Easter Message: Delivering The Hope Of Enlightened Eyes

Written by Jeff Chinery, Sr. Partner and Managing Director of Blue Trust’s Everyday Steward Division

Baskets, egg hunts, and chocolate bunnies are some of the things people often associate with Easter. But we know that none of those things has anything to do with Easter’s true meaning. In fact, Easter would not be worth celebrating at all if we remained hopelessly separated from God with only temporal joys. The true joy of Easter is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which secured a life of eternity with God for those who believe in Him as their Savior.

The hope of Easter allows us to see more clearly what is eternal versus what is temporal, but living in a fallen and broken world can often cloud our vision. We sometimes settle for the same temporal delights (i.e., chocolate bunnies) day in and day out while forsaking the true joy of Easter.

You may have heard the analogy of the dot and the line before. It offers a wonderful visual that can help us “have the eyes of our hearts enlightened” (Eph 1:18). The dot represents our time on earth, and the line represents eternity where true joy is found.

In his book Money, Possessions and Eternity, author Randy Alcorn describes it this way:

“Right now, we are living in the dot. But what are we living for? The short-sighted person lives for the dot. The person with perspective lives for the line.” 

It’s worth considering how the line compares to the dot. Our time on earth (the dot) is limited to 70-80 years or so for most of us. Contrast that with this definition of eternity (the line) from Your Life Well Spent, a book written by Blue Trust’s chief mission officer and senior partner Russ Crosson:

“High up in the North, in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is 100 miles high and 100 miles wide. Once every 1,000 years, a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.”  Henry Willen Van Loon

Much like Easter celebrations, we know which is more worthy of our focus. However, our sinful nature causes us to focus more on ourselves and immediate pleasures than the things of lasting and eternal value. We are often like those cheering Jesus during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Many of them loved the thought of having a king to right all the worldly wrongs and injustices they were living with, and they were looking forward to having their needs and desires met. They were focused on the dot and not the line. While their needs and suffering were real, they did not see that their biggest need was reconciliation with God.

A personal example that hits closer to home is our recent adoption of Mei. In short, we were supposed to adopt our daughter Mei from China four years ago, and we were four days away from getting on a plane when Covid shut everything down. As recently as this past December, we would have told you the likelihood of us ever getting her was very low. Then, a few days before this past Christmas, China reached out via our agency and said that we had to get there within 30 days or the adoption would be terminated. While that was a near-impossible timeline, there was an even bigger issue, which was my lens. I was absolutely prepared to get on the plane four years ago, but since then, life had changed. We had launched three of our children into lives in other states, with two of them being married. We had increasing responsibilities at work, home, and church that we didn’t have four years ago. Frankly, our life was just in a different place. Oh, and by the way, Mei was born with cerebral palsy. To be candid, when we got the news to come get her, and everyone around us was celebrating an answered prayer after four years, I had a list of reasons why this was no longer a good idea. I now see that the issue was not that my reasons were necessarily invalid; it is that I was processing them through the wrong lens…the dot and not the line. When I was convicted of that and had the eyes of my heart enlightened, everything changed. While we still wrestled with questions about getting Mei, I could weigh what matters now versus what matters for eternity.

The dot and the line perspective can provide clarity and eternal wisdom that very likely results in different approaches to walking in this world. We all navigate these daily tensions: putting down a screen and picking up the Word, caring for aging parents, praying for and sharing our faith with friends and family who don’t know Jesus, or stepping out in faith and choosing to give more away.

Thankfully, the true joy of Easter changes everything, and we can fully rejoice in the salvation granted to us through the resurrection of our Savior. Given that, may this Easter be one of true joy for you, and “may the eyes of your hearts be enlightened” (Eph 1:17-20) more and more each day.