There was a TV interview where,
it was Easter, and this interviewer
was out and about and asked this little kid:
"So what is the Easter bunny mean to you?"
And the little kid looked up and the interviewer and said:
"Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead"
And the interview looked like: um yeah.
And looked at the child and said:
"But what does that have to do with the Easter bunny?"
And the kid says: "Nothing."
Hi, my name's Fr. Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So a little while ago, some former students
who had gotten married to each other
they called me up and said they had news, fantastic news.
They are pregnant.
And it was like, "Wow! This is awesome!
This is so fantastic! Thank you so much for telling me that you're pregnant."
Like, "who else have you told?"
And they said, "Well, nobody yet."
And I was like, "For real?"
And they were like "Yeah, you were the 1st person we called."
And I was completely blown away.
The question, "Why me?" kind of a thing.
And they gave two reasons.
The two reasons were:
"Well, because you're important to us."
Of course, which touched my heart, a lot.
Cause they were very important to me as well.
They said: "You're important to us. And secondly,
Because we knew,
that you would know what to do with this information."
And what they meant was, they knew I would pray for them.
That I would intercede on behalf of the mom,
on behalf of the baby, on behalf of their health
and on behalf of ALL the stuff they've go going on.
Those two reasons, "You're important to us. And we trust you"
I was thinking about that especially
Easter.
On this celebration of Easter, there's this moment
when the Easter Sunday rolls around
and no one is expecting Jesus to rise from the dead. Peter and John run to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene is there, because she told them all about it.
They walk away bewildered,
amazed.
And then Mary sees Jesus in the garden. She think He's a gardener.
And finally He reveals Himself to her.
So she says "Rabbouni". She realized it's Jesus after He reveals Himself to her.
And then Jesus says to her. "Go and tell my brothers,
I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
And then she gets up and she races to them.
She tells them all about this. She says,
"I have seen the Lord" and tells them
what Jesus told her.
I was thinking about this.
Two reasons. Why Mary?
Because, "Mary, you're important to me. You're one of my disciples, Mary.
You're important and I care about you. And, two, I trust you.
I know that you are going to know what to do with this information."
And she brought it to the Apostles.
She brought it to the world.
On Easter, if you're a Christian
You need to know these two things:
One, you're important to the Lord.
You are important to Him.
He wants you. The crazy thing is this.
You don't have to be a Christian.
Not just, you don't have to believe in this, but you didn't have to
meet Jesus. You didn't have to have faith.
He gave that to you. Why? Because
you're important to Him.
He's entrusted you with this information. You're important to Him.
And, secondly, He trusts you.
Why? Because just like that couple that told me "We're pregnant",
Why? Because you're important to us and because we know
you're gonna know what to do with this.
You're going to pray for us. Jesus entrusts the same information.
He is risen from the dead! God has conquered death!
He has destroyed the stuff that destroys us.
And he's entrusted that information to you. Why?
Because He knows that you know
What to do with that.
He knows that He can
trust you to do something with that information.
He believes that you're the kind of person
who will not keep this information to themselves.
because He believes
that you know what to do with this.
To first let it transform your heart.
Then, to tell it to people,
to share it with people,
so that it can transform their hearts.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Fr. Mike.
Happy Easter and God bless.