Happy Easter 2025

I'm always going to remember this one.

There’s a pithy side of me that wants to suggest you read the Bible if you’re looking for an Easter book, because hey. Other than bunnies and chocolate and colored eggs, the masses don’t really look to Easter for any deep meaning. It doesn’t get a subgenre of rom-coms or tongue-in-cheek action flicks every year. Outside of Christendom it’s just an excuse to sell plastic and corn syrup.

A few of you follow me on X/Twitter, but for those who don’t, I locked my account a few weeks or months ago, so I couldn’t link you do the post I wrote last night. The bent of it was that I had spent a lot of this week pondering on how to celebrate Easter more meaningfully with my family. The kids are still young enough to appreciate an egg hunt and such, but other than that, what would it mean for us to celebrate Easter with effort?

Then this year’s Easter holiday happened and a few miracles lined up that I keep thinking about.

Good News

“Gospel” has an etymological path that translates to “good news.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the “good news” that He lives, and therefore death isn’t the end of us and our sins can be forgiven.

In the interest of avoiding details, a friend got some really great news yesterday that removed a roadblock he had in life—one that would have prevented him from marrying his fiancée this summer. This roadblock was so significant that I had been delaying the purchase of a plane ticket because I wasn’t sure his wedding was going to happen when he and the missus had planned. Now they can proceed. I’m grateful for that good news on his behalf.

Good Timing

Yesterday at 6:30AM I got an emergency dispatch call from work. Anyone who knows truckers, knows that they hate dispatch. Dispatch is a necessary (and often idiotic) evil. Most times when they ask me to work a weekend (happens 3-4 times a year) I say no. For some reason on this instance I felt good about saying yes.

(I could tell they really needed help—usually I’ve got to bug them for bonus pay, this time they opened up with it in the initial text.)

At the end of the route, hammering through eleven hours of rain and mud and traffic, I got a call from my friend about his pending nuptials. Not only could he get married on the date he wanted, I would also be able to fly out and see him, now that I’ve run this route. Heck of a coincidence…

Good Luck*

As a cherry on top of all this, Saturday night there was an activity at church. It started right as I finished my route. My wife drove the kids in our van, and I had a choice to either meet her there or just go home and sleep (I had been awake for almost 20 hours.) I decided to go to the activity, mingle a little, dance with my wife, and then we headed home.

It had been raining all day. At night it rained even harder. Soon we were dealing with flood conditions. I had no idea there were so many low road spots and intersections. Between the church and home we started to see cars stalled in intersections up to their grilles. I have a 4x4 with high ground clearance and a Hemi—something I intentionally sought out when I purchased it years ago. I wasn’t worried about me, I was worried about my wife in our minivan behind me.

We had to “ford” half a dozen intersections before getting to our neighborhood, which has a wash running through it. As we got ready to take the last turn in, we saw a whole family standing in their driveway, waving their arms frantically at us not to turn left. I got lucky and ignored my instinct to try it. Instead I parked in the driveway next to theirs and ran over to ask what was wrong.

The husband pointed down the street in the dark. Two houses were flooded to their front doors, and the flood waters were WAY deeper than they looked. Standing on his sidewalk, my 8-inch work boots were covered. One car had tried it and ended up floating into someone’s front yard to rest against a tree. As we spoke a Chevy Silverado tried to make the turn, took off, and sank up to its hood, losing power.

Let me tell you how much it sucks to watch someone float away in a car, knowing you can’t help them.

In a sense they were lucky that the water wasn’t running, just standing. They weren’t getting swept away but they also weren’t going anywhere, and their vehicles were probably ruined. I would have lost my prized Durango if I’d ignored the neighbors, standing out in the wet and cold to warn people away.

We had to park my van against the curb with the hazards on so people could see it, pile my whole family into my Durango (the rain was still hammering at this point) and drive the long way around to enter my neighborhood another way. We still hit a few swimming holes with car-sized pool toys on our voyage. My daughter was pretty nervous. My wife insisted we say a prayer before we tried it, and I insisted we say a prayer once we got home.

(I still remember the first time I pulled my car into my new driveway in 2022, thinking “Man, this is unnecessarily steep.” Couldn’t be happier, our house is on high ground and was spared the hazard.)

What does this mean for Easter?

Easter celebrates the Resurrection of Christ, being His victory over death. That came part-and-parcel with the Atonement, being Christ’s victory over sin. I think, though, that we sometimes overlook that quality of the Atonement that made Him familiar with all of our pain. All of our struggle and hardship and suffering. He knows all of it and He bore all of it so He could carry it all away.

I don’t want to say too much beyond that because there’s a hazard with chatting lightly about profound spiritual experiences. You can cheapen something sacred when you hand it out too lightly. Suffice it to say that all suffering is swallowed up in Christ, and that’s what we celebrate on Easter. He made that happen. Whatever else happens to us in this life is temporary.

That isn’t to say it doesn’t suck. It’s just not permanent. The suffering of my neighbors and townsfolk who weren’t so fortunate in the flood last night…that’s swallowed up in Christ too, and I hope and pray those people have relief.

I’ll leave you with the final words of the prophet Ether from the Book of Mormon, circa 400 B.C.

34 Now the last words which are written by Ether are these: Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen.

This life is a test. Christ is the Way to pass it. Because of Him, it has a purpose and a path. That’s what I celebrate on Easter.

Thanks for reading.