What does Easter mean to you?

What does Easter mean to you?

In his book If I Should Die Before I Live, Joe Lomusio writes: "If I were to ask you to describe Easter without using any words, and you could only use punctuation marks, which punctuation mark would you choose to describe this Easter for yourself?

"Maybe this Easter is a comma for you. It makes you stop, pause, think, and listen, but that's about it.

Perhaps today is a downer -- a big bold period. You thought you'd feel excited, but instead it seems to be more like empty ritual. You feel like you're not on the inside, but on the outside . . . an onlooker. It was day when life felt like a period for Jesus' disciples. He was dead. He was buried. An end to expectations.

"But wait -- news of an empty tomb . . . the period is no longer a period, it's a question mark. That's worse than a period. Now they're beginning to doubt. Where is He? They're perplexed. the guards are gone, the stone is rolled away. He is not there. And if not there, where? An angel speaks, 'Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and how He must be crucified, and the third day He must rise again?'

"Of course they remembered! The periods are gone. The question marks are removed.

There is one massive exclamation point! That's what Easter is all about . . . an exclamation of gratitude and of praise for the resurrection Jesus Christ and for the salvation His victory over death brought to us."

So what does Easter mean to you?

( if i knew who to give credit to I would -- had this for a while now)