I didn’t grow up celebrating it. No, really. This would be because of the Eostre goddess who saved a tiny bird from freezing to death by turning it into a rabbit that laid eggs….
I get that. I have my own issues with the Easter bunny. But I don’t think we should’ve thrown out the Resurrection with the bunny and the Easter baskets…
I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t get to celebrate Easter growing up, but Easter is more exciting for me every year that I celebrate it. This is especially true for me since my children are old enough to participate. I get to share the exciting news of the Resurrection with them!
I made them Resurrection Rolls this morning for breakfast. I put out marshmallows and bowls of melted butter and cinnamon sugar. I told them that we were pretending that the marshmallows were Jesus. Evan dropped the marshmallow in butter. Then I told Seth that we were pretending that we were anointing Jesus with spices for His burial while he rolled the marshmallow in cinnamon sugar. Then I rolled “Jesus” up in the crescent roll “tomb,” and sealed it really tight. Then we put him in the oven for “3 days and 3 nights.”
They sat there by the oven and watched to see what would happen. What happened was that a lot of marshmallow leaked out all over the tin foil I’d put on the cookie sheet. =) Fortunately, they’d moved off to play by then.
But when I served them up, there was a nice empty crater in each roll. “Is Jesus still there, Seth?” “No, Mommy!” “That’s right! He’s risen from the dead. He’s not in the tomb anymore!”
I think that Easter is THE high holy day for Christians. What would Christmas be if Jesus had never died for us?
I love driving around and pointing out all the blossoms on the trees to my boys. I tell them that God gives us new life every spring to remind us of the new life He gave us when Christ died for our sins on the cross. As I remind them of this, I remind myself.
I LOVE that celebrating Easter can come with very little commercialism if you choose. We don’t get new clothes for Easter. I make a nice dinner, and we do little things like Resurrection eggs and Resurrection rolls, and yes, an Easter egg hunt and a little Easter basket for each of them.
Easter is a day when a lot of people go to church. Our church prepares to see high attendance on this day. I understand that we should take every opportunity to share the gospel when someone walks through the door…
But I’m starting to resent this focus on Easter Sunday. Easter is a holy high day of celebration for those of us who have embraced new life in Christ. Shouldn’t we be allowed to concentrate on celebrating instead of being worried about creating the right impression for the C+E churchgoers? I would think they’d be more impressed by that focus than the latter one anyway….
Oh well…. lots of thoughts today. The end of the matter is…. “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” =)
2 comments:
I don't know what your church is doing but our church sees it as time when doubters and seekers are more likely to actually attend and we just invite them to join us in our celebration. Nothing more special than that. And yes, we are celebrating like crazy so if that looks special I guess maybe it is a little special. He is risen after all.. it's time to party .. right? :)
Our senior pastor just makes comments from time to time before a big holiday about how we have to make extra preparations to handle the crowds, and how this is a chance to preach the gospel to those who rarely come to church. It just feels to me like he's not seeing it as much as something for us as an outreach event to me when he puts it that way.... Maybe nobody else is bothered by it.
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