This weekend has, for my whole life, been one of my favorite weekends ever. While some parents really go big for various holidays, with my clan, Easter was the Christmas+Halloween+Younameit all rolled into one. There's candy. There's presents. There's dancing. There's the beautiful lead up with the palm branches and there's the visible evidence all around of things that were dead coming to life.
Perhaps what makes Easter weekend so terribly special was how often I got to be a part of the preparation. For so many holidays, the day happens to the kids. For Easter, especially as a pastor's kid, I actively participated in its preparation. I helped my mom go to the flower shop for the palm branches for palm Sunday, we set up the sanctuary, we got to pick out our Easter dresses, we had the feast, and we knew there would be a sweet basket of goodies come Easter morning.
Side note : My mom got a crack out of hiding our baskets some where on our old five acre farm property. Nothing like sending two sleepy girls out into a dew-filled Sunday morning with the goal of finding their baskets, getting ready for church, and eating breakfast in under an hour. I think my mom enjoyed it a little too much (I once even found mine high in a tree. Mad Props to my 5 ft 2" mother and the great lengths I imagine she took to accomplish that. :))
But more than all fun goody baskets, pretty pastel dresses and even the prep work, was the conversations. My mom and dad made a point of telling us what this weekend meant to them personally. While I heard my dad talking about this Jesus guy near ever Sunday, my mom especially would take moments to share bits of her own story, especially on this day. One thing was clearly communicated time and time again: had Jesus not died and risen, we'd to be most pitied. Share bits of your stories with your kids for 20 some years, and there's a whole lot of meaning to Easter Sunday.
Now that I'm older, I no longer just tag along in the celebration. I no longer just hear the stories. Now I get to be the mama sharing her own story of what her Jesus did. Now I get to be the mama to buy the Easter basket and to include the sweet treasures and start the conversations.
Today we had our very first go at it. We told Eowyn what day it was. We told her that the Jesus we pray to died.
To which she replied: "Oh no! I so sad...."
And if that were the end of it, we all would be. But then, with excitement we told her the good news.
"But on Sunday..."
On Sunday, my friends, he conquers death! and rises again! and all the things he said he'd do he does! He makes all things new! He saves! and redeems! and conquers the very thing that destroys us!
When we informed our girl of this reality, she replied: "I so excited!"
Me too girl,
me too.
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Had Good Friday never happened, my heart would stay there.
But it doesn't.
Because Sunday is coming.
Because Jesus.
and death is dead.
DEATH IS DEAD.
Happy Easter Weekend, friends.
May we experience Jesus in all the ways he promised us we could and may we let him get rid of all the rubble in our hearts and lives that kills us. May we get to rest in the joy and peace that he's not just a spiritual God, but one that literally conquered death and physically healed. May we live in a way that leaves room for him to show up and demonstrate the life resurrected.
also? this.
also? this.
Well said my girl, well said!
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