Easter Reflections

As today was Easter I wanted to reflect on what the holiday means for a UU. In A Chosen Faith, Forrest Church writes that "Jesus' life was not special because he was more than human or other than human. It was special because Jesus fully realized the promise of his humanity."
From a UU perspective, Easter is not important in that Jesus ressurrected from the grave. Easter is important, not because Jesus died, but because of how Jesus lived.
This is what Jesus came to show us, not to hope for a heaven after we die, but to live a life that holds up our highest ideas. Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations With God series, stated the purpose of life (which Jesus illustrated so perfectly) quite clearly.

Live your life for a new reason. Understand that its purpose has nothing to do with what you get out of it, and everything to do with what you put into it. . . .
The purpose of life is to create your Self anew. in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. It is to announce and become, express and fulfill, experience and know your true Self.

This implies action, words and statements aren't enough. The purpose of life is to live it fully and openly. Jesus came to show us how to live a life that fully, and it is upon such an extraordinary life, that we should reflect upon on Easter.