Problems are a part of life, and it’s easy to get caught up in them, as most of them have to do with staying alive. Easter can give us strength to take on those problems.
People who care about staying alive — which is everyone — have constant worries to consume their waking hours. They go to the doctor, they pay bills, they consume resources, they resolve arguments, or don’t, they work, they sleep. The hum-drum of daily problems can wear on any decent, self-respecting human being; it doesn’t matter who you are.
There are times when the world’s problems get so overwhelming that it’s easier to just ignore them. Christian faiths have sometimes been criticized for postponing or ignoring the world’s problems in anticipation of the second coming of their Savior, Jesus Christ. But I don’t think that is what Christianity teaches at all.
Being Christian is not about ignoring the world’s problems. It is about relying on Jesus Christ to give us strength to take on problems.
On Easter, Christians celebrate the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This month in the Liahona, the magazine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the First Presidency of the Church shared a message for Easter. There is one line I’d like to focus on. “Because of Him,” it read, referring to Jesus, “we can be guided and strengthened as we bear the burdens we face in mortality.”
In the New Testament, Jesus taught that he had overcome the world despite the world having much tribulation. Jesus’ disciples did not immediately understand the meaning of this. Throughout his ministry, they seemed to believe that Jesus would take away the trials of Jewish life at the time. They were wrong. In fact, Jesus was preparing his disciples for the coming days when he would be betrayed and arrested.
In the scary days before Easter morning, Jesus’ disciples learned a very difficult lesson: Jesus wouldn’t take away trials, but he would give rest in the midst of trials. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” he had been recorded saying. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Some problems don’t go away no matter how we try to fix them. There are so many problems like this in human existence that I won’t bother trying to list them: that’s what the news columns are for. Yet Christ gives Christians strength here, too.
This topic has been explored in the popular TV series, The Chosen. The show does not shy away from some of life’s most difficult problems. It takes head on the question that so many Christians ask: “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”
In the show Jesus’ disciples face various financial, health and societal issues that make them periodically question Jesus’ mission.
While The Chosen is not scripture, it can be a telling example in understanding Christians. It illustrates how audiences and creators view a relationship with their Savior, especially in connection with life’s problems.
Like in the show, Jesus’ scriptural accounts constantly respond to strangers and disciples that he did not come to take away earthly problems. To explain this, he sometimes used earthly needs to address spiritual needs, such as in John 4, in which he said, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
People still need to eat and drink. They still need to face seemingly insurmountable problems. They still need to pay bills and do the things that they need to survive. But throughout all of this, Jesus Christ can give rest in the midst of those problems, strength to face them and perspective for the part that surviving on earth plays in everlasting life.
You may be religious. You may not be. You may be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You may be of another Christian denomination. You may not be Christian at all.
Whoever you are, whatever your problems, I would encourage you to attend a religious service somewhere this Easter. See the joy that the holiday brings. Pay attention, and odds are you will see the world’s problems in a new light. That is one of the greatest messages of Easter.
– by Abbie Call
Feature image courtesy of Inzmam Khan.
Abbie Call – Cannonville/Kirksville, Missouri
Abbie Call is a journalist and editor at The Byway. She graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in editing and publishing from Brigham Young University. Her favorite topics to write about include anything local, Utah’s megadrought, and mental health and meaning in life. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hanging out with family, quilting and hiking.
Find Abbie on Threads @abbieb.call or contact her at [email protected].