Getting to Easter...

I’m already looking forward to next Sunday. Michael and Rachel will be home for a few days. The church will be full of people, lilies, music and light. Spring and the promise of warmer days will be a few steps closer at hand…as the snow drifts outside my north window continue to melt away. What’s not to like about all that?

But I do a dis-service…maybe even damage…to my soul by skipping over the Holy Week before us, and straining ahead to Easter Sunday’s grand party. I wonder: is it possible to comprehend the joy of the resurrection without having contemplated the ugliness of the cross?

The temptation is certainly real. We don’t like things that are painful and messy. We don’t much care to focus on our own culpability in the whole affair. It’s more fun and (we often rationalize) better for us to concentrate on happy thoughts and our own innate goodness. I offer as proof the fact that I’ve never yet presided at a funeral where folks didn’t rush to assure me how the deceased “was a really good person.”

The hard truth? We are all dead in our sin. We have become separated from the God who created and loves us. Despite our best intentions, we find it impossible to live in obedience and humility to God because we are so much in love with ourselves first. The “really good person” our survivors will attest we were doesn’t happen and will never happen because of what we did or how we lived.

And yet...it does happen. It happens because of Jesus who is truly obedient and humble…who loves the Father and this fallen creation (including us) more than himself…and who proves that love on the Cross. We are restored to right relationship with God only because of what Christ has done: that’s the good news we celebrate on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and at Saturday’s Vigil of Easter.

Let me encourage you: don’t skip Holy Week…no matter how busy your life or crowded your calendar. Make time to hear the Gospel of Jesus’ love for you at the cost of His suffering and death. The story may not be as sweet as the chocolate bunny you’re anticipating next Sunday. But it will add new depth to your appreciation of the One who dies and rises to save the world.