Easter Sunday of Joy: Have You Found What You're Looking For On Life's Perpetual Easter Egg Hunt For Happiness?

ON THIS JOYOUS EASTER MORNING, it's good to remember that happiness comes from external things.  However no matter how good they are, they never tend to last.

Joy, on the other hand, comes from a heart that's tapped into the only lasting joyful reality there is:  believing in Christ's one-time sacrificial suffering and death on the Cross to mankind and His eternal triumph over our sin and death. Blessed are us sinners who know we're sinners in need of a Savior. Blessed is the joy this brings in spite of our earthly struggles, even as we await its eternal fulfillment one day.

Here is a wonderful piece from Desiring God:

LIKE CHILDREN SCATTERING around a yard for Easter eggs, you and I are on a hunt. We all hunt. Our thirsty souls rummage through every nook and cranny of this world, in search of shiny pleasures and saccharine delights. Every such joy seeker, in pursuit of treasures that will not fade or rust or break or be stolen, must pay careful attention to Easter — not with a nod-off-through-the-sermon kind of attention, but with a real, earnest, eager attention riveted on Christ.

If we miss the significance of the resurrection, we scamper past the greatest joy in the universe. The Joy of Jesus As the dark shadows stalked the soon-to-be crucified Christ, he turned his attention to joy. Throughout this Holy Week of his crucifixion, Jesus had foreshadowed his death for his disciples who struggled to make sense of it all. He addressed their concerns directly in John 16:19–24. Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

We rewind Holy Week to hear Jesus forecast the changes to come in his resurrection. He wanted his disciples to anticipate Easter Sunday as the cataclysmic dawning of true joy. And here’s what it all means for joy seekers......

 CONTINUE READING: JOY BOUGHT BY BLOOD AND SUFFERING