When I was a child, attending Sunday School was an important part of my life especially on Easter Sunday. The flowers were springing up, and there was a sense of renewal all over. If I had any new spring clothes, I would save them to wear on this particular Sunday. Yet the Bible account of Christ Jesus’ resurrection was always the highlight of the day for me. In our Protestant Sunday School, we had a lovely teacher who topped off her navy blue suit with a large purple orchid. Never mind that she had brought it out from a hatbox atop the closet shelf; it was perennial. It appeared every year. And when we managed to take our eyes off the “eternal” orchid, as some folks called it, we settled down to hear the wonderful account of Jesus’ victory over death.
The creator of the purple orchid was attempting to bring out in a lasting way the beauty of the real flower, because flowers do apparently die. And no matter how beautiful and flowing our lives may be, no matter how prosperous, human thought is convinced that we, too, have a beginning and an ending.
But the resurrection of Jesus helps us to see beyond the cycles of blooming and decay that characterize mortal existence. The Master not only proved the immortality of life through his resurrection; he pointed to a deeper, more practical understanding of resurrection. His teachings show that it’s more than a one-time occurrence. It involves putting off daily a materialistic concept of life, which is the very essence of mortality with its beginnings and endings.
