How Important Is Easter to You?

I just love planning for Easter dinner! I always order a Honey-Baked Ham, but love adding my touch to the meal, including homemade Challah Bread and other fun holiday recipes.  We also have an annual Easter-Egg hunt for our guests in the backyard, which is a blast! I may even have time to check out Pinterest for quilling some Easter eggs for decorating, the only thing I do that resembles a craft.

Before I know it, I’m in crazy preparation mode with no time to think, meditate or consider what this Holy Week is really about.

We reveal to ourselves and others what’s important to us by the way we celebrate a holiday. I want this week to be different! I want to take in the sounds, smells, voices, agony, and pain of the cross. I want to feel what Jesus must have felt when Judas betrayed him. I long to see Mary in the crowd and feel what she felt as she watched her son going to the cross. I can’t help but anticipate what it must have been like to actually see an empty tomb and walk with the resurrected Jesus.

When I allow myself to enter the Easter story, it deeply touches me. This morning, I found myself in tears as I read John 18, and thinking how awful Peter must have felt when he denied Jesus. It broke me. Why? Because I knew it could have been me.

You see, this Easter story is not just a story. It’s real. It really happened. The death and resurrection of Jesus changes everything. If not careful, we can read through the Easter story like a quick check of Facebook. Oh, yeah, Jesus got betrayed. Oh yeah, his friend, Peter, denied he knew Him. Oh, yeah, Jesus was crucified. It doesn’t faze us. It doesn’t touch us. Just one more story. Really? What will Easter be for you?

Dear Lord, Let me walk with you through this final week of your life. Let me feel your hurt, experience your loneliness and grasp a bit of what it cost you to go to the cross. Help me see my sin, which I often want to cover and hide. Yet, my sin is not hidden from you. Thank you for your amazing grace. Help me comprehend your perfect never-ending love. Let that love change me. Let the resurrection affect me like never before! You are alive! You have defeated death! Celebration is in order, for sure! In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Nancy Abbott is the Chaplain for the YMCA of Greater San Antonio.