Easter Sunday in the Soviet Union and in the United States

by Janet Lynn  Fifty Easters ago, I was in the USSR, a godless state. Sightseeing tours included Christian churches turned into museums. The tour guide adamantly proclaimed in the "museum" that Christianity is a "myth."  On that Easter weekend, 1970, a VIP tour of Lenin's tomb was arranged for the foreign athletes visiting to give figure skating exhibitions. At age 16, already a Christian by choice, I stood in Lenin's stone tomb in Red Square staring at the Bolshevik revolutionary's preserved body. He had been dead for decades. Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead and conquered sin and death on Easter, which was illegal to celebrate in the atheist USSR. That State was god. As history records, the socialist enactment is a cult of death. Eyewitnesses are historically recorded observing the tomb of Jesus  empty on Easter Sunday. Jesus is alive! He is Risen! Lenin is still in his tomb, deader than a door nail. The tour bus passed through the squares where the Bolshevik Revolution was fought. On either Good Friday or Easter Sunday the tour guide in the godless USSR explained that "the blood that was shed during the Bolshevik Revolution was shed to save mankind." My blood shivered and my mind quaked at her proclamation. I knew that only the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Perfect Son of God, was sacrificed and shed to save mankind. A propagandist for the USSR and its atheist system of socialism-communism captured my attention on the almost empty plane ride back to New York from Moscow. He smoothly explained that socialism-communism was the perfect system for mankind.  His propaganda swirled in my head as shiny illusions. I wanted to believe everything the nice man said. What a perfect way to live. The State provides and controls everything, and everyone will have everything they need, and everyone will be equal. He was certain that socialism-communism would one day rule the entire world, and the United States.  By the time the plane reached New York after this most profound Easter weekend, I knew the man on the plane was wrong! I had been to his nation. I had observed the poverty, the bread lines, the lack of products in common stores, the intense control of its people, the bottomless void when God is declared illegal----the severe oppression was felt physically. The faces of all the people were hardened with deep sadness---the real face of socialism-communism. I wanted to kiss the ground of the United States when I saw the American flag outside the plane window before landing in New York. I was free. The man who propagandized me was not. He did not understand liberty or its power under the principles and reverence of the Judeo-Christian God.  I was an individual created by God. The atheist Soviet Socialists were forced to live in the State collective--the herd.  I knew that churches in the United States would always remain open. Judeo-Christian God, worshiping God, and celebrating Easter would never be declared illegal. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.  Half a century later, in America, my beloved land of liberty, this Easter weekend 2020 almost all churches have been ordered closed. Pastors have been threatened with arrest or permanent closure of their churches if they do not obey the State and its influential doctors. These doctors may mean well and are working from appropriate concern, but they have succeeded in acting like man-gods who can conquer all death and are terrorizing citizens. They have powerfully influenced policy to shut down an entire nation, its businesses (except the State chosen ones), schools, its churches and synagogues. The imposition of social distancing should be called inhumane social isolation.  Americans have a choice to make on Easter Sunday and in the days, weeks and months to come.  Will Americans continue to give up their liberties? Will we become a Democrat Socialist collective herd, or will we remain individuals who promote and preserve life but do not fear death under a system of liberty?  Lenin's body remains enshrined and on display in his stone cold tomb in Red Square, Moscow. Lenin is still deader than a door nail. The Marxist ideology that he spawned into being is alive with a foot in the door of America.  Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He is alive! Will the Christian ideas that spawned liberty and the value of the individual die this Easter, 2020, and end up in a museum as only a myth? Judeo-Christian principles are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, declared a MIRACLE by various American Founders.  One Founder of the United States declared, "Miracles do not cluster."   It is for freedom that Christ set us free! Janet Lynn is a Five-time U.S. Figure Skating Champion (1969-1973), Olympic Bronze medalist 1972 and World Silver medalist 1973. She is in the U.S. and World Figure Skating Halls of Fame and is proud to be a Homemaker. This article appeared originally in the Eagle Forum Alabama.

Thoughts

It’s a lovely spring day with cool temperatures. It’s always cold right before Easter. The dense woods finally lost their dead leaves that had clung, despite very strong winds, to the branches all winter long, like a crispy coat of crinkled browns and beiges. Overnight, they are gone, replaced by green buds and the occasional white and pink wild flowers. The sun is penetrating to the floor, a rare occurrence; the barren branches are casting few shadows. The brave bugs are emerging from their winter slumber.

The birds have been chirping joyously since the last snow had melted. The pond by our house has been visited daily by the same flock of Canada geese, paired up for spring. One couple ventures on our lawn with its winter and lush green grass. I have not seen the deer family coming to graze, I am sure they are finding plenty to eat in the woods; they finally left my chewed up bushes alone. Maybe they will sprout again. One tulip bulb came up and a purple hyacinth is in full bloom.

I am sad that mom is not home to see her beautiful flowers, “her babies” she talked to every day. She is in a sterile hospital, recovering from a stroke. I will push her outside today so she can see the beautiful purple Japanese magnolias in full bloom outside her window.

I’ve thought about life and death a lot lately. It’s not just the dormant nature coming to life again, replacing everything dead with new buds. I thought about our own demise, about human mortality.

It’s been a roller-coaster week, a new baby, a new beautiful life that is here because of us, almost losing my mom the next day, facing my own mortality from unexpected disease, it was too much for anyone to absorb and internalize.

Obviously everybody is going through good and rough times all over the world. Life is precious and a precarious gift that we don’t appreciate and cherish enough. But I see things with more intensity and clarity than ever before.

In two days it will be my dad’s birthday, March 28, he would have been 88 years old, had he lived to such a ripe old age. But his life was cut short at 61 by Ceausescu’s evil communist regime and the lack of medical care under the Castro-style socialized medicine that everyone in the U.S. is now clamoring for.  He died a horrible and painful death, shrinking to a shell of his former self while he was not fed nor given IV fluids in the hospital. Aunt Marcela, his sister, kept him alive with a teaspoonful of broth and water now and then for almost a month.

There is another milestone on March 29, twenty years since I married by wonderful husband, the love of my life. I cannot imagine life without him. And on April 4 is my birthday – I am still on this earth, happy to be alive, and thankful for my blessings from God.

I wished I could have been a writer all my life instead of toiling for the academia that did not care about my dedication to students, the years I spent perfecting my skills and enriching my knowledge that I hope I had passed on to my students.

Tomorrow is Easter – I won’t be able to take mom to church as planned, but I am glad she is still alive and smiling through her sudden disability. She is my Mom who used to move mountains, who climbed on the roof at 72 to sweep dead leaves. Her hand and fingers are now curled, unable to hold my hand, but I can touch her face and she feels my love and kisses.

On this sunny day before the Blessed Easter, thank you, Mom, for being my Mom and for a life of love and precious care to our small family. We love you!