During the next two weeks leading up to our Easter Gathering, our pastors will be posting why they are personally excited about Easter Gathering. For more information, head over to the Easter Gathering page.
In keeping with the great American tradition of taking meaningful holidays and turning them into commercialized landmarks or well meaning but less-than-intended niceties, many people (and even many Christians) are confused about Easter.
Eggs? Bunnies? Peeps? Chocolate figures?
One of the few times each year you drag yourself into a religious gathering or travel home to eat lunch with your family?
The weight of Easter is lost on so many of us just as it gets lost on me at times. Even in my role as a pastor I too often forget the earth-quaking implications that the resurrection of Jesus has on everyday life.
Though our church family strives to constantly center around the gospel of Jesus and by God's grace we speak this truth to each other and our city regularly, we can still grow numb to how good the news really is.
But Easter? Easter is the most clear reminder of the gospel we have each year.
We celebrate the (too good to be true but true) fact that the God-man Jesus straight up walked out of His grave where He buried our sin and our shame. He both took our punishment and provided our righteousness, then went on to defeat death and hell forever.
We were desperate and hopeless and separated from God by our rebellion and now because of Jesus we are none of those.
Easter is no trite holiday. It is the climax of the most epic story ever told--the fairy tale that is actually true.
We get to hear this over and over each Easter through the stories of those getting baptized. We get to hear about the lightning bolt of Jesus' good news that has wrecked individual lives in the best way imaginable.
"I was lost and now I am found."
"I was blind and now I see."
"I was an enemy and God has made me His friend!"
"I was a runaway orphan, but God adopted me into His forever family."
It is the gospel, over and over, spoken powerfully through the mouths of those rescued & redeemed by Jesus.
That is why we go nuts over Easter.
That is why I can't wait for it to get here.
That's why we clap and yell and scream until our voices crack.
Jesus is alive, and that changes everything.
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