I became an April “Fool”

I had been hearing about the giraffe in New York and the huge following she has. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, “April, a giraffe at Animal Adventure Park in New York, is pregnant with her fourth calf. The 15-year-old giraffe has been pregnant since 2015.” That fact alone deserves a LOT of respect.

I went to check out the live video feed on You Tube and joined almost 131,000 people who were also watching. You have to admit . . . that kind of following is impressive! News stations from around the world have been on baby watch for weeks. I’m writing on Monday and wondering if there will be a new baby giraffe before this blog post arrives on your computer this Wednesday.

I’m kind of voting for this Saturday to be the big day. It will make for the best kind of April Fool’s joke. “April had her baby.” No one will believe you because it is April Fool’s Day. Imagine their surprise when you don’t say, “April Fools.”

I love this time of year. We drive out in the country and see baby calves running after their moms. The flowers that sprout from last year’s bulbs are starting to shoot up. Spring is about new birth, and it is easy to celebrate each sign of new life.

I recently spent several hours in my closet getting rid of things I didn’t need and deciding I shouldn’t want them either. My heavy sweaters are in boxes and my summer clothes are ready to go. Even my closet seems to have been reborn.

If you have been reading my blog for awhile . . . you can probably predict where this is going. It is the Easter season and as I watched the live feed from April the giraffe’s camera, I thought about the men who had been assigned to watch the garden tomb and wonder if they felt like they had drawn the short straws that day.

Imagine if there had been a live feed of the garden tomb. It would undoubtedly have become the most watched video in human history. It would surely answer a lot of questions that Christians have asked since that time. Filmmakers have imagined the scene and tried to reenact those moments…but no one really knows – except those guards who had been assigned to watch the tomb.

I think if I could ask for one more chapter in each of the Gospels, it would be the “interview” of those Roman guards—after the resurrection of Jesus. Did Jesus just disappear or did he walk out of the tomb? What did the angels look like? How long did the angel stay at the tomb? I think the Roman leaders must have killed those guards . . . otherwise, we would know more about that time.

The angels spoke to the women who had come to finish caring for Jesus’ crucified body. Luke wrote, “While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:4–6). I think if Luke could have interviewed a guard, he would have included their words too.

The angels said, “He is not here, he has risen!” When you think of Jesus, do you picture Jesus as he was here, walking on this planet? What would the live video of Jesus look like today? What video of Jesus do we tend to show others?

I guess I will be an “April fool” until she gives birth to her new calf. In addition, I think I will ponder the angel’s words to the women at the tomb a little more often. Jesus doesn’t look like I tend to picture him. “He is not here; he has risen!”

I think I’ll spend a little more time thinking about what that “live stream video” would look like.


Join us at www.christianparenting.org and chime in on this week’s discussion question: April Fools–to prank or not to prank? What does your family do?