What if Easter is a Bad Day?

This was the latest question from my 9-year-old. I know where he's coming from. This Easter seems a little different. First of all, his sister has a cold, so we're not planning anything too much. It will just be "us" for Easter dinner. We're hoping she feels well enough to go to church at least, but she may not be able to sing with her Sunday School class as planned. Second, and maybe more important for him, he is still on a dairy-free diet, which I think he realizes means a lack of chocolate in his Easter basket. Third, he's a natural worrier, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and we all know that the world gets heavier, the older you get. Just the same, it's a pretty good question.

The truth is, Easter could be a "bad day." People can lose loved ones on Easter. People who have lost loved ones since last Easter are still trying to adjust to a new "normal." The fact that the word "Easter" is written on that date on the calendar does not make it any different than any other day. There are people all over the world who are sick, or lonely, or starving, or homeless, and all of this happens on Easter just the same as any other day.

But Easter can never be a bad day.  "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;  While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:  for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."  2Corinthians 4:17-5:1.  We have this assurance.  No matter what happens to us in this life, good or bad, it is temporal.  It will not last.  We can have hope in affliction, because this world is not all there is.  Jesus proved on Easter morning that there IS life after death.  And that it is more glorious than this life.  The difficulties that we deal with in this life will be over, and we will receive new, heavenly bodies without sickness or hunger or pain.  So as we go through this life, even through the bad days, we live in hope and joy because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter morning.

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:38-39.