It’s beginning to look a lot like Easter! When I think about how Easter looks, I think about the blooming azaleas in my childhood home and hunting for Easter eggs in the newly green St. Augustine grass. Easter, unlike Christmas, is not bombarded by commercialism, expectations, excessive shopping, office parties, school obligations and tons of presents to buy and wrap. Easter is the celebration of hope and the stunning belief that Jesus actually rose from the dead, so that we may also rise. I hope you do celebrate Easter in your home with a good meal, after observing Holy Week, the week leading to the big day.
Besides the hymns and classics in the church, there are very few Easter-related songs. “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” was sung when I was a child and played on a 45-rpm record player in our home. I don’t know if kids know and sing that one anymore, my sons did not learn it. The generation before me heard Bing Crosby sing, “In Your Easter Bonnet”. But bonnets went out of fashion before my time. The Easter songs of the church focus on the theme of victory and hope, and we need both in our lives today.
When I think of the meaning of Easter, outside what the Bible records, I think about the true story of the U.S.S. Squalus, a submarine. On May 23, 1939, the Squalus was just beginning a test dive in the Atlantic Ocean, not far from Portsmouth, N.H. The navy submarine carried a crew of 59, made up of five officers and fifty-one enlisted men. On that day, their test was to complete an emergency dive to avoid detection during war. The order was given to dive but just as she submerged, the engine room began to flood. Somehow the main induction valve, that brings air into the engines while surfaced, was left open. The U.S.S. Squalus sank like a rock, 243 feet below the surface, in water a few degrees above freezing. In the forward compartments, 33 men remained alive. Emergency rockets were fired from the sub from time to time. After four hours another sub spotted the flares and moved toward the sunken ship, along with two other ships. Divers were sent to the bottom and walked along the upper deck. They could hear tapping from inside the Squalus, it was morse code and it asked the question, “Is There Any Hope?” Never had survivors from such a wreck been rescued from this depth. But the divers had faith that something could be done, and so they tapped back in morse code. “Yes, There Is Hope!” In fact, 33 of the 59 sailors and officers were rescued.
That story illustrates the fate of every person who has ever lived, including you who are reading this. We are trapped in this life with no escape from death outside of ourselves. Our fate is sealed, and our air is running out. Our only hope is to place our trust in our “rescuer” our “Savior”, Jesus Christ. He descended to us to give us a message from on high, “Yes, yes there is hope!” We must put our trust in him to save us. That is what the celebration of Easter is all about. If you have not found that hope in your life, it is not too late!
Happy Easter!
(Steve Berger is pastor of First Methodist Church Minden, a Global Methodist Church. He is the husband of Dianne, his partner in ministry, they have two adult sons, a dachshund, and love living in Minden.)
