The Easter Beyond Lent
There’s a story about a rich businessman who was visiting his seaside vacation house in a remote province. The morning after he arrived, he saw his house caretaker come home after a whole night of fishing. After giving his catch to his wife, the caretaker then went to rest in a hammock he built under a tree.
The businessman was just observing his trusted guy. But as soon as it got rather late, he couldn’t help approaching the resting fellow. “What are you doing?” he asked him.
“Resting, Sir,” the man replied casually. “I stayed up the whole night at sea.”
“Yes, but you don’t really look very tired. Besides, don’t you think an hour or two is enough for you to recover, if you were tired at all?”
“There’s nothing else to do for now, Sir. I’ve done what needed to be done. As you can see my plants are growing well. My animals are healthy. And my boat doesn’t need any repairing yet,” the man explained.
“But you’re wasting precious time!” the businessman pointed out. “You should be doing something else productive. The weather is good, you can probably go back to the sea to catch more fish.”
“Well, there’s already enough fish for us for today, Sir. I will go back to the sea tonight.”
The businessman explained that it was not enough to just be able to catch fish for the family’s consumption. He suggested that his caretaker catch more fish and sell them. With the proceeds, the fellow could soon buy another boat.
“But why another boat, Sir?” the caretaker asked, “I need only one.”
“You can rent it out to other fishermen, so you can have more income. With more money, you can soon buy yet another boat, and another one, and another…”
“But what about rest, Sir? You mean I should not rest?,” the caretaker inquired.
“Well,” the businessman slowed down, “you will have rest.” “When you become very rich like me, you can already afford to take a vacation. You can get away for a day or two without having to think of work.”
“Ah, so it’s still about having time for rest in the end,” the caretaker said, clearly getting his boss’s point. “I already have that now, Sir.”
Okay, you might say, but what about security? What if the weather suddenly turned bad and the caretaker couldn’t go to sea? What would happen now? What would he feed his family?
It is like asking: What if there’s really no God? Then faith becomes a senseless thing. That’s what.
Some friends well-versed in the subject of theology tell me that faith itself is a gift one is given. God puts it in you, they say; you only need to respond to it. So, even if you are “called,” it’s all up to you whether to take heed or not.
I am not totally with my friends on that “gift” position. Well, maybe my understanding on the issue is little. If faith is a gift, I believe that it is a gift you give yourself. The mere fact that one has the freedom about how to respond to the seed of faith that God puts in him makes it all a choice, basically.
I take full responsibility for my faith or, for that matter, for my not having any. I choose to believe that we are all born into a life of endless possibilities. That’s God’s fundamental gift to us – that we can make something or be something, if we work earnestly at it.
“Behold, the Lord is risen.” That’s the core message of the Easter celebration. He promised that He would “never be gone away” from us. The Lord has kept his word.
Easter is only a mere symbol. And the whole idea may be necessary only for those who have doubts. It is a reminder at least that one’s faith has basis, a proof of sorts that the God one believes in did not die for long.
The God I believe in did not die, never does and never will. But I believe in Easter, too. Although my Easter does not only come around once a year at Lent. My Easter throbs at every single moment of my life, an inexplicable feeling of certainty that God is always watching over me.