This is a day in which Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. The birth, life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ provide the most fundamental elements of the Faith, and yet too often we overlook another profound fact – that the remaining Disciples could not have gone into the world and spread the Gospel in the face of every possible hardship had they not seen the risen Savior.
If this pivotal event does not occur, Christianity dies with Jesus himself. But, of course, things did not turn out that way, which is why the observance of Easter is sacred. To expand a bit further, consider an offering from The Prince of Preachers –
"The fact is, the most of us are vastly inferior to the early Christians, who, as I take it, were persecuted because they were thoroughly Christians, and we are not persecuted because we hardly are Christians at all. They were so earnest in the propagation of the Redeemer’s kingdom, that they became the nuisance of the age in which they lived. They would not let errors alone. They had not conceived the opinion that they were to hold the truth, and leave other people to hold error without trying to intrude their opinions upon them, but they preached Christ Jesus right and left, and delivered their testimony against every sin.
"They denounced the idols, and cried out against superstition, until the world, fearful of being turned upside down, demanded of them, 'Is that what you mean? Then we will burn you, lock you up in prison, and exterminate you.' To which the church replied, 'We will accept the challenge, and will not depart from our resolve to conquer the world for Christ.' At last the fire in the Christian church burned out the persecution of an ungodly world."
-- from "The Former And Latter Rain," a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892); delivered July 11, 1869
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