I’ve always liked the cartoon depicting the man who shows up at church only once a year on Easter Sunday. Exiting the church at the close of the service, the man grabs the preacher’s hand and complains, “Every time I come to church, you always preach on the same topic.”
As thousands make their way to church this Easter Sunday, some will be regular attenders; some will arrive for their yearly visit, but all encounter the same challenge: hearing the same story without it becoming a ho-hum moment.
I teach an Old Testament class to mainly first-year college students. At first, I was surprised at how many didn’t know stories from the Bible with which I’m so familiar. But, I had forgotten how many years I had been reading those stories; many were strange to my ears at their age, too.
I took advantage of the opportunity and told the stories, leaving open how some of them ended. When possible, I get to the story’s climax, then leave it to the students to find the ending. “Will Uriah the Hittite carry his own death warrant back to the battlefield, allowing King David to hide his adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba?” “Will Solomon allow one of the two women claiming the same baby to cut the infant in two?” As I tell the stories, I notice some eyes widen with anticipation; some even lean forward. Of course, some still have that early-afternoon-after-lunch-glaze over their eyes. I focus on the ones with bright eyes. It’s invigorating to see them hanging in suspense, anticipating the rest of the story.
The trouble with most everyone this Easter Sunday is we’ve heard the rest of the story many times; at least we know it’s a good ending, or we wouldn’t be there in the first place.
But this is not an entirely bad thing.
Knowing the ending need not spoil the thrill of the story.
I’ve been reading Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. When I started reading it, I watched a short video on the book. The trouble is that the video didn’t give me the spoiler alert before telling me how the story ended. So now, I’m reading the story, even as I know its ending.
Then, I went ahead and started reading chapter analyses. The good thing is that those summaries clue me into literary devices Dickens uses that I would have missed. And I can slow down and appreciate the storyline rather than racing through it to find out what happens to Charles Darnay.
Can we receive the Easter story with the same anticipation as the person who doesn’t know if Ehud’s double-edged sword takes out the oppressive King Eglon in the Book of Judges?
Maybe not, but we can yet receive the Truth, perhaps in ways we hadn’t anticipated, for the Lord may surprise us, showing up in ways we hadn’t anticipated. And we can more deeply appreciate the nuances in the story as I do with Dickens’ novel.
Some truths grow more profound the more we hear them, and the more deeply they penetrate our lives, the more we tend to open ourselves to them, making transformation possible. Knowing He is risen, our hearts still beat fast as we anticipate the moment we proclaim, “He is risen!”
A Sunday School teacher had just finished telling her third graders about how Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb.
Then, wanting to share the excitement of the resurrection, she asked: “And what do you think were Jesus’ first words when He came out of that tomb?”
A little girl in the back of the room shot her arm into the air, leaped to her feet, and shouted excitedly, “I know, I know!”
“Good,” said the teacher, “Tell us, what did he say?”
Extending her arms high into the air, she said: “TA-DA!”
She had it right. Sunday is the day we can, in unison, join Christ in saying, “TA-DA!”
No wonder the preacher proclaims the same message every year.