On Easter, ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson Discusses ‘Radical Generosity’ and Jesus’ Victory

In a six-minute video posted to YouTube on Easter Sunday (March 31), “Reacher” actor Alan Ritchson used an egg hunt analogy to describe our need for a savior.

Ritchson, 41, launched the YouTube channel InstaChurch in 2022. In Sunday’s video, the actor said a massive egg hunt he and his wife hosted offered a glimpse of the relationship between people and God.

Ritchson said when his oldest son, Calem, saw that some younger kids couldn’t keep up with their bigger, faster peers, Calem began giving the others some of his eggs. Only when kids started opening their finds did Calem realize he’d been giving away cash, not candy. That type of “self-sacrificial love” is a picture of our “high calling” from God, said Ritchson.

Alan Ritchson: When Adults Get ‘Bad Eggs’

Next, Alan Ritchson asked viewers to imagine those kids growing up to be 40 or 50, and instead of eggs being filled with treasures, some are “full of contempt, revenge, apathy.”

“What do we do? Do we continue to give those away?” he asked. “What about the ones that are full of some kind of value…that helps us feel like we can escape or find comfort when we’ve got a basket full of bad eggs? We hold on to those tighter.”

“This starts to look a lot more like real life,” Ritchson continued. “And we start to feel disenfranchised or cynical when it feels like the game is poisoned or broken beyond repair. And we start to crave a savior of some kind.”

Then the actor recapped the Old Testament history of the Israelites, who repeatedly disobeyed God after he had rescued them. That’s our story too. “We are not capable of saving ourselves because we crave evil,” said Ritchson. “We are wicked, broken people, and we need a savior.”

The Old Testament points to Jesus, the Messiah, who preached “radical generosity,” even to people “who you detest and who detest you,” Ritchson said. Jesus preached peace even to “the unclean” and to traitors, “and then he died at the hands of those who ironically could not understand the kind of peace that he was calling people to.”

Alan Ritchson: Jesus Calls Us To Give Away the ‘Good’ Eggs

Jesus calls his followers to an “upside-down kingdom with upside-down values” that begins “at the foot of the cross,” Alan Ritchson continued.

“The resurrection…points to some reality that there’s permanence and victory in [God’s] kingdom. That it’s already been had, that it will continue forever, and that [those who are willing] will continue to be called, to be shaped to look more like that kingdom.”