As a teenager, I golfed and skied religiously on Sunday mornings. But I would never skip Easter Sunday. For some reason, I always had a soft spot towards Easter. Perhaps it was all that delicious chocolate. Maybe it was because my father would attend at Easter, giving up his golfing for one Sunday. I will never forget when my then agnostic father switched from golfing every Sunday to golfing every other Sunday in order to attend church. Since taking the Alpha Course four times, my dad has developed a strong personal faith.
My teenage memories of Easter Sunday are connected with a sense of joy. Unlike my atheist best friend, I never doubted the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But I was emotionally disconnected from its reality. It was almost as if I did not believe in Easter. As a teenager, I became convinced that there was no life after death, and that nothing awaited me but extinction and returning to dust. I began to fear the power of death and the meaninglessness and emptiness of life. I even began to secretly wonder if life itself was worth living. When I came to personal faith at age 17, it was almost as if I had never heard of Jesus’ resurrection. I remember being astounded over the realization that by faith in Christ, I would live forever. I started wearing a button ‘Have a nice eternity’, something that would have made no sense to me just a few months earlier.