Easter Sunday The Resurrection Of The Lord

There are some Christian educational toys for Ages 4-9, like Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand; Daniel and the Lion's Den; Jesus Walks on Water; Moses and the Ten Plagues. Each Playset features full-color, child-safe, action figures that are designed to be paired with its own book which neatly explains each Bible story.

There is also an Easter version called The Easter Story, Calvary Hill that has a plastic stone that really rolls away in a slot and three removable crosses. However, with this Playset, there is no available story book, and the set comes with no action figures, but one is encouraged to “Collect them All.”

1.First you need to insert the big cross on Calvary Hill.

Because it all begins with a man hanging on a cross dead who they lay in a freshly hewn grave with a 5,000-pound stone sealing the entrance.

St. Paul knows how scandalous his preaching is about a crucified Messiah. He calls it a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but he refuses to present it in a more acceptable way because one must embrace the scandal of the cross in order to experience God's saving righteousness.

Paul says ‘I die daily’ in 1 Corinthians 15:31. He is defending the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus in this chapter, saying in verse 14, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

Easter begins by first going to the tomb.

The Desert Fathers spoke of a first resurrection in this life of the soul that happens when we have overcome the passions and aligned our will to love God above all things.

The more we die in our heart to sinful desires and embrace where Jesus leads us, the more we will experience the power of the Resurrection in our interior life and in our reception of the Eucharist because our feeling of hope increases.

2. In the Easter playset, after you buy the Jesus Son of God action figure, the second most important one is Mary Magdalen.

Then you can reenact the greatest recognition scene in the history of the world: “Mary! Rabboni!”

It wasn’t until Jesus called her name did she recognize him, and that is what broke through her grief, panic and misunderstanding.

The breakthrough will happen. Don’t give up 10 minutes before the miracle. Easter is about eternal life made possible by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and that brings hope.

A poet wrote that “hope springs eternal.” Hope is another way in which God whispers your name.

3. There were three other women who also came to the tomb that first Easter morning: Mary, the mother of James, Joanna, and Salome. But, in Luke 24:11, when they told the disciples that Jesus was alive because they had seen him, Luke writes, “their story seemed like nonsense.”

Nevertheless, as the Catechism in # 641 says, “Jesus himself upbraided [the disciples] for their unbelief and lack of faith for not believing the witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus.

The women at the tomb did not think they were in charge of Easter. But they were. Like Mary Magdalen in John 20:18, they all could say, “I have seen the Lord, and this is what he said to me” in a see-tell messaging which is how testimony works, and to which Jesus assures: “That’ll preach!”

Like the testimony of Keith, who said that he quietly resigned himself to a life of addiction and to feeling sorry for himself. He had been going fruitlessly to 12 step meetings. Demoralized, he would think to himself, “And now look where I have ended up, with you all.” He would not shake hands with anybody at meetings and he let the members know that too. He said that maybe he thought he would catch something from them.

Then, he was given the grace of a new life.

He was able to say, “I did catch something from them: Recovery. Thank God. I got sober.” He says, “Today I get access to this flowing power of recovery by working on myself, the Steps, and reaching out to help others. I discovered that recovery is like a lake that needs an inflow and an outflow. The inflow is attending meetings, phone calls, literature and working the Steps. The outflow is trying to help, reaching out to others, and service in the fellowship. Too much outflow, the lake runs dry, too little, and the lake goes stagnant, shallow, and lifeless.

I mentioned that there was not an accompanying storybook to the Easter Playset. Maybe because the very language of Easter—Pascal-- tells us this that we have to personally experience it. Pasch means "Passing through," in Exodus Chapter 12, and refers to the Israelites' passing through the Red Sea, which we experience sacramentally in baptism, it’s the beginning of our passing from death to new life, and the Eucharist, when received with the proper dispositions, gives the promise of being resurrected to eternal life.