Ostertag

"Ostertag" is, of course, "Easter Day" in German, which was yesterday.  I don't have any particular need to wish a happy Ostertag to you specifically in German; I just happened to have remembered singing at a place called "Ostertag Vistas", an 18th-Century farm and event center in Maryland, years ago, a very enjoyable experience that now has me thinking the word "Ostertag" every Easter day, including as I was about to write this.

I really wanted to confine this day's piece to yesterday's holy day, because Easter has always meant something different to all of us, certainly different from Christmas (the other day that many of us stop into church).

Christmas has the songs, and the story, and the trappings and Santa Claus.  Even when we remember that it is a religious holiday, the birth of Jesus is a different kind of miracle.  Accepting that the substantiation of the Word of God into a human form is a miraculous event, what even the believers of the day experienced was a birth, and they had all encountered those before.

The rising of the crucified Christ, however, His appearance to followers and ascent to Heaven, is what Christianity is, certainly to me.  Jesus let us know that he was ascending with the burden of man, our sins, if only we accept Him, and if there is a more fundamental tenet to essential Christianity than that, I don't know what it is.

I may have had a marshmallow bunny or a little extra chocolate this past weekend, but I can tell you that I took a lot of time to meditate on the real meaning of the day, the resurrection of our Lord and the remission of our sins by His crucifixion and rising, that we celebrate on Easter.

We all sin, as imperfect humans.  We, as Christians, don't sin more just because we know that our acceptance of Jesus Christ grants forgiveness; we sin less because we understand that the price of the granting of our redemption was for Him to suffer and die on a cross.  At least I hope we sin less for that reason.

Thinking of that at this time of year, I think, imparts that much more meaning to our lives.  And I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking that.

Hope your Ostertag was a similar mix.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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