Easter is for children

We had yet another good Easter sermon from Pastor Douthwaite, with the texts Luke 24:36-49 (1 John 3:1-7; Acts 3:11-21).  (Remember that it is still Easter.  The lectionary focuses on the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the season ending with Ascension and then Pentecost, which ushers in a new season.)

The thinking of the world and the thinking of the church don’t often agree, and it seems as if they are agreeing less and less these days, about all kinds of issues. But one thing we agree on is that Easter is for children. Yes, for children . . . we just disagree about who the children are! In the thinking of the world, Easter is for children because it’s about candy and bunnies and egg hunts and things like that. But for the church, Easter is for children because Easter is about baptism, and baptism – no matter what age you are – is where we are born anew as children of God. St. Paul tells us in Romans (chapter 6) that baptism unites us to Jesus’ death and resurrection – to Good Friday and to Easter – so that dying with Him, dying to sin, we rise with Him, to a new life of grace. A new life as children of God. And so as we heard from St. John today: “what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” And so we are. Children of God, loved by God.

But good parents don’t just have children, they raise children. And so it is with our Father in heaven. And so these weeks following our celebration of Easter are about what our baptism means for us; how we live and grow as children of God. Last Sunday in the Introit, we sang: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation.” Being a child of God is not the end of the story, but the beginning, of growing up to salvation; of growing in faith and love and righteousness; of not growing away from God – in independence, in freedom, in self-sufficiency – but rather into Him. To be like Him. Like Father, like son.

via St. Athanasius Lutheran Church: Easter 3 Sermon.

Pastor Douthwaite then goes on to explain how that happens.