Easter is more than what we get

Easter is more than what we get
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times
May 5, 2013

It is Orthodox Easter and a good time to tell this story because of how much we get wrong when we may think we are not good enough just as much as when we think we are "too" good.

(This is fiction so please don't ask who the twins are.)

Soon after Jacob and Thomas were born, their young Mom put them up for adoption. The twins were born early and Thomas was the smallest. Jacob was adopted by a wealthy couple. Thomas was adopted soon afterwards by a middle class couple. The wealthy couple didn't want the extra burden of a sickly child.

Jacob was given everything he wanted accept being able to see his brother. As he grew older, the thought of his brother stayed with him and he always wondered where he was and what he was doing, but the bond the twins had was strong enough for Jacob to know that Thomas was doing ok.

Thomas' parents were hard working, loving and kind but never really considered themselves "Christians" because they did not attend church. Childhood experiences turned them away from the church their parents attended. The had a crucifix over the doorway and believed in God as well as believing Christ was in fact His Son. As for the rest of it, they didn't think that "religion" was for them.

Jacob went to church every weekend, attended all the religious training he was supposed to but to tell the truth he didn't act like a "churchgoer" the rest of the week. He was a spoiled young man, easy to anger and very judgmental. That he got from his parents.

Thomas and Jacob grew up living in a large city never expecting to see each other again. Strange thing about twins is that there is a physical tie as well as an emotional one. Jacob was rushed to the hospital when his appendix ruptured. Within an hour, Thomas was also on the operating table. A nurse was very puzzled when she saw Jacob in the recovery room because a few minutes before that she had transferred Jacob to his room.

She made sure the two men were in the same room.

While they were still sleeping, an angel appeared in their dreams. Jacob and Thomas were happy to see their brother but pretty terrified to be looking at a very large angel.

The angel talked to the brothers about their lives. To Thomas, he praised him for always being kind and thinking of others. To Jacob he admonished him for being so "nasty" to everyone around him. Then Jacob got angry and defended himself.

"I go to church every single week no matter if I feel like it or not. You just said my brother doesn't go at all. So how is it that I am the one being judged and you're praising him?

The angel said "You go to church but you visit Christ like a man going to a dead man's house looking for what you can get from his estate and not to see him. Thomas visits Christ everyday by what he does and how he treats other people. He goes to visit Christ for what he can do for the sake of Christ and not for what he can get for himself. Big difference. You treat Christ's words as if you are ordering from the deli with taking a little of this and some of that but leaving out the things you don't like.

Christ said the greatest commandment was to love God and the second was to love one another. You have time to change your life but first you have to change your attitude.

From that day on the two men spent most of their free time together. Thomas started going to church, not on Sunday but during the week to volunteer helping with missionary work. Jacob started a program to feed the needy with his own money and put Thomas was in charge.

Both men learned a lesson that church is not so much what you can get out of it but what comes out of you to be of service to others the same way Christ was and still is. Christ is very much alive as long as we live by His words and do for one another as He told us we should. Easter is not about what we got out of it but what HE did for the sake of all of us.