Did you ever notice how people in the secular world often are attracted to some of our Christian feasts or celebrations? Take the feast of the Nativity of the Lord, for instance. Most secular folks know it as Christmas, but notice what they do during that season? They celebrate in all sorts of secular ways: Gift giving, card sending, visiting friends, et cetera. Whether they believe in the birth of the Savior is hard to say, but they know there is something sacred about this day, so they celebrate it.

Or take the feast of Saint Valentine which folks in the secular world call Valentine’s Day. We usually think of Valentine’s Day to be associated with red roses, candy heart-shaped boxes, winged cherubs flying about shooting starry-eyed loves with arrows.

But Valentine’s Day is first of all the feast of a Christian Martyr, a young Roman citizen who lived in the Third Century A, D. during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. He healed the daughter of the jailor of the prison where he was confined. The jailor and his whole family were converted to Christianity. It was Valentine’s gift to the jailor and his family. So, that is where the secular world gets the idea of gift giving on Valentine’s Day. Lovers give gifts to one another. Can’t get any more Christian than that.

Finally, we come to Easter, the glorious day we celebrate today. It is also a big day in the secular world, of course, even though most folks do not know it by it’s true title: The Resurrection of the Lord. But that does not stop secular people from celebrating it even in strange ways: Easter egg hunts on the Whitehouse lawn, purchasing rabbits or baby chicks for whatever reason. Perhaps they will eat lamb at Easter dinner.

But, intuitively I think people also know there is something sacred about this day, whether they happen to attend church or not. Therefore, they follow secular customs. If it were not already a holy day, they might not do all these things. For all those reasons, therefore, I am a secularist, a man of the world.

So, is there any theological insight we can draw from this feast which is both sacred and, for many people, also secular? What have we believed about Christ’s resurrection since the earliest times of Christianity? We have believed that a good Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth went about preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. People who heard his words often felt that God had spoken and given them new life.

Not only that, Jesus, that good man, went out of his way on several occasion to feed people. People went home feeling that their life had been restored, that God had fed them.

On the night before he died he celebrated a meal, the Paschal meal, with his friends and he told them that whenever they would do what he had just done, they should remember him.

Finally, people killed that good man, Jesus, but three days later Jesus’ followers had this strange feeling and conviction that he had risen from the dead and was still with them. In fact, he even appeared to them on several occasion and ate with them.

Notice, none of them tried to explain how Jesus was raised from the dead, but they knew instinctively that the same person was still with them and that gave them life and hope.

So, whether or not the secular world understands all this about Jesus’ resurrection, it is still all about a celebration of the life of Christ that goes on forever. It’s not about the resuscitation of a dead body.

The question then is this: How should we celebrate the resurrection today? For some, coloring Easter eggs will do, buying little chicks as well perhaps. But for those of us who believe that Jesus’ resurrection is an article of faith and that it has been passed down to us for over two thousand years we would expect do something more: We will listen again to the resurrection stories. We will celebrate the Eucharist again and again as he asked us to do.

But there are also some so-called secular experiences that happen in our world every day that could remind us that Christ is risen.

Here is my sense of it: Whenever there is a sign of new life, Jesus Christ is risen. (No proof needed) When, for instance husbands and wives make up after a quarrel, Christ is risen. Whenever families put their differences aside and live together in peace, Christ is risen. When Pope Benedict leads the world in efforts to find peace, Christ is risen. When people in government try to mend fences and live peacefully, Christ is risen. Whenever a teenager is made to feel that he or she is worthwhile, Christ is risen. Whenever a person with AIDS is cured, Christ is risen. When battered women and children are helped to find new life, Christ is risen. In short, whenever any of us do any of these things, Christ is risen.

So, where do all those things happen? They happen out there in our secular world where we live and work every day.

Perhaps being a secular person, therefore, isn’t such a bad option after all. We’re all in some sense secularists. It’s in the world where spend most of our time. By the way, that’s also where Jesus spent most of his time too, out on the road, in the world. That’s always good to know, isn’t it? The world isn’t such a bad place after all.

The scriptures: Acts 10: 34a, 37-43, Colossians 3: 1-4, John 20: 1-9