Best Easter Ever

Without a shadow of a doubt, it was my best Easter ever!

I wasn’t at church nor was I outdoors at one of those glorious sunrise Easter services. I was actually seated across the table from a man who was drooling almost uncontrollably, his chin dropping to his chest as he snoozed off and on.    

Many would say this man was brilliant, perhaps even a genius.  He had read extensively and had earned a doctorate.  Yet conversation across the table was difficult, at best.

His career had been varied and he had held many important jobs.  He had traveled the world and was able to appreciate many different cultures and could act appropriately in most.  Yet at one point, while I was seated across the table from him, he scooped a bunch of soda cracker crumbs into a pile and licked them off the table, a sad and uncharacteristic act.

I was visiting from out of town and as the day wore on, it was getting late and I needed to get on the road.  Each time I said it was time for me to leave; he shook his head and indicated he wanted me to stay.  Since conversation was mostly a challenge, I simply read to him.  And each time that I delayed my departure, at his request, I simply continued reading to him.

This man for years had no appreciation for my faith in the resurrected One.  The Bible that I believed to be true, he had viewed basically as a bunch of conflicting stories, about at the same level as fairy tales.  There was no doubt that our beliefs were miles apart and he was not the obvious choice of who I might have wanted to be with on Easter.

So, there I was, no where near a church, reading to him from a book off the nearest shelf.  Since he didn’t ask me to change what I was reading, I just kept right on reading. 

And the book that I had grabbed off the shelf was not just a book, but it was the Book of books, the Bible.  So I read the Easter story from each of the Gospels and I read passage after passage on the Person of Jesus.

Occasionally, he would try to interject a comment or two, mostly mirroring comments that I had heard from him over the years, comments dismissing what I believed.  But he didn’t ask me to stop, so I kept on reading.

At one point, in response to one of his comments, I simply stated that I was reading what I believed to be the truth.  Since I had been reading passage after passage that focused on Jesus, I told him that the focus of the truth was on the Person of Jesus.  In a moment of clarity, he agreed that the Bible was consistent in that way.

So, on that Easter Sunday, I continued to read to this man believing that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.  But, I won’t know, this side of glory, if it penetrated his heart and mind, bringing him to a point of seeing the Savior in the same way that I do. 

It turned out that I was reading to him in the last chapter of his life, a chapter written as his life faded away within the confines of a memory care facility, a chapter that included my best Easter ever as my father, listen to me, his son, read the Easter story and he didn’t ask me to stop!