Both the second reading choices speak of the way Christians are to live, and heard on Easter Sunday their message becomes a challenge to respond to resurrected life in Christ. To “think of what is above, not of what is on earth” does not mean to deny the world but to focus on Christ and what is spiritual. To clean out the old leaven—as the Israelites literally did in their households before Passover, the feast of unleavened bread—is to remove whatever could corrupt.

The first thing to notice about Easter morning is that it’s incredibly busy. If nothing at all happened on the Sabbath that preceded it—from sundown Friday and all day Saturday—now there seems to be a dramatic change in the level of activity.

THE GREAT American author Mark Twain experienced his share of untimely deaths—probably more, actually.

So that at all times we may “think of what is above,” let us ask God to receive our prayers.

For Jews of Christ’s time, then, Jesus would have been accursed, and a person under such a curse could not be the Messiah.

Show that you believe in what the risen Christ stands for by doling out love, mercy, and kindness in generous portions these eight days and beyond.

This is the Easter message, that awakening is possible, to the goodness of God, the sacredness of human life, the sisterhood and brotherhood of all. —Anne Lamott