Easter Means There Is Hope

The trees are budding, the sun is setting later, flowers are beginning to grow, and temperatures are finally getting warmer – well, some of the day anyway. Spring is here, and with that, Easter is coming.

I have always loved Easter coinciding with the arrival of spring, because there’s no better vivid illustration of what Easter conveys than nature coming to life again after months of death, cold and darkness. Easter can bring many things to mind for people, but for me, every year, Easter brings a reminder that life triumphed over death, light overcame darkness, and hope is greater than fear or despair.

For those of us who know the greatest story ever told, we know from the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight how Easter weekend ends. It ends with Jesus Christ risen from the dead, triumphing over death, hell and the grave. It ends with a group of cowards being transformed into bold and unwavering martyrs. It ends with the fastest-growing movement in all of history, inspired by the tomb that remains empty to this day. It ends with the miracle of the resurrection validating the claims of a Jewish rabbi, who is alive today and who invites you and I to receive him into our hearts and lives.

Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked that Jesus of Nazareth is different from any other great leader with a great empire in history because he conquers not by force, but by love, by winning over our hearts. Does Jesus have your heart today?

Easter is a time of celebration in 2025, but for Jesus’ disciples who followed him for three years, Easter weekend was a time of mourning, despair, and a sense of utter hopelessness. They watched the man they knew and believed to be more than man willingly allow himself to be beaten, tortured and crucified. Their hopes and dreams were dead. Darkness enveloped the land. It looked as if all had been lost.

Sometimes it seems and feels that way in life, doesn’t it? We face a tragedy or health limitations or marital challenges, or our careers are lost, or our children are wayward, and we’ve lost hope. Easter is the ultimate example of God turning tragedy into triumph, evil into good, defeat into victory, hopelessness into hope. For the one who trusts in Jesus, the Bible says we have a “living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

What does Easter weekend have to do with you and me? How does the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ have any bearing on your life? Since the dawn of time, humanity has had a problem: we sin. All other problems in our society and our lives stem from the underlying spiritual condition that we have with sin, and our condition is terminal. We have chosen to follow the example of our ancestors and sin against a holy and just God every day.

The Bible tells us that sin separates us from God, and after having warned humanity of the dire spiritual and eternal consequences of choosing our way instead of his way, he could have given us over with no recourse or rescue. Yet, the good news of Easter is summed up in these words: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Because of Easter, there is hope for you and me to be saved from our sin, to be made right with God, to have the presence of God in a loving relationship in our everyday lives, and to have the promise of eternal life. That is what Easter is about. I have spoken at many funerals over the years, but one of the toughest speaking opportunities I had was last year at a gathering of parents to remember their children who had died. The theme was hope. When I arrived, someone thanked me for coming and summed up the challenge before me saying: “How do you talk about hope to parents who lost their children?” I knew then, and I know now, where my hope comes from. It comes from an empty tomb and the promise of having Jesus Christ in my heart and life. Where do you get your hope?

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25).

Stephen Mitchell is the senior pastor of Trinity Bible Church in Severna Park. He also is the host of a regular podcast, “Real Christian Talk with Pastor Steve,” available on all podcast platforms.