As we prepare to celebrate Easter this year in our new waking world, some of us feel that we need to keep looking over our shoulders to see if bowing before the cross and honoring our risen Lord might help us. cause trouble with the powers that be. .

In Omaha, Nebraska, a school spent a lot of money reprinting all of its yearbooks to remove a cross symbol from the cover. Earlier, a principal at the same school was furloughed after banning ‘J’-shaped candy canes because they could refer to Jesus.

A Michigan editor recounts visiting the chapel of a VA hospital and finding the chapel’s cross and all other Christian symbols draped – hidden from view – in accordance with government instructions from Washington, D.C. When she laid down questions about it, the chaplain told him that an VA official had also ordered him — an ordained Christian pastor — to “stop talking about Jesus and stop reading the scriptures aloud.”

Does it surprise you that such parodies occur in what was once called “a Christian nation“?

Hats off to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. When an anti-religious group asked him to delete his social media posts containing Easter greetings and a Bible verse, this sensible official offered his critics copies of the US Constitution. Arizona Secular Communities insisted that Ducey’s posts (which included the phrase “He is risen!”) violated the line between church and state. The governor held firm. In response, he tweeted that he would never delete these posts or any others revealing his personal faith.

Instead of complaining about the growing government restriction on the public expression of our faith, perhaps we could share an Easter laugh with the guy who joked that possible political proof of the resurrection is the number of dead who voted in recent elections in North Dakota and Hidalgo County.

Or – better yet – we can see a real political picture of Easter if we look at the early government tycoons who had to decide how to handle the news that Jesus’ tomb was empty – that the man they killed was again alive. All of their plots to bribe the guards and silence the witnesses turned out to be failures. Soon the whole world heard the Good News that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.

Gene Shelburne is Pastor Emeritus of Anna Street Church of Christ, 2310 Anna St., Amarillo. Contact him at [email protected], or get his books and magazines at www.christianappeal.com. Her column has been published on the Faith page for over three decades.