says “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.”
And maybe, we can remember that what is broken will be restored.
Jeremy Wiggins writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He is a resident of the Tallulah community and can be reached via email, jeremywiggins87@gmail.com.